Until people have raised their voice
TWO of our politicians have committed the same mischief in two different ways. Both concealed information about their academic backgrounds when they filed nomination papers to contest in the last parliamentary election. One of them wrote he had no education despite being a university graduate. Another shifted like a moving target, revealing varying academic level for each election contested. They must have thought it like many others do in this country. How a practicing Brahmin likes to wear his circle of twine is nobody's business.
But what I see here is politics taken for granted. Both politicians have been in politics for a long time and they have contested several elections. They have been elected and re-elected, their return to office being as given as night after day.
Which reminds us of Roman Emperor Caligula Caesar, who was afflicted by a bizarre madness. Absolute power had made him so conceited that one day he declared himself God. And then, too much power brought him boredom. Caligula turned into a monster because whatever he did was not challenged.
The same thing is also true for the Caligulas of our times. No matter what they have done or said, they have never been challenged. So they went one notch up to test our patience and thumbed their noses at us.
May be long years in politics have convinced these incredible two that education wasn't important. I agree, may be so does the rest of the country. The voters don't look for suitable boys in their candidates, but suitable candidates in their boys.
Needless to say, leadership isn't guaranteed by academic degrees. At least ten US presidents never graduated from college. South African President Jacob Zuma has only primary school education. British prime ministers Winston Churchill and John Major never went to college.
Then, I bet, it couldn't be the shame part of it why those politicians must have fiddled with that particular entry. One of them actually has a bachelor's degree but he decided to hide it. Why did the other one keep writing different things at different times? To give him benefit of doubt, he may have got bad memory or isn't quite organised with his records.
Yet, it's obvious that neither of them was serious when submitting nomination papers for a national election. That is something to worry about, because when politicians trifle with their own profession and make fun of its rite of passage, it could be manifestation of a deeper crisis. By all means this is only a symptom, but not the disease.
The disease, however, has its many other symptoms. We hear of doctors with false diplomas. We hear of judges with fake credentials. We have got counterfeit currencies, adulterated food and pretenders with false identities. Everybody criticises and everybody is criticised. We have lost sight of the forest of facts for the trees of tales.
With all of these happening in this country, why should we be upset because two politicians have pulled the fast one on us? Yes, they have been wrong and disrespectful to us. But what they did amounts to spitting in the air, that falls back on one's own face. They have undermined the same system of which they should be the proud products. They have ridiculed us by being ridiculous.
Though we should be upset for a different reason. It's not so much about how they have treated us. It's more about how we have treated them. If they have taken us for granted, it's because we granted them the right to make free with us.
With that kind of freedom, power often goes to the head. Caligula had built a floating bordello where the wives of Roman senators were forced into prostitution to fill his treasury. He even made claims to imaginary military expedition to England, while all that time his soldiers gathered shells on seashores as trophies. When he returned to Rome, a terrified senate granted him all kinds of honours for that fictitious campaign.
Historians believe that Caligula through his eccentric behaviour was affronting his people. He was provoking them to react against him. Tired of being worshipped by his people, he challenged them in the subconscious hope to be challenged by them.
Could it be that our politician duo was also prodded by that subliminal conscience? Could it be that they also wanted us to react against them, and challenge them against their challenges? They might have made those false entries in their nomination forms to see how far we could suffer them.
Ideally, the parties should have disowned these politicians. Since that isn't the case, people need to come forward and clean up the mess created by them. Whether the parliament or the Election Commission takes the initiatives, nothing will happen until people have raised their voice.
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