The Fear of King Fear

The Fear of King Fear

            ‘How’s the maths coming along?’ I asked Thoko.

          ‘Terribly,’ she said sadly. ‘I don’t know the difference between indices and indecision.’

          ‘Well just tell the teacher you don’t understand it and ask for help.’

          ‘Hah!’ scoffed Thoko. ‘You don’t know Mr Zulu. His attitude is that if we can’t understand what he’s scribbling on the blackboard, then we are too stupid and shouldn’t be in his class. He even punishes us if we get the answer wrong. He’s really frightening.’

          ‘He rules by fear,’ I suggested.

          ‘Exactly,’ she agreed. ‘We are so frightened of him that we can’t think.’

          ‘But he doesn’t want you to think,’ I said. ‘His idea is that your job is just to follow the mathematical rules that he gives you.’

          ‘Is that how it was when you were at school, Grandpa?’

          ‘Pretty much,’ I said. ‘I went to a boys’ secondary school where most of the teachers ruled by fear, and we hated them. And of course we never learnt anything from them, except to hate the subject they were teaching.’

          ‘What about the headmaster?’ she wondered.

          ‘Ho ho,’ I laughed. ‘If there’s one way of bringing out the worst in a teacher, it’s by making them the headteacher. They either turn into King Money or King Fear. King Money does the job for the pleasure of stealing from the PTA, but King Fear is more dangerous, he does the job for the pleasure of exercising power and humiliating his victims.’

          ‘So which one did you get?’

          ‘I got King Fear, in the shape of the dreaded Mr Tremble, all six foot four inches of him, complete with a first class degree in philosophy from Oxford, and a huge voice to match. Everybody used to tremble in front of him, even the teachers. He ruled by fear. His word was law. He ordered the teachers what to do, they ordered the prefects, and the prefects ordered the rest of us. It was academic terrorism, a bureaucracy of bullies, with each one bullying the one below. At the apex stood King Fear, who enjoyed undisguised sadistic pleasure from whipping the tender bottoms of little boys.’

          ‘Are you making all this up, Grandpa? This was a boys’ school in England! I thought England was a democratic country!’

          ‘The school had a very democratic vocabulary, but what was actually going on was something else entirely. The School Prospectus spoke of students learning to think for themselves, discovery learning, learning from others in group work, independent thought, freedom of expression, and so on. That book was so beautiful it could bring tears to your eyes.’

          ‘Like the Zambian Constitution,’ suggested Thoko.

          ‘Exactly,’ I laughed. ‘Most beautiful of all was the separation of powers between the headmaster, the Board of Governors, the staff meeting, the prefects and the School Council.’

          ‘But in practice the headmaster appointed all of them, and fired anybody who disagreed with him.’

          ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘The nice School Prospectus wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. All that mattered were the School Rules, just as they had been written by the medieval monk who had founded the school in 1584, long before the English ever heard the word democracy.’

          ‘Just like our Public Order Act,’ laughed Thoko.

          ‘Exactly,’ I said.

          ‘So did Terrible Tremble come to a terrible end?’ wondered Thoko.

          ‘Of course,’ I laughed, ‘just as all dictators do.’

          ‘What happened?’

          ‘One morning, all thousand of us were standing quietly in the school hall, waiting for Terrible Tremble to arrive to conduct Morning Assembly. But he was late.’

          ‘Everybody had to be punctual except the Big Man,’ suggested Thoko.

          ‘Exactly,’ I agreed. ‘But then a funny thing happened. The school wag, a tall sixthformer called Wagstaff, came onto the stage dressed like the headmaster in suit and gown, and began doing a perfect parody of Terrible Tremble, saying It is with grave disquiet and anger that I have to report that earlier this morning, in this very hall, a sixth former had the temerity to stand on this very stage and address a meeting of dissidents and malcontents, and all this was done without first seeking permission from the School Council, as is clearly required in the School Rules.’

‘How we laughed and cheered as Wagstaff’s arms now began to flail around just like those of Terrible Tremble Tornado in a temper, his hair falling down over his eyes and his face turning purple, shouting There is within this school a covert and evil lunatic fringe that is working day and night to ruin our school’s reputation and to subvert all legitimate authority. I therefore have no choice except to exercise the powers vested in me and declare a state of emergency. Now Wagstaff began shake and scream Prefects are hereby ordered to hold all boys in this hall until such time as the culprits report to my office, whereupon I shall ensure that they are immediately expelled and their future careers entirely ruined!

‘Hurray!’ we all laughed as Wagstaff left the stage, to be replaced by the real Tremble, looking more Terrible than usual, and performing an excellent parody of Wagstaff, although looking even more ridiculous.’

‘And everybody just kept laughing?’ suggested Thoko.

‘Yes,’ I laughed. ‘We laughed and cheered until he turned and went back to his office. Later that morning we heard the siren of the ambulance that took him away. He’d had a nervous breakdown. The very thing feared most by every King Fear had actually happened to him.’

‘To be laughed at?’

‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘That’s always the end of a King Fear. Once everybody starts laughing, they’re finished.’            

Constable Chilufya Takes Charge

Constable Chilufya

Takes Charge

Dear Diary, I’m getting increasingly worried about my dear husband. When he came down the stairs this morning he was swinging his arms and shouting ‘Left right, left right.’ At the bottom of the stairs it was ‘Left turn!’ as he marched to the French window, saluted the flag in the front garden and shouted ‘One Zambia, One Chilufya!’

‘Sit down, dear,’ I said, ‘and eat your cornflakes. You’ve got a busy day of hiring and firing, you don’t want to over excite yourself too early in the day.’

‘How can I be in charge of the nation on a bowl of cornflakes?’ he shouted, ‘bring me a T-bone steak!’

‘Don’t you shout at me as if I’m your Cabinet Secretary,’ I told him. ‘I’m your wife and your doctor. It’s my job to control your temper and your cholesterol, so you don’t have another bad turn. We wouldn’t want our country to be deprived of such a Great Leader after waiting for all these forty-seven years.’

‘You’ve got a good point there,’ he said, as he quietened down, and stroked his battered chin pensively. ‘We don’t want a mere T-bone steak to interfere with my destiny. I remember the day I was dismissed as a police constable, and how I vowed to become president and dismiss everybody and…’

‘On this subject of hiring and firing,’ I interrupted him, ‘you had better stop this unfortunate and awkward habit you have developed of appointing a person one day and firing them the next. People are saying you don’t know what you’re doing.’

‘Hah,’ he sneered derisively, ‘it’s only you who doesn’t know what I’m doing. Don’t you realize that every now and again I deliberately pick some notorious crook, or otherwise a driveling idiot, and appoint them to a position that needs both brains and honesty. As soon as there is a public outcry I reverse the appointment, then everybody praises me as a listening leader.’

‘How clever of you, my dear,’ I replied, as I poured him another cup of tea. ‘Although sometimes you don’t reverse the appointment.’

‘Sometimes, of course, it is necessary to demonstrate the power of the Great Leader, who cannot jump to every whim of the ignorant mob. We mustn’t carry democracy too far.’

‘How wise you are in these matters,’ I said. ‘I hadn’t thought of these complexities that come so easily to your astute political brain. I’m only a simple medical doctor. But even so, my dear, I wonder whether you really need all these commissions of inquiry.’

‘Really my dear? What is your medical advice? Should I amputate them?’

‘Well, silly me, I just thought that perhaps these problems could be dealt with by parliamentary committees of inquiry.’

‘Hah!’ he scoffed, spilling his tea all over his latest shiny suit. ‘Typical of a woman! What a foolish suggestion! Haven’t you noticed that I haven’t got a majority in parliament! Already they’ve got too much control! And now you want me to give them control over my inquiries! Any more cheek from them and I shall dissolve parliament entirely. I shall send them back to their constituencies. If they can still find them. Some of them were taken there by helicopter and will never be able to find them again.’

‘A lot of questions are being asked in parliament. And your friend Dotty Scotty doesn’t seem able to answer them properly. He opens and closes his mouth without saying anything, like a fish out of water.’

‘Don’t make fun of my dear friend Dotty,’ he laughed affectionately. ‘His English isn’t very good. He does much better in Bemba.’

‘I’ve got an idea!’ I said. ‘Why not have judicial inquiries?’

‘How little you understand these things,’ he scoffed. ‘When I appoint my commissioners, I always outline the findings which I expect to find in their report. Now the judiciary claims to be independent, so it’s enormously expensive to get them to behave otherwise. This country doesn’t need all this endless talk in parliament and in the courts. All we need is a strong leader like me to put things right.’

‘Half a minute,’ I said. ‘What about the new constitution. Isn’t there a big danger that it could limit the powers of the Great Leader?’

‘A very big danger,’ he laughed.

‘So what are you doing about it?’

‘I’ve already done it,’ he laughed. ‘I’ve appointed another commission of inquiry to suggest a new constitution.’

‘I thought it was a committee of experts?’

‘My dear, you need to have a more skeptical approach to political vocabulary. In this case, committee of experts actually means commission of idiots. But to bring a bit of sense to the committee I’ve taken the trouble to include three Catholic Bishops.’

‘Do they know anything about constitutions?’

‘Absolutely nothing. They are implacably opposed to constitutions, instead believing that I need to be guided only by the Ten Commandments, and of course by the Lord My God who in his Great Wisdom appointed me as the Great Leader.’

‘You were appointed by God?’

‘Of course. It is God who gave me my enormous belief in myself, and my enormous power over my people. Me, God, and my Commissions, we’re going to clean up this country, which has been going to the dogs.’

‘Going to the dogs?’ I laughed. ‘There aren’t any dogs!’

‘No dogs?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘They’ve all been eaten by the Chinese.’

The Supreme Leader

The Supreme Leader

Oh Dear Diary, When I came down to breakfast this morning I found my dear husband at the table, already dressed up in his Supersata suit, with his gold crown on his head, busy eating his cornflakes. ‘Good morning darling,’ I said, as I handed him The Post and gave him a little kiss on his battered old forehead. ‘Have a look at the news.’

‘I don’t need to read the news,’ he answered gruffly, ‘I am the news. I make the news, so that other people read about me.’

‘You should read this editorial here,’ I said, as I reached for a grapefruit, ‘it says that Michael should not be appointing …’

‘I’ll have him fired with immediate effect, or possible sooner,’ my dear husband snarled, in a quite frightening and quite unbecoming manner.

‘Half a minute’ I said, ‘I haven’t yet told you what the editor is saying.’

‘Oh yes you have! He can’t be calling me Michael! He must show some respect! My name is now His Excellency Machiavelli Chilufya Supersata SC!’

‘Ooh that’s nice dear,’ I said, trying to soothe him, ‘have you just appointed yourself State Council?’

‘SC means I am Supreme Commander,’ he shouted, as he pointed his spoon threateningly to all four corners of the compass, ‘I’m in charge of all twelve million people, including you!’

‘I’m glad you’ve included me,’ I said with a smile, ‘because I’ve got the same question as the editor. How can you be appointing Unsavory Chuma as your Personal Servant in Luapula when everybody knows he’s as bent as a cucumber? Previously you told everybody you were allergic to corruption! That you can’t stand the stink of it!’

He glowered at me from the other end of the royal table. ‘I can’t stand the stink of this Unsavory fellow. That’s why I sent him all the way to Luapula!’

‘Look, Michael,’ I said slowly, ‘in my job, I hear what people are saying. And I can tell you that they’re getting very fed up with you. You promised so much to the youth, then you pack your cabinet with ancient geriatrics and raise the retirement age. You promised positions for women, then you deliberately leave them out. You said you’d save us from the Chinese thieves and exploiters, then you give a slap-up lunch in their honour. You promised us more money in our pockets, but now you employ this Unsavory Plunderer to steal money from our pockets.’

‘I know you don’t understand these things,’ he growled, ‘you’ve only been trained to wipe babies’ bottoms at the hospital. You don’t understand politics or leadership. You just stick to your nappies and that sort of thing.’

‘Is that what you call leadership?’ I persisted. ‘Appointing a notorious and convicted crook?’

‘Look my dear, let me try to explain it to you. When I was on the campaign trail I had to promise everything to everybody. That’s how I got you into this comfortable house. But now that I am the Supreme Leader I don’t have to ask those people what they want, it is now my job to decide what they should be given.’

‘But can’t you at least give them some of the things they asked for, rather than do the opposite?’

‘Certainly not. I now have to establish myself as the Supreme Leader. I can’t be wasting my time receiving delegations of people all petitioning for different things. One group wants a new road, another wants a bridge, another a railway, and so on. It’s my job to make the decision, and when I do, a lot of people will get disappointed and angry.

‘But Michael,’ I said, ‘you are taking decisions which please nobody!’

‘Ah my dear,’ he said, ‘how little you understand the problems of a Supreme Leader. It is most important, at this early stage, to test the loyalty and discipline of my ministers and party members. The best test is to take a decision which is self-evidently ridiculous, and to see which one can be found whispering against me. This is how I can weed out those who have no loyalty. Such a situation identifies the subversive elements, who would seek to undermine my authority and challenge my position. As they whisper against me, they automatically and foolishly identify themselves. The subsequent purge removes the main danger, and teaches the meaning of loyalty to those few who are allowed to remain around their beloved Supreme Leader.’

‘So what’s you next earth shattering announcement to enrage the nation?’

‘I have been thinking about the problem of all these civil servants who come to work late, and then waste the entire morning chatting on Facebook. They only start work at midday.’

‘So does the Supreme Leader have a remedy?’

‘Certainly he does,’ he replied proudly. ‘This is a simple matter. I shall cancel mornings entirely and the whole country will move to a twelve hour day, beginning at noon, and having only afternoon and night. Tomorrow I shall instruct the Meteorological Department to adjust the speed of the sun so that daylight hours are reduced to six. With immediate effect.’

Oh Dear Diary, Does my poor dear husband really know what he is doing? I have a nasty feeling that, any day now, he is going to make a complete ass of himself.