Saturday, May 16, 2009

Today in history

This story starts not so many years ago.. Perhaps a few decades only. Ofcourse this is not the story of a civilization. To write the story of a civilization, in my flawed opinion, takes much less words.. less banal and much lesser time.

In a land far far away from my current residence, there was a big factory. It had seen all stages of growth, so to say in academic terms, enjoyed economics of scale. The factory was employer to quite a many employees. Don’t ask me how many but I've heard my grandfather say, there were so many workers that ... I will come back to this anecdote some other time.

Though there was development, there was money, what was lacking was happiness. Independence and freedom was no one had heard of. The tyrannical owner of the factory did not allow a single soul to exercise free will. Quite depressing, aint it?

Well the human race has been blessed with dreams and desires. It’s a curse at the same time, but in our story, right here, this feature appears to be a blessing.

The dream and desire to be free, to cut this story short, lead to a revolt against the authoritarian rule of the factory management. There were quite a few those who lead the worker's union. In the end the workers tasted success and became the owners of the factory.

When I say workers became owners, imagine... many many workers. Imagine a whole city becoming the owner of a factory ... or even a whole nation.. small nation, big nation becoming the owner of factory.

Quite obviously the factory needed vision and mission and goal and all sort of corporate features. I was unanimously decided that the leaders of the workers union who had dedicated their lives, since youth or since old age will form the management of the factory.

The first management of the factory was formed. A token of respect, a token of appreciation to those union leaders who had spent the full or half lives to the cause of their own unions. One generation passed by...

The General Manager of our factory was the apple of the eyes of the union. He was a poster boy, loved by all... and he deserved to head the management the way he was doing. What he did not deserve was to die the way he did. I am not quite sure how he died, but some say, that he did not die a good death.

The factory under our observation was a headless chicken. What lead it to this head less state was the death of its head. But this was quite surprising. In the older days of the rebellion, the management had decided to appoint this one gentleman as the leader, but no had had been pathetically depended on him. This was the case now. With the general manager gone, people who went crazy looking for the next boss. Why?

Because right after the workers union appoint the management, the new managers found themselves equipped with positions of power. Once wild oppressed, who would not abuse this power? Right under the nose of our now dead general manager, they started abusing power. They started accepting bribes to recruit new members of management, they started taking bribes to protect those who thought they were above the writ of law...

Our long dead president, may he find his underserved place in heaven, was quite aware of this. He was also aware of the fact that the very people who were close to him were sycophants...

Sycophants... were one of the first words the son of our now dead GM had learnt. And it was one of the very first factors that worked towards him ... These very insecure sycophants, without a leader, appointed the son of our long dead GM as their next leader.

And so our story starts. A story of sons and demons.. A story where sons become the next leader of a publicly held factory.

There came a time when a sub union was formed. This sub union utilized the weakness of a faction of the workers union to find their voice rise to prominence. Their voice was heard. They promised no corruption; they promised new leadership, they promised change.

However, the marketing and external communications department... and all the departments of the factory were virtually controlled by the sons of sons. Sunnnovason as you might call them.

So, the Sunnovasons tried their very best to curtail the anti corrupt group of the union. If this group came to power, the very existence of the factory 'owners' would be at stake. And this was truly in sync with what the departments wanted ...

Look at the HR department of our factory.. If the new trade unions came into picture, they would stop all the bribing that was a practice to recruit more members to the management! More corrupt members!... More money!

The marketing department also made sure, that no one, no one with anti corruption as agenda becomes the head of the management. So they started the practice of libelling the new group, as ...well what can they think of at this very moment... yeah, anti peace! So they started labelling or libelling them as anti peace.

This practise continued year after year, when the AGM was being held.. Annual general meeting. To elect the new management.

It turned out that year after year, the Sunnovasons got selected to the management, and kept up the tradition of sucking the worker of their money, ripping off the money from the already poor to stash if up their own lockers..

All the other departments, all machinery of the factory tried their best to keep the new group of radicals out of power by labelling them anti peace and anti what not. This worked in their interest and this worked very well in the interest of everyone but the workers of the factory.

This is what happened today.

This story starts not so many years ago.. Perhaps a few decades only. Ofcourse this is not the story of a civilization. To write the story of a civilization, in my flawed opinion, takes much less words.. less banal and much lesser time.

In a land far far away from my current residence, there was a big factory. It had seen all stages of growth, so to say in academic terms, enjoyed economics of scale. The factory was employer to quite a many employees. Don’t ask me how many but I've heard my grandfather say, there were so many workers that ... I will come back to this anecdote some other time.

Though there was development, there was money, what was lacking was happiness. Independence and freedom was no one had heard of. The tyrannical owner of the factory did not allow a single soul to exercise free will. Quite depressing, aint it?

Well the human race has been blessed with dreams and desires. It’s a curse at the same time, but in our story, right here, this feature appears to be a blessing.

The dream and desire to be free, to cut this story short, lead to a revolt against the authoritarian rule of the factory management. There were quite a few those who lead the worker's union. In the end the workers tasted success and became the owners of the factory.

When I say workers became owners, imagine... many many workers. Imagine a whole city becoming the owner of a factory ... or even a whole nation.. small nation, big nation becoming the owner of factory.

Quite obviously the factory needed vision and mission and goal and all sort of corporate features. I was unanimously decided that the leaders of the workers union who had dedicated their lives, since youth or since old age will form the management of the factory.

The first management of the factory was formed. A token of respect, a token of appreciation to those union leaders who had spent the full or half lives to the cause of their own unions. One generation passed by...

The General Manager of our factory was the apple of the eyes of the union. He was a poster boy, loved by all... and he deserved to head the management the way he was doing. What he did not deserve was to die the way he did. I am not quite sure how he died, but some say, that he did not die a good death.

The factory under our observation was a headless chicken. What lead it to this head less state was the death of its head. But this was quite surprising. In the older days of the rebellion, the management had decided to appoint this one gentleman as the leader, but no had had been pathetically depended on him. This was the case now. With the general manager gone, people who went crazy looking for the next boss. Why?

Because right after the workers union appoint the management, the new managers found themselves equipped with positions of power. Once wild oppressed, who would not abuse this power? Right under the nose of our now dead general manager, they started abusing power. They started accepting bribes to recruit new members of management, they started taking bribes to protect those who thought they were above the writ of law...

Our long dead president, may he find his underserved place in heaven, was quite aware of this. He was also aware of the fact that the very people who were close to him were sycophants...

Sycophants... were one of the first words the son of our now dead GM had learnt. And it was one of the very first factors that worked towards him ... These very insecure sycophants, without a leader, appointed the son of our long dead GM as their next leader.

And so our story starts. A story of sons and demons.. A story where sons become the next leader of a publicly held factory.

There came a time when a sub union was formed. This sub union utilized the weakness of a faction of the workers union to find their voice rise to prominence. Their voice was heard. They promised no corruption; they promised new leadership, they promised change.

However, the marketing and external communications department... and all the departments of the factory were virtually controlled by the sons of sons. Sunnnovason as you might call them.

So, the Sunnovasons tried their very best to curtail the anti corrupt group of the union. If this group came to power, the very existence of the factory 'owners' would be at stake. And this was truly in sync with what the departments wanted ...

Look at the HR department of our factory.. If the new trade unions came into picture, they would stop all the bribing that was a practice to recruit more members to the management! More corrupt members!... More money!

The marketing department also made sure, that no one, no one with anti corruption as agenda becomes the head of the management. So they started the practice of libelling the new group, as ...well what can they think of at this very moment... yeah, anti peace! So they started labelling or libelling them as anti peace.

This practise continued year after year, when the AGM was being held.. Annual general meeting. To elect the new management.

It turned out that year after year, the Sunnovasons got selected to the management, and kept up the tradition of sucking the worker of their money, ripping off the money from the already poor to stash if up their own lockers..

All the other departments, all machinery of the factory tried their best to keep the new group of radicals out of power by labelling them anti peace and anti what not. This worked in their interest and this worked very well in the interest of everyone but the workers of the factory.

This is what happened today.