I will neither yield to the song of the siren nor the voice of the hyena, the tears of the crocodile nor the howling of the wolf.
– George Chapman, English dramatist
When a crocodile eats its prey, its tear ducts become super active for the purpose of lubricating its eyes for better vision. It therefore looks like the crocodile is crying while tearing apart its victim!
Victims are normally unwary and totally unaware of this inevitable event unfolding in our everyday lives. Government and businesses thrive, and survive, with this mission, vision and provision statement. Willing victim, willing predator.
The tears that flow uncontrollably in a court of law when “justice” is dispensed has always fascinated me. Fifty years in this arena of conflict, controversy and dispute resolution has opened my eyes, ears and soul to what Native Americans call the “Walking Eagle” gait.
The Adorna Properties case is a perfect example of uncontrollable tears that allowed the beneficiary of a forged document to prevail under the indefeasibility of title excuse and explanation.
Legislation is another manifestation of make-believe sorrow in righting a wrong for the sanctification, security and safety of society. Draconian laws are the very essence of this natural urge by government to shed tears.
The tears shed by our Education Act is a classic. It allows vernacular languages as a medium of instruction in our schools provided the learning of the National Language is a compulsory school subject — Section 17(2) Education Act 1996.
Doublespeak legislation contradicting constitutionally guaranteed fundamental liberties and freedoms, and fuelled by suspect judgments flowing from learned pens add to the celebration of tears from a dependent judiciary.
In North America the word “bankster” effortlessly slipped into the consumer lexicon. Banks and financial institutions are extremely successful because of the ready, willing and available prey. Many stash their cash at home. J.P. Morgan’s bulbous nose is attributed to his tears of joy.
Definition of a bankster: one who gives you an umbrella on a sunny day and grabs it back on a rainy day. The Crash of 1929 followed by the Great Depression a few years later created huge rivers and lakes of crocodile tears that consumers plied with leaky boats.
The question of how to fight Nature is fodder to pundits, gurus and experts who study, monitor and manage risk. One sure way is to totally avoid the crocodile by any and all means necessary and available. Many have succeeded.
So, how do you avoid government and businesses, many ask. In the 2016 US elections, the Pew Research Centre discovered that almost one hundred million eligible voters stayed home and refused to cast their votes. Political maturity, apathy?
The education imperative’s tears is the most deadly of them all. Many successful and awakened souls are school dropouts who realised early that the school syllabus was nothing but slick conditioning by a superior power which wrought the tremendous upsurge of autodidacts.
Economic analysis by self-styled tearful experts is another hazard that shakes the consumer society with confusion and disbelief. Genuine inner knowledge of the conflicting tales of woe concerning production, consumption, inflation, deflation, stagflation, taxation, foreign direct investment, and the printing of money will rapidly dry the tear ducts.
I know many atheists, deists and agnostics who believe that religion is the pre-eminent leader in producing crocodile tears. One even challenged me to answer why God allows killing thus breaking one of his own Commandments.
I carefully advised him to look up the word “theodicy” to satisfy his curiosity, and hopefully, to convince him of further and better proof of the mundane human frailty in misunderstanding and misinterpreting the Scriptures. Rest assured, I am no theologian.
Ultimately, we, the people are thrust with the ability, responsibility, and accountability reflecting adeptness to being response-able to every cute and acute occurrence and event that is dutifully, and tearfully, occasioned.
We, the people, must learn to be un-influenced by unwelcome stimuli that waits to devour the willing who choose to be prey despite all the warning bells and whistles. Become aware, agile, alert and awake to distinguish between the genuine and the fake. The multi-costumed devil roams about waiting to devour. Its tears are very visible. It should encourage fleeing its presence.
Many leaders with no answers, solutions and remedies appear as peacemakers, or appeasers, hoping to achieve greatness. Winston Churchill’s defined them appetisingly as “one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it would eat him last.”
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the New Sarawak Tribune.
