This is my article in the 21 December 2011 edition of the Business Mirror.
FOUR days before Christmas, I thought it might be forgivable to once again depart from the conventional ways of column and wander down the meandering paths that storytellers love the most. I do not so idly either.
Fairy tales and fables, it has been said, are tools that teach young minds how to see and understand the workings of the world. By providing the growing intellect with archetypes cloaked in vivid imagery and presented in unambiguous contexts, these fanciful stories actually create in the youth certain undebatable standards of right and wrong; of what needs to be avoided and what needs to be done. As we grow older, of course, the effectivity of fantastical worlds might diminish, but the power of stories to re-calibrate our moral compasses directly does not.
It is with this kind of reasoning that I approach voter education. As with morality, mere instruction in the principles of voter education is inadequate. Worse, it can even be counter-productive simply because people just don’t like being lectured to. Audiences may adopt an attentive air but I’ve always felt that they do so mostly to be polite. A well-told story, on the other hand, would make us face unvarnished truths about ourselves and compel us to consider what kind of person we want ourselves—as voters—and our leaders to be.
Take, for instance, the story of a young raven who felt such a thirst as it never had before. It flew far and wide but found no water. Finally, as the sun neared the top of the sky, it chanced upon a pitcher with a tall slender neck, standing abandoned by the roadside. Curious—as all ravens are—the bird peered inside and saw that it was half full of water. Elated, the raven stuck its head as far as it would go into the pitcher and found to its dismay that its beak couldn’t quite reach.
Frustrated, the raven flew off squawking and scolding and generally making such a racket that it disturbed the sleep of an elderly owl that lived nearby.
“Hello, Master Corvus!” the owl said, blinking owlishly in the sunlight. “What seems to be the trouble?”
“I’ve been thirsty all morning, Mister Tyto,” the raven screeched. “And when I finally come across some water, I find that I cannot reach it at all!” The owl looked at the pitcher and nodded sagely. “So what do you intend to do now?”
“I will break that thing, and let the water flow for everyone to get at,” the raven raged. “It is not right for us to be denied such water by this…this…pitcher!“ the raven blubbered in anger.
“But, Master Corvus,” the owl said quietly. “If you were to break the pitcher, wouldn’t the water spill to the ground and seep into the dust long before you can get the drink you desperately need?” Before the raven could reply, the owl took wing and silently glided down to where the pitcher was. While the raven looked on in confusion, the owl started kicking around some of the pebbles that littered the roadside.
“It seems to me, Master Corvus, that there is another way to get at the water.” With that, the owl picked up a pebble in its beak and dropped it into the pitcher. “What good will that do?” the raven demanded. “That’s just one pebble!” But the owl picked up another little stone and dropped that into the pitcher. “Yes, by itself it is just one small pebble. But what if we had a lot of them in there? I wonder what that would do.”
The raven—being a very intelligent, if easily frustrated creature—eventually understood what the owl wanted to teach him. Soon, both birds were busy picking up pebbles and dropping them into the pitcher one after the other. Before long, the pebbles at the bottom of the pitcher had pushed the water up to the brim and the raven was finally able to get the drink it wanted. Having drunk its fill, the raven thanked the owl and flew off, leaving the owl muttering under its breath. “Break the pitcher, indeed. Hah!”
Normally, this would end with me decoding the story—the pitcher is the government; the pebbles are votes; the water, governance and on—but you’ve probably already figured that out. So I won’t bother to tell you that the moral of the story is that investing in the government through active engagement, via the vote, is more effective than attempting to break it. Instead, let me just remind you that tomorrow, December 22, is the last voter registration day for 2011. Registration resumes on the 3rd of January 2012. In the meantime, enjoy the holidays and please, think about the raven.