Interested
in rat-watching?
Do skyscrapers exchange knowing glances or raise eyebrows about rats
and embezzlement that live and die in their stomachs?
Skyscrapers are inanimate things, yes. They don’t have eyes, noses,
ears, tongues, hands, hearts or minds. I’ve directed to myself often
this question: ‘what if they did?’ The point is that a lot of things
happen in high places and not all of it is as pretty as the architecture
and the interior d‚cor.
Things smell nice in high places, don’t they? The people are dressed
well, perfumed, groomed and delicate. Impeccable is the word that comes
to mind when one considers the corporate overall, isn’t this true? But
then again, I’ve lived long enough to know that beauty is skin-deep and
appearances deceive, and that what you see is not what you really get.
It all boils down to whether or not one has the money to purchase the
required make-up, perfume, ambience and other frills to cover up a whole
lot of bad-smelling and ugly stuff, doesn’t it? Have you ever wondered
why there are so many stories about pickpockets, illicit brewing of
alcohol, petty thieving and so on in the newspapers and so little about
corporate fraud? I have often wondered if someone has kept count of the
total value of petty crime and compared this with one instance of
white-collar fraud. I would say, off the cuff, that the former would be
negligibly small compared to the latter.
I remember writing about a monumental fraud committed by someone who
was once considered beyond reproach, highly respectable, titled in fact
and a widely seen as a benefactor of and adornment to society. That
piece was killed for a simple and indeed understandable reason:
publishing it would have meant an immediate loss of advertising revenue
from the many companies this individual controlled.
Certain things just don’t get reported. They are ‘unpublishable’,
like four-letter words. Certain things are hushed up, swept under the
carpet hoping that time, the most reliable inflictor of amnesia, will
iron out the humps and make for smooth continuity of business-as-usual.
I
believe that all institutions, villages, cities, countries,
organizations, political parties, parliaments, ministries, corporate
entities and even religious orders have roughly the same proportion of
visionaries and dunderheads, people of integrity and shady characters,
the skilled and unskilled, the honest and the dishonest, the brave and
the cowardly. And I believe this is applicable to buildings too. I don’t
think there is a single building in this world that is free of rats,
free of fraud. And I can’t put it down to ‘coincidence’ that a lot of
these rats go around without having to worry about traps and that most
of them, if they get caught to some cheap and ineffective contraption,
are immediately released, their wounds treated and sent scurrying away
to do whatever they used to do before.
In short there is a system of complicity in place here. There is
inbuilt security for transgressors, an insurance scheme that will get
them through difficult times. This is not to say that every now and then
a rat is caught, skinned alive and hung by its tail for all to see, but
this is mostly for show, what do you think? It is about saying ‘look, we
are not protecting anyone; we can and do catch rats’. And that example
is then transformed into perfume, make-up and ambience so that other
rats can raid the larder at will.
What is really interesting is that it is not just the rats that are
interested in purchasing perfume, make-up and ambience. They may
purchase it, but there are lots of other creatures who are willing to
apply these odour-effacing things; just by looking the other way, just
being silent.
I am not sure what skyscrapers tell one another or if they really see
things and wonder. I would be thrilled if a lot of people exchanged
knowing glances and raised eyebrows and more than this, had the gumption
to call a rat a rat, to set up traps etc (no offence to the rodent, by
the way). But do we do this and if we do, do we think
‘self-preservation’ first? Do we play safe? Do we calculate the
‘practicalities’ and the costs of rat-hunting? We do, don’t we? Isn’t
this why we leave it to buildings to listen to secrets and are quite
happy that the listeners never go public with the knowledge thus
acquired? Isn’t it true that we would rather have one rat squeal
(squeak?) on another than dirty our fingers by engaging in rat-hunting?
In a different world, we would call a spade a spade. We would not
only call a rat a rat, we will fault anyone for calling a rat a squirrel
or some other cute and furry creature. We blame politicians, envy the
rich, play the victim, whine, pick the easy quarrel and say ‘pass’ when
we are given the option of fighting the good fight, of cleaning up that
which is emanating poisonous gases, don’t we? I have noted this but
sometimes I think those who look the other way somehow belong to a
species that is inferior to the rodent family.
We are not born without heart and mind. We are not born to be
cowards. Inside everyone there is a hero, a remarkable character that
sadly is born, lives and dies without ever doing anything worthwhile. We
just leave it to the skyscrapers because what they do or don’t do does
not change anything. We abdicate in favour of the irrelevant. We deny,
then, our right to live in a rat-free society. We stew in our own juice,
therefore. What a species we are, aren’t we? I mean, ‘worse than rats’
is pretty low in the evolution chart, isn’t it? Perhaps we should ask
ourselves whether that’s where natural selection has taken us and
whether that’s where we shall always be.
Maybe we should tear down the skyscrapers if only to divest ourselves
of the option of deferring the should-be-done to things that will not do
it. Too obscure? Perhaps. Let me put it this way then: there’s a thing
called rat fever and if you are not careful it will kill you.
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