Joanna
Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>While listening Doug's interview of Jeff Faux, who
>like most of us share the hope that declining
>standards of living will eventually mobilize people to
>act, the following passage came to mind:
>
>
His August Majesty [Heile Selassie] chided
>bureaucrats for failing to understand a simple
>principle of the second bag. Because the people never
>revolt just because they have to carry a heavy load,
>or because of exploitation. They do not know life
>without exploitation, they do not even know that such
>a life exists. How can they desire what they cannot
>imagine? The people will revolt only when, in a
>single movement, someone tries to throw a second
>burden, a second heavy bag, onto their backs. The
>peasant will fall face down into the mud and then
>spring up and grab an ax. Hell grab an ax, my
>gracious sir, not because he simply cant sustain this
>new burden he could carry it he will rise because
>he feels that, in throwing the second burden onto his
>back suddenly and stealthily, you have tried to cheat
>him, you have treated him like an unthinking animal,
>you have trampled what remains of his already
>strangled dignity, taken him for an idiot who doesnt
>see, feel, or understand. A man does not seize an ax
>in defense of his wallet, but in defense of his
>dignity, and that, dear sir, is why His Majesty
>scolded the clerks. For their own convenience and
>vanity, instead of adding the burden bit by bit, in
>little bags, they tried to heave a whole big sack on
>at once.
>
>Ryszard Kapuscinski, _ The Emperor: Downfall of an
>Autocrat_ , p.97
>
>Wojtek
>
>
>
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