State House Anytime Now - Corn from Mugabe

State House Anytime Now

Corn on the cob from Mugabe and postcard from down under

With the various logistics problems during the Christmas rush, delivery of some couriers and letters has been coming in late. Orderly comes into the President’s office with a postcard from Australia and a package coming from Zimbabwe. He is scared that the package might be a booby trap from old uncle bob and gets JAM to properly sniff it and Orderly to open it.

Orderly: Sir, it contains a special multi coloured corn on the cob and a note from Robert Mugabe which reads as follow, ‘Dearest James, as African leaders who have withstood the powers of the colonialist to this day, I send you this symbolic piece of maize which is the symbol of our struggle. I believe that your country is going through hard economic times but do not despair my friend. The secret is not to let go. The principle that we believe in will always stand. All you have to do is plant this cob into the gardens of State House and it will flourish all over the country and soon will solve all your animal feed problems. I have found that the best way out is to blame the unknown. We have now discovered that Gordon Brown is spreading cholera inside our country to wipe us all out! But our strong will and resilience will see us through. Give my very best regards to Albert whom I believe is getting stronger by the day and having a good life between the shores of Seychelles and his ranch in Australia. Keep well my friend and ride the storm, don’t let them fool you into any power sharing like Morgan is trying over here. Sincerely yours, Bob”

President: Well, that’s nice of him! I hope it is not one of the genetically modified species of maize which he was bad mouthing all the other countries about. Let’s give it a try. Get the gardener to plant it somewhere and we will see what the outcome will be.

Orderly: Bur sir, if it works out to be true, then we will be invaded by the species and it will kill all our endemic trees and plants. We will lose our status as a leader in protecting our own environment species.

President: Orderly, it is now a question of survival. We had several noble principles that we have abandoned over the years. We have allowed buildings of hotels in our national parks and soon we will have bungalows over water like in the Maldives. So if we have an invasion of the species then we can get Joel and his team to exercise better control and let the damn thing grow so that we can solve our economic crisis. The wave of the future is bio fuels and we can become a leader in this field.

Orderly: I get your drift Sir. Soon all the State House cars will be running on bio fuels and we will be setting the example. Apparently the tankers have also been built to carry bio fuels.  

President: This is the future my man. And you will see at Obama’s inauguration that he will raise this issue and by then we will be a few miles ahead. And if we do succeed in getting this flourishing in our lands like Mugabe says, we will invite Obama to see for himself how such a small island state is doing its share in cutting back on the dependence of fossil fuels.

Orderly: Sir the second missive is from the old man in Australia. I am a bit perplexed at what he has written as it seems to be back to front…

President: I told you that he is close to being senile Orderly. Let’s have a look… it seems to have pictures of koala bears, kangaroos and all these endemic Australian species. Is there a message in here as well?

Orderly: Well I have tried to decipher from the scribbles and he seems to be advocating that we are all like these endemic species sharing a little piece of Paradise and he would not want anyone of these species to die (as it has happened in the past). So his advice is to go back to our colonial days, take some of Mancham’s ideas and slowly bring us to the days when we first started our Independence in 1976. Now that we have achieved most of the ideals we had set ourselves we can remove ourselves slowly and let a new generation take over. He likes your ‘Koste Seselwa’ theme and in fact wants all the Seychellois living overseas to come back and partake in what the SPPF has built. Communism has collapsed and we should not insist on a continuation in that direction.

President: Man the guy has mellowed out! He was accusing everyone of being senile at his birthday party and it seems that these travels do him a lot of good. You know when you are living on a territory where you have not committed any acts of wrongdoing, you have a clear conscience. This is why I also love these travels as it allows me to clear my head. I also need to start enjoying life. I have a young wife and new baby whom I hardly spend time with. I need to reflect upon that a little more seriously.

Orderly: By the way, he also says that he hates to see guns anymore and we should turn ourselves into a friendlier nation. There are too many people going around in these camouflaged uniforms and we are getting bad image of being a military state. The fear is over he insists that you are well liked and no one will do you any harm. So there is no need in hiding behind all these men and their ammunition.

President: Well, very well intentioned words indeed. I hope he means it. I will take stock of this and we will incorporate this in our ‘State of the Nation’ address. Can you imagine the ideal society where everyone is embracing one another, no violence, only love, peace and freedom? He has a point Orderly; this is the new model society I want to create for Seychelles. We are already a docile and peace loving nation. And it is true that seeing the army patrolling around with the guns and uniforms is not a good image for us.

Orderly: OK Sir, we will get going together with your newly appointed Secretary of State on the finer details of the State of the Nation address. It has to be on a very reconciliatory tone so that everyone will take stock of the harsh realities of the next few years and start forging ahead for this model society we want to create…

Orderly takes his leave and mulls over some magical words that he can incorporate in the speech, very much needed to pacify a desperate nation who will either enjoy the riches of the corn on the cob and bio fuel from Uncle Bob or will see the kangaroos don their boxing gloves for a slugfest.