by Sachi Sri Kantha, September 8, 2004
In early 1999, I read a humorous syndicated commentary by Gary Borders (then the editor and publisher of the Nacogdoches Daily Sentinel, Texas). It was so thought-provoking for its humor and simplicity, that I put it away safely in my file of notable collections for reference. My last month’s travail traveling to Italy offered me an opportunity to personally experience how ‘democracy’ prevails in five countries; Japan (where I live as a legal resident), Singapore (which shut me out), America (which originated the now-controversial Uncle Sam ‘no fly’ list), Italy (which first embarassed me and then treated me with courtesy) and Sri Lanka (whose passport I hold and remains as the source of my problems).
Thus, I present the syndicated commentary of Gary Borders for its sophisticated appeal. He identified 25 different types of government in the world. Check out what Borders has noted for Singapore democracy, American democracy, Japanese democracy and European federalism. He did not identify the type of government prevailing in Sri Lanka. Since I hold the Sri Lankan passport, I would tick Borders’ listing for either ‘Anarchy’ or ‘Totalitarianism’ as the appropriate choices. Following Borders’ commentary, I provide a sympathetic note I received from a Tamil reader on the prevailing Sri Lankan condition for Tamil travelers, which supports my stance.
First, please enjoy Borders’ humorous take on government, in entirety.
A ‘cowsmic’ view of different types of government
[courtesy, Asahi Evening News, Tokyo, February 6, 1999]
“In the interests of fostering knowledge, I’m passing along a bovine encyclopedia of how the various governmental systems work. A friend sent it to me. Call it a cowsmic view of world organization. Here goes.
Feudalism: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
Pure Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.
Bureaucratic Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and as many eggs as the regulations say you should need.
Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.
Pure Communism: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.
Russian Communism: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.
Dictatorship: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
Singapore Democracy: You have two cows. The government fines you for keeping two unlicensed animals in an apartment.
Militarism: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.
Pure Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.
Representative Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.
American Democracy: The government promises to give you two cows if you vote for it. After the election, the president is impeached for speculating in cow futures. The press dubs the affair ‘Cowgate’.
British Democracy: You have two cows. You feed them sheep’s brains and they go mad. The government doesn’t do anything.
Bureaucracy: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. After that it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.
Anarchy: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors kill you and take the cows.
Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
Hong Kong Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Islands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows’ milk back to the listed company. The annual report says that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Meanwhile, you kill the two cows because the Feng Shui is bad.
Environmentalism: You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.
Feminism: You have two cows. They get married and adopt a veal calf.
Totalitarianism: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.
Political Correctness: You are associated with (the concept of ‘ownership’ is a symbol of the phallocentric, war-mongering, intolerant past) two differently-aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of non-specified gender.
Counter Culture: Wow, dude, there’s like…these two cows, man. You got to have some of this milk. Far out! Awesome!
Surrealism: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.
Japanese Democracy: You have two cows. You give the milk to gangsters so they don’t ask any awkward questions about who you’re giving the milk to.
European Federalism: You have two cows, which cost too much money to care for because everybody is buying milk imported from some cheap east European country and would never pay the fortune you’d have to ask for your cow’s milk. So you apply for financial aid from the European Union to subsidize your cows and are granted enough subsidies. You then sell your milk at the former elevated price to some government-owned distributor, which then dumps your milk onto the market at east-European prices to make Europe competitive. You spend the money you got as a subsidy on two new cows and then go on a demonstration to Brussels, complaining that the European farm policy is going to drive you out of your job.”
A google search informed me that early this year, Gary Borders moved from the Nacogdoches Daily Sentinel to the Lufkin Daily News.
A thought from a Tamil reader
“…In Sri Lanka, whenever we have to pass checkpoints manned by Sri Lankan army or police and the Immigration point at the Katunayake International Airport, we always face a blank situation, on whether we pass that checkpoint/immigration point or end up somewhere else! We face such situations so often, it has become a normal part of our life in Sri Lanka. When we pass a checkpoint without any hinderence, we end up with a kind of ‘euphoria’. Just imagine the things that make us happy!
…Since your episode appeared in the Sangam website, as a concerned Tamil, I will register my feelings to this wretched TSA authority. This incident proves again what type of spurious “intelligence” the Americans are depending on to fight their war against so-called ‘terrorism’…”
Like me, this particular reader lives and works beyond the borders of Sri Lanka, and he travels frequently to the island.