Walk Over Me

Don't Walk Over Me

Obedience is underrated in a world that generally privileges and romanticises dissent and rebellion. But it takes either a very ill-advised or a very secure politician to boast that his people/country is unique because nowhere else in the world can a government introduce, without protest, a chewing gum ban and the pegging of civil servants' (hmmm, civil servants and politicians, he means?) salaries to "market rate". In most countries, the electorate will read such a boast more as a taunt than a moment of national pride.

Maybe the Prime Minister said it because he believed it as a statement of fact? And because he is secure in the knowledge that this boast, too, is not likely to meet with any scrutiny, much less protest. More so, because it is a boast the people could share in - a boast about this country's peaceful compliance, unity and faith in the government, our singlemindedness and, of course, our "uniqueness"?

Then I thought about the picture above (a painting based on a photo of J lying on the zebra-crossing on a quiet stretch of road). Although the words on the picture read like a protest, the person's posture/position says otherwise.