[This piece, first published in 1998, explains how the brilliant Candle Cluo used her reign as Minister of Health to successfully destroy the health system in Zambia]
Nobel Prize
The year is 2008. Sara and I are glued to our TV sets. The whole nation is watching. It is the first time that a Zambian has been honoured with a Nobel Prize…
‘We are gathered here today in the Gothenburg Hall,’ announced the King Gustav, ‘to pay tribute to a great scientific brain. The woman who wiped out disease from Zambia, and then from all the world.’
‘What’s her theory called?’ I asked Sara.
‘Cluster Theory.’ said Sara. ‘Be quiet, and pour the tea.’
‘It is my privilege today,’ continued the King, ‘to award The Nobel Prize for Theoretical Illumination to Professor Candle Cluo. But first I request the learned Professor to address this august assembly.’
Onto the stage sailed the Great Professor herself. The huge audience of dignitaries, fresh from their huge champagne lunch, fell quiet. The silence was broken only by the breaking of wind.
‘There was a time,’ I said to Sara, ‘when the upper classes were educated to control their sphincter muscles.’
‘Today I shall explain,’ began Professor Cluo, ‘the origins of my famous Cluster Theory.
‘It all began in Zambia only ten years ago, when I was just a humble Minister of Health. In those days we used to try to cure disease by putting patients all together in big hospitals in order to provide specialist treatment to cure their diseases.
‘But in Zambia, a strange thing began to happen. We found that the more we built hospitals, and the more we filled them with patients, the worse the diseases became, and the more people died. All the doctors and nurses insisted that the solution to this problem was to provide more and better medical treatment, and more modern methods. And of course we all had to work harder!’
‘But it took a genius like myself to recognise the true nature of the problem. With a brilliant stroke of intuition, never before seen in all medical history, I recognised the strange reality that others could not see or comprehend – all our intervention strategies was counterproductive!
‘Turning my huge brainpower to this complex problem, and after much complex analysis I finally came to suspect that the hospital itself was part of the problem. By bringing everybody together into one big hospital, we had created one big centre for spreading disease.
‘From my immense learning as Professor of Medical Micro-Biology, I was ably to detect that the nurses and doctors were picking up the germs and microbes from the diseased patients, and spreading them into the crowded cities. Even more disastrous were the friends and relatives who brought food for the patients. They went home more diseased, and distributed diseased cockroaches from the hospital into the general population.
‘In a candle flash of inspiration I saw the cluo, and my Cluster Theory was born. I saw that the underlying problem was not disease - but the mass of people clustered together! So then I began my great experiment to test my Cluster Theory, the great epoch of scientific history which has now revolutionised global medicine, and made Candle Cluo a household name.
‘As the first part of my experiment, I reduced the doctors salaries, until they all resigned and went to Botswana. Immediately disease decreased in Zambia, and increased in Botswana.
‘Then I managed to shift the nurses. They had never done anything, except sitting in the wards reading Mills and Boon novels. So I built a separate library for them in the hospital grounds, where they could read in peace, undisturbed by the groans of dying patients. Again disease and mortality rates in Zambia dropped drastically.
‘My last big move was to get rid of the relatives that had clustered around the patients’ beds. I banned them, and put barbed wire all round the hospital. Within a month, there was no more disease in Zambia. I had buried the problem. Soon I was able to close down all the hospitals, which had become unnecessary. And now, as a result of our massive economic transformation, all these former hospitals have been given a new and positive purpose - they have been re-opened as branches of Shoprite.
‘After this initial success, I now turned my theoretical imagination to broadening Cluster Theory. I saw that all of our twentieth century Environmental Science was based on a false premise. We had always seen the environment as the problem, to be dealt with and attacked. But the problem was ourselves. We were too clustered.
‘This was when the intellectual ferment of my brilliant mind began to formulate the new scientific paradigm which was to reinterpret human history, and to put myself on the pedestal of scientific achievement which was previously occupied by Charles Darwin. I began reinterpreting human disasters in terms of Cluster Theory. I saw that the volcanic eruption of Pompeii was caused by the city of people living around the volcano. This cluster of people had caused the pressure which pushed out the lava, and so they all perished.
‘In the same sweep of brilliant theoretical interpretation, I saw that El Nino is caused by the body heat of millions of people clustered in cities. The heat spirals upwards was causing cyclones, tornadoes and global warming. Collective urbanised flatulence, caused by rich food, was causing hydrogen sulphide and methane to damage the ozone layer and cause global warming. The new light of Cluster Theory has transformed our understanding of the world!’
The King now held up a large candle, saying ‘I now ask Professor Candle Cluo to light this candle, to symbolise the new light of Cluster Theory.’
As she lit the candle, there was a great orange flash and explosion. Then the TV picture went blank.
‘My God!’ I exclaimed, ‘a hydrogen sulphide explosion! She forgot her own Cluster Theory! Those over-fed dignitaries with their disgusting flatulence, all packed together, must have filled the hall with their poisonous wind! They’ve all been blown away!’
‘Poor Cluo,’ said Sara, with tears in her eyes. ‘She was our Candle in the Wind.’
Nobel Prize
The year is 2008. Sara and I are glued to our TV sets. The whole nation is watching. It is the first time that a Zambian has been honoured with a Nobel Prize…
‘We are gathered here today in the Gothenburg Hall,’ announced the King Gustav, ‘to pay tribute to a great scientific brain. The woman who wiped out disease from Zambia, and then from all the world.’
‘What’s her theory called?’ I asked Sara.
‘Cluster Theory.’ said Sara. ‘Be quiet, and pour the tea.’
‘It is my privilege today,’ continued the King, ‘to award The Nobel Prize for Theoretical Illumination to Professor Candle Cluo. But first I request the learned Professor to address this august assembly.’
Onto the stage sailed the Great Professor herself. The huge audience of dignitaries, fresh from their huge champagne lunch, fell quiet. The silence was broken only by the breaking of wind.
‘There was a time,’ I said to Sara, ‘when the upper classes were educated to control their sphincter muscles.’
‘Today I shall explain,’ began Professor Cluo, ‘the origins of my famous Cluster Theory.
‘It all began in Zambia only ten years ago, when I was just a humble Minister of Health. In those days we used to try to cure disease by putting patients all together in big hospitals in order to provide specialist treatment to cure their diseases.
‘But in Zambia, a strange thing began to happen. We found that the more we built hospitals, and the more we filled them with patients, the worse the diseases became, and the more people died. All the doctors and nurses insisted that the solution to this problem was to provide more and better medical treatment, and more modern methods. And of course we all had to work harder!’
‘But it took a genius like myself to recognise the true nature of the problem. With a brilliant stroke of intuition, never before seen in all medical history, I recognised the strange reality that others could not see or comprehend – all our intervention strategies was counterproductive!
‘Turning my huge brainpower to this complex problem, and after much complex analysis I finally came to suspect that the hospital itself was part of the problem. By bringing everybody together into one big hospital, we had created one big centre for spreading disease.
‘From my immense learning as Professor of Medical Micro-Biology, I was ably to detect that the nurses and doctors were picking up the germs and microbes from the diseased patients, and spreading them into the crowded cities. Even more disastrous were the friends and relatives who brought food for the patients. They went home more diseased, and distributed diseased cockroaches from the hospital into the general population.
‘In a candle flash of inspiration I saw the cluo, and my Cluster Theory was born. I saw that the underlying problem was not disease - but the mass of people clustered together! So then I began my great experiment to test my Cluster Theory, the great epoch of scientific history which has now revolutionised global medicine, and made Candle Cluo a household name.
‘As the first part of my experiment, I reduced the doctors salaries, until they all resigned and went to Botswana. Immediately disease decreased in Zambia, and increased in Botswana.
‘Then I managed to shift the nurses. They had never done anything, except sitting in the wards reading Mills and Boon novels. So I built a separate library for them in the hospital grounds, where they could read in peace, undisturbed by the groans of dying patients. Again disease and mortality rates in Zambia dropped drastically.
‘My last big move was to get rid of the relatives that had clustered around the patients’ beds. I banned them, and put barbed wire all round the hospital. Within a month, there was no more disease in Zambia. I had buried the problem. Soon I was able to close down all the hospitals, which had become unnecessary. And now, as a result of our massive economic transformation, all these former hospitals have been given a new and positive purpose - they have been re-opened as branches of Shoprite.
‘After this initial success, I now turned my theoretical imagination to broadening Cluster Theory. I saw that all of our twentieth century Environmental Science was based on a false premise. We had always seen the environment as the problem, to be dealt with and attacked. But the problem was ourselves. We were too clustered.
‘This was when the intellectual ferment of my brilliant mind began to formulate the new scientific paradigm which was to reinterpret human history, and to put myself on the pedestal of scientific achievement which was previously occupied by Charles Darwin. I began reinterpreting human disasters in terms of Cluster Theory. I saw that the volcanic eruption of Pompeii was caused by the city of people living around the volcano. This cluster of people had caused the pressure which pushed out the lava, and so they all perished.
‘In the same sweep of brilliant theoretical interpretation, I saw that El Nino is caused by the body heat of millions of people clustered in cities. The heat spirals upwards was causing cyclones, tornadoes and global warming. Collective urbanised flatulence, caused by rich food, was causing hydrogen sulphide and methane to damage the ozone layer and cause global warming. The new light of Cluster Theory has transformed our understanding of the world!’
The King now held up a large candle, saying ‘I now ask Professor Candle Cluo to light this candle, to symbolise the new light of Cluster Theory.’
As she lit the candle, there was a great orange flash and explosion. Then the TV picture went blank.
‘My God!’ I exclaimed, ‘a hydrogen sulphide explosion! She forgot her own Cluster Theory! Those over-fed dignitaries with their disgusting flatulence, all packed together, must have filled the hall with their poisonous wind! They’ve all been blown away!’
‘Poor Cluo,’ said Sara, with tears in her eyes. ‘She was our Candle in the Wind.’
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