A nation of pretenders

My dear Billy, According to a current local myth, God had created Mauritius first and then proceeded to build Paradise as an exact replica.

I have often wondered whether, while creating man to His image, God wasn’t merely pretending. Because, frankly it is hard to believe that God’s image could be the original of the carbon copy of the two-legged animals around us today. If that’s God’s true image, then He must be a very sad spectacle indeed and we are very sorry for Him.

However, it could also be that God was getting bored at a certain point in time and wanted to have some fun. So He got the bright idea of creating mankind so that He might have a good laugh, and He has been laughing ever since. Then we should probably chide God for giving humans the countenance He did. But probably you pointed it right my dear Billy, when you said five centuries ago:  “God hath given you one face, you make yourselves another.”

Because, judging from the faces that we encounter every day, it is difficult to  accept that it is God who made them with His own two hands (or does He have more?) And this does not apply exclusively to the physical features. People today are driven by a deep desire of showing what they are not, of undertaking what they are not made for. They give themselves airs of importance but only succeed in exhibiting credentials of impotence. 

You often come across such people in board and committee meetings, giving their views on anything and everything, commenting, questioning, criticizing their betters, behaving like experts in matters about which they don’t possess the least knowledge or understanding. In short, they make a lot of noise and fury signifying nothing. They are so engrossed in their desire of appearing clever, my dear Billy, that they end up fooling themselves into believing that they really are paragons of excellence.

As a general rule, people who flagrantly pretend to anything are the opposite of that which they pretend to. “A man who sets up for a saint,” says19th century English novelist George Bulwer-Lytton,” is sure to be a sinner, and a man who boasts that  he is a sinner is sure to have some feeble, maudlin, sniveling bit of saintship about him which is enough to make him a humbug.” A nation of humbugs, that’s what we have turned ourselves into, my dear Billy.

A society of impostors, cheats, pretenders, bluffers. Truth seems to be a very valuable commodity here, that’s why people are so economical about it. You can always tell when some people are lying – their lips move. There are others who have too much respect for the truth to drag it out on every trifling occasion.

Those who swear to “tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth” limit themselves to swearing.  The rest of the blabber may be an abomination unto the Lord, but a handy help in times of trouble. It is interesting to note that lawyers are not required to swear anything, when the injunction should start with them. A well-known local politician of the last century had it inscribed on his own epitaph that he was not dead, but that he was only pretending. It is interesting to note, my dear Billy, how many of us are pretending to be alive. We don’t realize that we gave up the right to live long ago.

Look busy but don’t work is a popular philosophy and principle adopted by many people in Mauritius and elsewhere, especially among office workers. You will see them opening and closing files; broodingly sitting in front of the computer, fingering keys, tickling the mouse, but doing nothing particular; walking in the corridor, putting on airs that ill become them.

In the past, officers used to leave their jackets suspended to the back of their seats, pretending to be in the office, when they were doing their own private things miles away.

The political world is replete with pretenders. Governments all over Africa and elsewhere pretend to be governing, while all they are mostly engaged in is to look after their own welfare and wellbeing and that of their close ones. Members of the opposition pretend to be fighting for the cause of the people when they are almost always engaged in sheer demagogy. Students pretend to be studying at school. Many coerce their parents into giving them all sorts of gadgets and huge amounts as pocket money; they need the latest style in clothing, but seldom pay heed to their studies. Instead of going to school, they while away their time in places not generally meant for them.

Quite a number of teachers pretend to be teaching in the classroom. Many do it, many don’t. All is pretence. All is sham. All is make-believe. Leaders are false, followers are stupid. The violence, the hatred, the atrocities that reign in the world today is the result of man’s own pursuit of false values and paths.