Only the worst casualties would deny we live in a world reshaped and refashioned on the hour by Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok and Kim Kardashian, protean billionaire sorceress and influencer extraordinaire. Kim and her four siren sisters are idolized and emulated worldwide by all races and genders, often with consequences hilarious and deadly. Even America’s most intransigent President could not resist Kim’s allure when she requested he pardon a 63-year-old black grandmother who had been sentenced to life imprisonment for her involvement in a non-violent drug offence when she was only 21. Previously the President had famously advocated the death penalty for drug offenders.
As Norman Mailer noted in Some Honorable Men, a nation that forms important decisions based on facts that are askew from any reality is a nation already gone insane. Did the author, who died at age 84 on a surprisingly sunny November morning in 2007, anticipate the Internet with its countless baleful influences? Could he have envisaged the dawning of the age of alternate facts, fake news, Donald Trump and the Kardashians?
The year is 2005: somewhere in the Caribbean a terminally ill former prime minister has allowed himself to be persuaded by no longer relevant self-seeking relics of his heyday to come out of retirement on the chance of getting returned to office a record nine times. The concomitant campaign, its unanticipated brutal ambushes, not to mention post-election mutinous behavior by his Cabinet, the majority half his age, was more than he and the prospectors for vicarious power had bargained for. He died of cancer-related complications just three months before the earlier mentioned famous author succumbed to the same disease. The prime minister was 82, 83 or 89—according to records at the registry of births!
His widow soon let it be known that the day before he was wheeled aboard an aircraft en-route to New York for too often postponed medical attention, Judases in his Cabinet had defied his wishes and established diplomatic relations with Taiwan, not Beijing. So deep had they plunged their metaphorical Brutus daggers into his feeble heart during an emergency meeting, the tearful widow told reporters, her husband had in consequence suffered three strokes. Only after nearly everyone had taken her story to heart did one or two inquire about how it was possible for the stricken prime minister to have driven himself home sans mishap through rush-hour traffic.
Few were surprised when even the honorable gentleman who had replaced the departed prime minister was denied the widow’s permission to speak at his funeral service. That high honor was calculatedly reserved for the dearly departed’s boyhood best friend and former prime minister of a sister island, as well as other dignitaries, all foreign, at the packed venue.
In the days immediately following his controversial interment (persistent rumor suggests unwitting mourners at the parliament building had paid their last respects to a closed empty casket and that the prime minister’s corpse had earlier been cremated) the devastated widow announced she had in her possession indisputable proof of corruption involving Taiwanese officials and the double-crossers she held responsible for her husband’s death—and would not hesitate to make them public if necessary. Her eldest daughter who prior to her husband’s death had betrayed not the slightest interest in politics, bowed to an abrupt change d’avis. At the end of a by-election she reclaimed the seat vacated by her father—with more than a little help from his alleged worst enemies.
On the occasion, make believe soon gave way to reality. The newest member of the fold missed not a single opportunity to rip the wool off the wolves that had betrayed her father. More often than not her contributions to House debates enhanced opposition arguments. She seemed to relish every opportunity to bolster corruption allegations against her fellow government MPs. When they offered to erect a monument to her father’s memory, she quickly proffered several better ways to honor the departed who, she said, was never a man for pomp and flattery and always had worked in the best interests of the country, its most deprived citizens especially.
But perhaps most self-gratifying was her malefic public announcement—in advance of any related word from the government—that regional representatives of the United States had declared a local parliamentarian persona non grata. The prime minister finally gave in to sustained demands by his Cabinet that he endorse the decision. When there was no official explanation for the action taken, the House opposition filled in the blanks with their own egregious speculations. Few among the populace were surprised when, several months before scheduled general elections, the beleaguered MP laid down his own political life in the best interests of the government. He assured inquiring reporters that never mind his resignation from the Cabinet he would nevertheless do everything possible to retain his seat in parliament. He also promised to resolve his problems with U.S. Immigration—for which he blamed the opposition party and other unconscionable traitors closer to home.
As it turned out the electorate tossed out the government but retained the gentleman who had headed it for five tumultuous years, as well as his colleague the recently declared persona non grata. The first public announcer of his visa revocation was not as fortunate.
Time would proved yet again to be the great healer. By 2016 the man America had ordered to stay clear of its borders chose not to contest the year’s general election. He would devote his time to fronting a televised talk show unapologetically averse to the day’s government, its leader in particular.
Night after night he analyzed and parsed leaked government documents marked confidential. His exposés were predictably picked up by accommodating local media houses and social media. Only on the rarest occasions did the government offer explanations or contradictions. It seemed to depend for vindication on the electorate’s presumed appreciation of its various projects, most of them wrapped in political controversy.
Suffice it to say that by the time the prime minister announced Polling Day—amidst depressing COVID 19 reports—few voters would’ve argued he was not a Caucasian with the soul of a plantation owner, or that he had handed over to foreign scoundrels acres of public real estate, the people’s patrimony, with no thought for the deprived thousands that had elected him to the highest office in the land, all of them of African ancestry.
As if that were not enough good reason for deportation, at the very least, there were also the barely challenged allegations of corruption against him and his government. A last-minute defection by a vengeful but popular member of the prime minister’s Cabinet nailed shut his political coffin. At the end of the 2021 election only two constituencies retained their earlier representation. America’s declared persona non grata has been embraced by the new government, as has been the earlier mentioned last-minute defector. Both had contested the election as independent candidates.
(To be continued)
