A long time ago, a nation was conceived on the notion that conflict and contrasting ideas can be quelled by picking a singular method and denying every other thinking dialogue, presence and dignity. This singular method espoused by a moderate aristocracy was designed to keep that moderate aristocracy in power indefinitely.

A fool in the crowd shouted that without ideologies and only having singularity, the nation would be like an emperor without clothes. The 'fool' was then shoved into a bottomless pit for he did not know what he was talking about. Anyone who spoke contrary to the singular method made possible by the wisdom of dogma was wrong.

Using the socio-economic realities of the inception years and thereafter, they micro-managed the spirit and intellect of the people, and made them forget about that 'fool', any 'fool' or even the word 'fool'.

People - the state agencies surmised on what they thought was written on their foreheads - were happy to let others decide for them. Therefore following this wonder of empirical research, they went about their task arduously to achieve this goal.

'Someone' mused that if we have to work hard to ensure the people are the way we want them to be, ergo lacking the desire for personal autonomy, then they must have been different before we begun to manipulate their minds.

In summary, in the past, people might actually have liked to decide their fates when given the choice, and those who do not know what was 'choice' were introduced to it.

This 'someone', along with a few others who looked and smelt like 'someone', were thrown into the same pit. 'Fool' said hello to the new occupants.

Having kept to their first principle of zero tolerance to opposing ideas, the state agencies went about their tasks again.

And reason was given an expiry date.

This included inane TV programming, blatant news spinning, cycles of planned paranoia, ultra-nationalist chest-thumping, learning replaced by dogma in classrooms and constant reminders blared to the body politic.

The nation in the shape it emerged was not all wrong, they got some things right. The problem however was that all the tough questions were just ignored or lambasted as unnecessary. The 'critical' who were incessant in the asking were placed in confinement for their own good too, or thrown in the pit for permanent good.

What was a nation of ignorant, poor and uncultured people (from the view of the moderate aristocracy), became a nation of home and car owners, with little ATM cards slit into the left side of their wallets. Which the citizens were expected to remember gratefully, aided by some of the scariest (in a funny way) patriotic songs written by man.

Administrators kept programming the TV and regulated an ally satellite operator, but they could not keep Baywatch, Ally McBeal and HBO out.

They spun the tales still, but people were now reading from their computer information that slipped through the phone lines owned by a friendly state teleco. Information apparently was no more the monopoly of a man who lived by a large man-made lake.

Paranoia could still be had with great gumption, as ads and social programmes were prone to make the inhabitants afraid of everything in the world, including their own shadows. Apparently, only the moderate aristocrats could be trusted till replaced by their children, as quality only runs in a bloodstream. Sometimes they recruit by way of marriage.

The ultra-nationalists started to get agitated. The world was not turning on them, but somehow it was threatening to get too clever for them. If there is no hate, what will become of them? So they beat their drums, not much harder than their leaders before.

However the response was not the usual retreat of liberals, integrationists and moral philosophers. The peasants' children were willing to stand-up and be counted. Expounding the rationale that real nation- building lies in reason-based ideas and not in self-righteousness. And that altering the status quo may not be the worst thing possible.

The ultra-nationalist became aghast.

But gladness returned to their wrathful eyes when they remembered that they still had all the children in their grasp, theirs included. The children are indeed docile, actually too docile. They could not spell 'reason' or 'love' in their vernacular, national or the dastardly MTV language.

Good obedient workers they were, but all the worker ant jobs were going to workers abroad that wore cheaper jeans. It seems the new revolution is going to emphasise on the brain factor, and this is reliant on independent thinking, which is a taboo in this great land.

The land is great because its people are free. Its people are free because there is freedom. There is freedom because there is freedom to act. There is freedom to act because the land is great. And everyone was told to celebrate this great truth.

And the worker ants in training together with the experienced worker ants thronged to great stadiums constructed for the purposes of rallies like this. Great sermons were delivered by the moderate aristocrats with focus on the fear of all things foreign and new and the need to want things as they always have been. They also took the opportunity to denounce any dissenters.

Other lands tell these people that having a siege mentality is debilitating, but the leaders warn the good people that these foreign leaders are only interested in the fall of the great land and therefore conspire with our dissenters.

There are those that are optimistic in this land, that things will change now that there are liberals, integrationists and moral philosophers who will challenge and change things. But the dark clouds do not desist from spoiling the day.

They are affected by the poisoned chalice. Their nurture has made them argue about paternalism, factionalism and antagonism using the same false dialectic, of 'us' and 'them'. They forget that the 'us' and 'them' are the fundamental tools of the moderate aristocrats, to dispel a future without them.

That hope for further manipulation is in forcing the differences even more using the learning all have gained. That education tells us that those that are different must stay apart.

A child yelps in the crowd, and collapses and lays still. The doctor examining says the child was dead even before she stopped breathing. Then her soul spoke and not her.

And it announced that: 'If those who are different must oppose each other, then there is no place for the child in this village. That if we are intent on being preoccupied with being different, she the child who knows no difference would be unloved, and if difference means more than anything, then her passing would just be an unpleasant footnote beside an agenda of hate. I

I'f people with bigger words than she has ever seen tell her that hate is supreme and those that make them spew this ugliness are above scrutiny, what can she a child do but die?"

And so in the hole, the 'fool', the 'someones' and the 'critical' sat. Sitting, waiting for the madness to pass.