There was a land at the edge of the fabled city of gold where basa basa chiefs would wave huge wands, rallying tribes and enticing them with promises of prosperity and great things to come. The wands, sprinkled with gold dust, a kind of illusory currency, made the tribes hopeful for a bright and prosperous future. For generations, they remained loyal to their chiefs, never giving up hope that every new day would be more promising in the beautiful land where every five years, the chiefs covenanted with the people to work with them and make the precious land safe, healthy, and thriving. The sowers among them were sceptical but continued to sow.
The tribes figured that life would be easier if the chiefs delivered on promises of regular water supplies, less crime, and paths to tread without breaking their ankles on cracked-up pavements or vehicles’ axles in craters and on zug-up roads. They didn’t care too much about fancy stadia, big airports, or grand highways. All they wanted was environmentally friendly, well-managed schools, clean towns and villages, safe children’s playgrounds and living spaces, and jobs.
Mind you, they were challenging to govern and given to waywardness from as far back as olden times when they’d arrived from different shores. Some say they were undisciplined tribes, prone to mamagism.
To win their hearts and minds, the chieftains would sprinkle lots of gold dust and even distribute gold nuggets—the fruits of the sowers’ labours. The people grew accustomed to the free fool’s gold—an investment that only yielded entitlement, discouraging individual enterprise and honest labour. Over time, it impoverished the land. Nevertheless, the enterprising sowers continued to labour in the fields.
Not all people had access to livelihoods. They couldn’t access sustainable sources of real gold, like education. It didn’t take much to make the tribes feel happy, for they were a naturally joyful, carefree people, revelling in their glorious cultural traditions—the soulful tempo of tassa drums and the scintillating rhythms of the steelpan. There were sowers and harvesters of fields that yielded abundant fruit. There were many harvesters who sowed nothing, the fixers, con artistes, smugglers, dreaded tribal bad johns who ruled fiefdoms, the unguarded guards, the corrupt ones causing much badderation, the intelligentsia and academics, zealots, but mostly good people. The sowers paid for all.
In the wonderland, everybody loved the magic wands the chiefs waved across the lush green mountains and hills that no mortal could have created. But many had long understood the dangers of the gold dust seeping through every crevice of the society, including the gangs. Predictably, it covered the land when the massive clock in the people’s square struck 5.
As time passed, the sources of gold dust began to disappear. The sowers became more disenchanted, not believing the warring chiefs could turn back the tide and stop it from hitting the land like a tsunami. They saw the paucity of sowing skills within the chiefdoms’ hierarchies and began to lose confidence and hope. The tribal masses awakened to the shallow promises and the stifling effects of gold dust. They, too, lost faith but decided they would take as much as they could get, then diss the chieftains in the fullness of time.
Meantime, the quality of life deteriorated in the lush land of lawlessness, well nurtured by chiefdoms. As new chiefs emerged, the people made their play; after all, they were masters of mamagism. They were ready to try something new—lest they end up scraping bun bun from the sowers’ pots to survive. The spell of the glistening wands had long been broken, but the chiefs hadn’t noticed, for they were blinded by the gold dust corking up the land, and they carried on with the same old strategies to win hearts and minds. The sowers continued to sow.
The town criers had been warning chief after chief about wasteful paternalism, rising crime, and ten-day wonders, predicting that the younger generations would want real gold and would carve new paths. So, the tribes no longer trusted promises in the land of many wonders.
The sowers reflected on their stolen harvests—a kind of state larceny by way of taxes on taxes, according to the legendary Papa Bois. The sowers began to expand their enterprises, spinning authentic local gold in faraway lands, investing in dwelling places, and positioning themselves for flight. Meanwhile, they continue to sow.