Once upon a time, in a land blessed with green hills, long roads, many tongues, and endless promise, there lived a clever hare. The hare was not the strongest animal in the forest, nor the wisest, but it had mastered one thing better than all others: survival through cunning.
The forest had two great tribes. The first was the tribe of politicians. They spoke loudly, smiled widely, and changed colours often. Today they were enemies; tomorrow they were brothers. They quarrelled on podiums by day and dined together by night.
When danger approached, they formed coalitions not for the forest, but for themselves. When laws were written, they were written softly and carefully, ensuring the hare and its friends were always protected. When salaries were discussed, party flags were folded away, and unity was suddenly discovered.
The hare thrived among them. It whispered strategy into their ears. It taught them how to divide the forest into camps, how to distract the animals with songs of identity while quietly sharing the harvest among themselves.
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The second was the Tribe of Citizens. This tribe was large, colourful, and tired. They spoke many languages, lived in many corners of the forest, and woke early every morning to carry the land’s burden. They were taxed whether they spoke this language or that.
They queued in hospitals, whether they came from the hills, the lakes, the coast, or the dry plains, only to be told there were no medicines. They searched for jobs that did not exist, paid more for food that grew smaller each day, and lived with the fear of insecurity, corruption, and broken promises.
When roads collapsed, it did not ask which tribe you belonged to. When floods came, it did not check your surname. When hospitals lacked doctors, it did not discriminate by accent. Injustice, it turned out, was very fair.
Yet the hare was clever.
It taught the tribe of politicians a dangerous trick: “Convince the citizens that their neighbour is the enemy,” the hare said. “Tell them their poverty comes from another language, another name, another region. While they argue, you feast.”
And so the citizens were taught to hate their own reflection, just spoken differently. Diversity was presented as a threat rather than a gift. Difference became danger. Suspicion replaced solidarity.
And then there was the missing 40. No one could quite agree on what it was. Some said it was the 40 per cent of citizens who never benefit from growth, only from slogans. Others said it was the 40 per cent of national energy wasted on politics instead of progress.
Still others said it was the 40 per cent of voices, especially the young, the poor, and the unheard, locked out of decisions that shape their lives. Whatever it was, it was missing from every table where power sat.
And so one must ask: Who benefits when citizens fight each other? Why is unity suddenly possible when salaries are discussed, yet impossible when hospitals are funded? How is it that leadership is seasonal, while suffering is permanent? And who taught us to fear diversity when the forest itself thrives because no two trees are the same?
Imagine, for a moment, if the whole world looked like you. Spoke like you. Thought like you. Would it not be unbearably boring? Would it grow, innovate, or heal?
The tragedy of the forest was not that it had many tribes. It was the clever hare that convinced one tribe to forget they were many, and another to forget they were one.
Perhaps the story is not yet over.
Perhaps the missing 40 can still be found. Perhaps the citizens will one day see the hare for what it is. And perhaps the greatest trick the hare ever played was convincing the forest that it had no choice.
After all, in every tale, the ending changes when the listeners finally understand the story.
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By Kirimi Barine