by Dan Tow (with a nod to Mr. Orwell)
To my readers: I wrote the following before the tragic assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Apart from my deep sadness for all the people killed, I was terribly sorry that the assassination denied the people of Pakistan their full range of choices in the scheduled election. Assassination is foul murder, and also a tragic crime against the voters, a form of the most serious treason against the nation, when the party assassinated is an elected official or someone who could be elected in the future. I don’t know what else to say on the sad subject, so I turn to what I’d already written, in hopes it still finds an audience. I beg pardon, too, if you feel that the following would have been more appropriate at another less mournful time.
I thought I’d try a change of pace, so I beg pardon from my kind readers; if you hate it, chalk it up to a silly experiment – I’ll get back to straight political musings next time. Today’s work is a simple children’s tale that popped into my head, with no relevance whatever to politics. None. None at all.
There once was a farmer, who raised chickens with the help of some hired men. The farmer wanted to protect his chickens from foxes and such dangers, so he chose some of his smartest, toughest roosters and trained them to be reliable guards, and they were supremely competent, showing astounding judgement while guarding the farmer’s courtyard, where the chickens were kept.
The foreman of the hired men felt he was generally much more suited to running a farm than the farmer, himself, so he hatched a scheme to take over the farm. He gathered some weapons together and organized the hired men he trusted most, and one day as the farmer was returning home from a trip, he cornered the farmer, and informed him that the farm was no longer his to control, that he must leave, if he valued his life, and must not come back.
Although the foreman was very pleased to be the new farmer, he worried; if he could take over from the old farmer, perhaps a new foreman might take the farm from him, so for years he continued as foreman at the same time that he was the farmer. In general, the neighbors found this arrangement highly irregular, and it was the subject of much disapproval.
One day, the foreman, who was now the farmer, went to get a chicken for his evening meal, and he was shocked when the wise guard roosters raised a loud fuss, and wouldn’t let him get a chicken. This was unheard of, and quite outrageous! It was all well and good for the guard roosters to protect the chickens from foxes, but they were not supposed to protect the chickens from the new farmer! It was after all the farmer’s right to eat as many chickens as he wished, and the guard roosters should only serve him, if he asked, and should not dream of defying him!
The foreman decided that such outrageous behavior must not continue, so he hatched a plan. He found some fertile eggs and took them into the farmhouse where he kept them warm until they hatched. He raised the chicks by hand, so they thought of him as their father. Half were hens, and he released them to live with the other chickens, but he trained the roosters to take over guard duties from the old guard roosters, but of course not to have any crazy ideas about protecting the chickens from him, only from his enemies. He still had to get the old guard roosters out of the way, however. He got the help of all the farm workers, and passed around flashing lights and firecrackers to use so that the farm animals would think there was some sort of emergency. Using these, he was able to chase the old guard roosters into their little homes, where he locked them up. Even cooped up, he was afraid they might cause trouble, so he covered their little homes in blankets so that the neighbors and the other chickens could not hear their crows of protest.
The foreman found the new arrangement much more to his liking – pet guard roosters who were supremely cooperative, and quite courtly in their loyalty toward him, and no trouble arranging a fine chicken dinner every evening. His pet roosters found the arrangement delightful, too. They even enjoyed licking the juices from the foreman’s plate each evening after he finished his dinner. In their judgment, he was the best father a rooster could have, and they swore eternal loyalty to him. They little suspected that if they should cease to be useful to the foreman, he would happily add them to his evening meal’s pot along with their cousins, since to him they were just temporarily useful poultry, not his sons at all, as they imagined.
I have not yet learned what happened next, but I heard an interesting rumor that the chickens on this farm turned out to be no ordinary chickens. In fact, they were as wise as men, as capable as men in every way, and even with the old guard roosters locked away, their example was not lost on their cousins. They all yearned to live lives such as they would choose for themselves, in freedom and safety, and their determination appeared to be quite unstoppable.
More: continued here
