Bell and the cat - a fairy tale for our times

 

 I prefer the Malay translation of this tale, “Loceng Dan Kucing”. It has rhyme, rhythm and a nice ring to it.

It may also encourage a professor or two to claim this tale originated in our part of the world. If priests and kungfu masters can fly in the face of reason, why not cats and bells, I say.

However, why talk of cats when the country is worried sick about yet another sacred cow? Here is a little-known fact: long before cows became sacred, long before MACC began acting like an apex predator, cats were revered. Killing a cat in Pharaonic Egypt could cost you your life.

More importantly, cats have left us with this all-important question: Who will bell the cat? It is another way of asking, who will put limits on those who exercise power in our name? And what will stop them from abusing this power?

Yes, limits must be placed but imposing them is a different matter altogether.

This question was first raised in the tale of “The Bell and the Cat” from Aesop’s Fables, which also goes by the name “The Council of Mice”.

In this tale, the rodents in a rich man’s mansion live in abject terror of a household cat, fearing its claws more than its bite.

It silently prowled the mansion at night, making it impossible for the mice to steal and forage for food from the master’s kitchen.

The rats grew thinner and thinner even as the cat grew strangely fatter and fatter, which I suspect is how we got the phrase “fat cat”.

‘The council meets’

Driven to despair, the mice decide to form a council to deal with this cat. By the way, a council, whether made up of men or mice, is referred to as a cabinet which nicely takes this tale into the present while also providing some political context.

We must also take note that in this part of the world, rats proliferate, not mice. And so, we will replace mice with rats, whether they be political or pestilential. Besides, rats are bigger than mice and are also less picky eaters if you know what I mean.

The council met in the dead of the night. Various suggestions were made and discussed at length. Not all of these were properly recorded, forcing me to fill in the gaps. It included winning the cat over by bribing it with food laid out in places it loved to curl up and sleep.

It was well past midnight when a particularly beady-eyed rat with a shaggy coat spoke at length about poisoning the cat by pissing into its drinking bowl.

“It will die a slow and painful death from a disease with a very long name”, muttered the rat with a knowing look on its face.

The other rats were not keen on this suggestion, having suffered a long history of poisoning and persecution. “And how sure are we that the replacement cat will not be more obnoxious and nastier than this one”, asked a studious-looking rat.

The night was at its darkest when a brash young rat suggested they bell the cat, alerting them to both its presence and its approach.

Initially, the rats thought it was a brilliant idea. Then an old rat spoke these words in a voice quivering with fear: “But who among us will carry out this suicide mission?”

The council fell silent. A scholarly-looking rat with whiskers that scraped the floor turned to the old rat saying: “The issue is not death. Your suggestion will condemn our species to forever suffer from the fear of hearing the sound of ringing bells. Even those rang in joy. Enough of fear!”

Question went unanswered

In the tale, the question of who will bell the cat is left unanswered. But fortunately, we have a rich collection of “cat” idioms to arrive at our own conclusions - like “kucing bertanduk”. Literally, a cat with horns. It’s a sly shorthand for both the impossible and the improbable. How can a cat ever have horns?

Or will our government ever become clean when we are corrupt to the core? Or take the equally delightful “malu-malu kucing” (shy cat). It means pretending not to want something when you actually want it badly. Like quickly pocketing a nice fat bribe while politely insisting it is not required at all.

As to the fate of the rats, their behaviour provides us with even more clues. Rats the world over are known to leave a sinking ship well before the captain issues orders to abandon ship.

Hence the phrase, “like rats leaving a sinking ship”. Expect more dissent, if not rebellion among the ranks in the coming days.

However, one thing is clear. All that talk and sloganeering about reformation was nothing more than an empty promise. A godsend opportunity to clean up our act has been thrown away by the current leadership.

Instead of revival and a new dynamism, we are slowly and steadily entering the garbage time of history.

Or as former Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky famously said of his political rivals: “Go where you belong from now on - into the dustbin of history”. - Mkini

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MURALE PILLAI is a former GLC employee. He runs a logistics company.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.