Election Rally

[First published on 3^rd August 2006 under the Title ‘Toilet Politics’, this piece was written in the run-up to the 2006 Elections]

Election Rally

Sunday afternoon in the park. Some people walking, some talking, some quarelling, some gawking, some just reading newspapers, as children played all around, and policemen watched grimly. Suddenly the camera panned around, and our TV screen was filled with the massive head of an elephant.

‘Oh no!’ Sara sighed, ‘it must the Muwelewele rally in Cheatwe. Why are we forced to watch this?’

‘It is a mark of intelligence,’ I declared, ‘to find amusement where ordinary mortals find boredom.’

‘Then there’s no point in you watching it,’ snapped Sara, like a chameleon catching a fly.

The great elephant was angrily shouting at the microphone, his eyes bulging and his front legs shaking with rage. ‘Don’t listen to these other so-called leaders, full of lies and fantasies and false promises! This Cycle Mata has been going round saying that in the last five years I haven’t built even a single toilet!’

‘I didn’t know Cycle Mata said that!’ Sara exclaimed.

‘You see!’ I laughed. ‘The Great Elephant Muwelewele can be most amusing. He spends all his time repeating the insults that others have thrown at him. That’s why he’s always in such an awful rage!’

‘The people are starving!’ shouted Muwelewele, ‘and Cycle Mata wants me to build more toilets. Heh heh’ he chuckled, as the crowd looked on sullenly. ‘First you must produce more food to put in your bellies. Only after that will you need toilets!’

The camera panned back into the crowd, which continued to move up and down and around in constant motion. ‘Why are they all moving around like that?’ I wondered.

‘Probably looking for a toilet,’ said Sara.

‘But why is this Cycle Mata so interested in toilets?’ Muwelewele angrily demanded of the nearest mango tree, which was too frightened to make any reply. ‘I’ll tell you why! Because he is a toilet man who lives in a toilet and stinks like a toilet!

‘But this toilet man is too stupid to understand the economics of toilets. Toilets are just a waste of food. An efficient economy demands an efficient digestive system! We must digest all our food, so that we have the strength to produce more copper for our investors. How can I bring investors here if you are demanding extra money that you are just flushing down the toilet!’

‘He’s got a point,’ I said. ‘After structural adjustment of their stomachs, the starving workers don’t need toilets anymore.’

‘But should he be saying so?’ wondered Sara.

‘This Cycle Mata has forgotten that, when he was in government, he was the very one who privatised the toilets. All government toilets were sold off to private individuals, to be rented out to those who could afford to eat excessive amounts of food. This is the same man who is now asking the government to build more toilets!’

‘Is this toilet man a lawyer, to know whether the Constoootion requires people to be given toilets?’ shouted Muwelewele, angrily banging his head on the podium. ‘We must follow the rule of law, according to the Constoootion. Now, as a constoootional lawyer, I am the only one qualified to interpret the meaning of the Constoootion…’

‘I thought he was a criminal lawyer,’ I said.

‘All lawyers are criminals,’ laughed Sara.

‘Is a criminal lawyer qualified to interpret the Constitution?’ I persisted.

‘Definitely,’ Sara replied solemnly. ‘It’s a criminal Constitution.’

‘You have it on my considerable authority,’ Muwelewele continued, angrily biting the microphone, ‘that the word toilet is not mentioned in the Constoootion.’ He now leant forward and addressed the crowd very solemnly. ‘If anybody here today is looking for a toilet, he won’t find it in the Constoootion.’

‘But anybody looking for the Constitution,’ said Sara, ‘might find it in the toilet.’

‘What Cycle Mata doesn’t understand,’ shouted Muwelewele, his face turning purple with rage, ‘is that by the abolition of public toilets, this government has turned waste management into an efficient public enterprise.’

‘Wait for something smelly,’ said Sara.

‘The secret of our agricultural success has been the huge pile of dung produced by the ruling class of elephants. It is only we, in the government, who can afford to eat the huge excess of food that is necessary to produce the vast supply of rich fertilizer which is needed for our new deal agricultural revolution.’

As he spoke, a series of dull thuds were heard coming from behind the elephant, as a cloud of steam rose in the air. ‘I hope you can now appreciate all I have done for you,’ trumpeted the Great Elephant as he waved goodbye to the crowd. Then off he trotted, leaving behind a huge pile of steaming dung.

Now at last the crowd showed real interest, surging forward, all scrambling to push the precious fertilizer into big brown envelopes. ‘How extraordinary,’ I said. ‘Everybody seems to have a brown envelope. Where did they all come from?’

‘From the leader who visited them yesterday,’ said Sara.

‘HaHa!’ I laughed.

‘Exactly,’ said Sara.