Suggestions from the State : A Story

The whereabouts of our previous prime minister are still unknown. He, they say, has gone into hiding. His followers are scattered, and those who remain close to him still tout his greatness. The decades it took for this generation to rise up have been informative as to why the revolution happened—and why, within forty-eight hours, a standing democracy was thrown into crisis and restored just as quickly. The damage is done, the blow is dealt, and the result came as swiftly as this generation expected. By the standards of years that other nations go through to topple a government, ours was minute-made—sort of like the short videos we get on our mobile phones. Those videos and their instant dopamine hit can be metaphorized here by the quickness with which an entire government was toppled. This is a story, mind you.

I, too, know some parts of my nation’s history. I, too, after all, was born here. What covered my childhood—or rather, the most traumatic parts of it—were bloodsheds all around the nation. That was done to overthrow a monarchy: kings of blood descent rather than hard-won rights and merit. It was sad—not the overthrow, but the bloodshed carried out by opposing sides in the name of freedom and the right to rule. The result? The monarch received a standing ovation for kicking his bloody throne and is still honored by many. I guess we are easy to forgive and forget.

The then-upcoming government was to be fully democratic, given that the people who had done away with the monarch gained the power they so desired. And it was the power to rule that they desired—nothing else. The government, as all governments do, came in different forms: sometimes the centrists took the rule, sometimes the communists won out, and at other times, individuals who fought the system rose to prominence. To discuss their inner workings and outward displays, I would need to be a historian or a person in the know. I am not that.

But I can tell you, my dear reader, how it felt to live through all of this. I was too young to understand the reasons, but old enough to feel the tremor of it all—the fear in the eyes of adults, the whispers that filled the streets, the flags waving under a sky that smelled of smoke and dust. A childhood marred and traumatized by bloodshed between citizens of the same nation, I came of age in what they called a model democracy.

Education was a must, for it promised a time when degrees would determine your destiny. As I entered the higher education race—and a race it was—most of my friends flew abroad for better degrees, of course, and most of my uncles left for better jobs. “What more can you ask of a global world?” they said. And the situation here at home? Joblessness. Education-lessness, as the educators too flew off in search of better students and better salaries.

The result, you ask? Future-lessness. Already, the stage was set by our minute-mindedness. I say that because my generation demands that things happen—and happen now. We live in an ever-present world. Nothing of the past, nothing to await in the future. Then, after carrying the stewardship of the nation for almost thirty years, the very people who overthrew the monarchs lived like kings. Their children—princes and princesses—wanted ever more to expand their political empires through business. And what better business than education, health, and foreign employment agencies in a nation where education tops the list, where the population is unhealthy due to decades of mismanaged infrastructure?

“If you stay here, you will work for us, not the other way around. And if you want to go away, you’d better be ready to pay us a hefty sum for your so-called freedom.” Now it seems the message was clear from the very start: we want to rule, and you must volunteer to be ruled by the
options we hand over to you.

The tri-lateral parties that controlled the state after the people’s movement shared the chair of power as they wished. Then came the next generation—Gen Z, to be certain—that saw through the scam, the deceit laid on by years of complacency. It all came crashing down yet again, due to bloodshed led by the state. The state showed us that bloodshed demands revolution—and that revolution, now, would be acted upon the very state that had once suggested oppression should be met with force. That same force ultimately overthrew the rulers who had once touted their victory over the bloodshed of many thousands, decades ago.

There is despair in the state of affairs we find ourselves in—the ruins of decades of mismanagement handed over to the next generation. We, as many say, do not start from zero but from a negative position. Yet there is, however, hope too—for a new bud has grown out of the seed that was dejected and cast aside by the powers that be.

Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937, oil on canvas, 349 cm × 776 cm. (Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid)