The Good Prince
Saldhana, Cape West Coast, South Africa
It’s warm. I’ve not had occasion to use those words for months now and just saying them quietly to myself feels like the confession of a guilt ridden sinner. Which is not any stretch of the imagination for me; it’s just that I’m afraid to say it out loud in case I jinx it and the wind returns and I have to crawl back indoors to avoid being swept off into the choppy Atlantic. The warmth couldn’t care less though and it continues to heat up as I make my way out to engage with the handful of humans I encounter on a regular day. Being locals, they don’t say a word about the heat although I notice everyone is in short sleeves and there’s a lot more skin on display than I have ever seen in the months of being in this windswept west coast village of the holy land.
Not all the skin is visually appealing though and I retreat to my usual corner to plug myself into the Matrix and get on with the Kung-Fu fighting inside the belly of the beast necessary to sustain oneself in the frugal manner one has become accustomed to. It’s hard work this plugging into and making headway in the stormy waters of present day global and holy land social culture. Hate as the Good Prince said a while back, has been mainstreamed in the holy land, amongst our neighbours and pretty much all over the world. I have considered that just because I added the link to the words of the Good Prince, it does not mean that you, dear reader, are likely to click on the link and read his words.
I am reminded that we got this warning six years ago already and still I would hazard a guess that less than a single digit percentage of the present crop of NGO leaders, self-styled activists, overstyled analysts, and in-desperate-need-of-some-style revolutionaries have read these words. Even less would have digested them. Now imagine how few actual functioning humans in the world are able to connect these words from June 2016 to their present day local dramas, traumas and the unalloyed hate spewing from the mouths of our politicians and leaders. Are they connecting the dots between the ever growing hate mongering happening inside their closed off circles of social engagement and the paid media that has overgrown much of what was once plain news? Not likely and even you my dearest handful of mindful and faithful readers are equally unlikely to have read the words the Good Prince put out there way back in 2016, when we were all still so cute.
So let me remind myself as much as I remind you of the tale the Good Prince shared with the kings and viziers and court jesters in the fabled city state of New York on a warm day in June 2016. June, 13th is a significant date in history for us here in the South; it was the day white supremacy was literally legislated in the holy land. In 1950, which is a long long time ago in story telling time, the holy land (aka South Africa) implemented the Group Areas Act. “The law assigned geographically separate residential and business areas for different racial groups, forcing non-whites from the most developed areas. It was a major pillar of the apartheid system of racial segregation and oppression;” according to a quick web search using something other than Google.
If you keep searching you’ll find 13 June is loaded with historic bias. Julia Roberts was born on that date and it’s also the date the Statue of Liberty (just a short hop away from where the Good Prince was telling his tale to the assembled court) was dedicated by the U.S. President Grover Cleveland, although that was in 1886, a little bit before dear Julia was born. Staying in the US, it’s also the wedding date of Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps and Miss California Nicole Johnson. It’s okay to hum Miss California at this point even if the song on top of the US charts was Drake’s One Dance.
13 June is also remembered for being the date Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev averted a global nuclear war by acceding to demands from Marilyn Monroe’s lover to get Russian ICBMs off the nearby island. In this way Monroe’s lover became famous for winning what is now known as the Cuban missile crisis (although many still refer to the incident as the Bay of Pigs Fiasco). Staying with Cuba, June is significant to the island as it is the month when white supremacy uber-agent Christopher Columbus sighted Cuba, claimed it and renamed it Juana. What a guy!
But back to 13 June 2016, the date the Good Prince stood up before the court of the world and told us his tale. Significantly, it’s also the very day that some very brave (and hopeful) Democratic Party members of US House of Representatives decided to protest; with a ‘moment of silence’ the country’s inadequate response to mass shootings, and demand legislative action on gun control. This followed the Orlando, Florida nightclub shooting in the early hours of the same morning where 49 people had been killed. It might be that the mass shooting in the early hours of the morning had an effect on the news of the day and pushed the tale being told by the Good Prince down editors priority list.
The Good Prince said much but let me try to share here a summary of the key points he made to the assembled heads (and shoulders) of the 193 tribes that form this most august uber global body for all. He said: ‘Hate is becoming mainstreamed. Walls — which tormented previous generations, and have never yielded any sustainable solution to any problem — are returning. Barriers of suspicion are rising, snaking through and between our societies — and they are killers.’
The Good prince who was officially know at that time by the title of High Commissioner for Human Rights, and known to many regular humans as Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein went on to say: “Judicial institutions which act as checks on executive power are being dismantled. Towering inequalities are hollowing out the sense that there are common goods. These trends bleed nations of their innate resilience. They do not make them safe: they make them weaker. Piece by piece, these mutually reinforcing trends are shearing off the protections that maintain respect, enable development, and provide the only fragile basis for world peace. They are attacks on sanity. And they can be reversed.”
The Good Prince didn’t just tell a tale of woe, he went on to remind the assembled kings and viziers how to get back to the land of milk and honey for all. In the remaining part of the tale the Good Prince told this august assembly of the world: “We are 7.4 billion human beings clinging to a small and fragile planet. And there is really only one way to ensure a good and sustainable future: ensure respect, resolve disputes, construct institutions that are sound and fair and share resources and opportunities equitably.”
But it is likely that his very insistence that it was possible for all nations and the entire mass of humanity itself to co-exist (mostly) peacefully with each other and within the natural planetary boundaries is what caused the kings and viziers present to nod off while he spoke. This is not what they were here for. Even kids know that there has to be rich people for poor people to exist, otherwise what would the poor do if they did not have to beg the rich for underpaid work? That the very idea we are all equal is abhorrent to the descendants of Christopher Columbus as much as the idea is repugnant to descendants of Jan van Riebeeck in the holy land. It’s like expecting the children and grandchildren of Joseph Goebbels (also a June baby) to be going over to the local synagogue to offer donations and do volunteer work.
It’s not really their thing you see. They have their own ideas about how the world works, their place in it and how to keep their place in it. The Good Prince, while his tale was engaging in that it was full of details of the woes and ways hate was being mainstreamed politically across the world, it was after all only a little Good Prince telling a tale. It’s not like they were discussing the important matters of state; it was a micro-version of 1001 Nights and the Good Prince was Scheherazade.
Thankfully for the kings and viziers assembled on 13 June 2016, they only had to indulge the Good Prince for one story and then they were free to pursue the real reasons for being in this fabled island village. To get and do what they could not in their own cities and villages. Still, it’s likely that you, my dear readers, might want to hear and read all that the Good Prince had to say on that day. For his tale has bearing on so much we see going on about us right now. I bid you happy reading, it’s now so warm, I might be tempted to use the word hot and being the good troll I am, I must seek shade and shelter before my brain shuts down completely. Stay cool.
The Good Prince is inspired by the growing hate mongering becoming normalised in the holy land and beyond.
© Jesh Baker, 2022
