Intro: This is an article that a few of you might remember from a few years ago. I've decided to give it a shine and polish, as I thought it could do with another airing. Enjoy!

As Sokiratisi approached the palace, he wondered what the Emperor had summoned him for this time.

"I am sure it must be something serious... after all, he has his own advisers who should be able to help him", he mused. "But as far as I know, there is no immediate threat to the kingdom. So what could it be...?"

But the moment he entered the main hall of the palace, his thoughts snapped to attention as he beheld the Emperor Rahadikatu on his throne, with his courtiers and advisers assembled before him. He bowed low before the Emperor, saying "Long live Your Majesty" as he did so.

The Emperor gestured to him. "You may rise and take a seat, Sokiratisi", he said.

Sokiratisi did so at once. Once seated, he glanced round, and noticed that there was a group of strangers seated near the Emperor.

"I am sure you are wondering why I have summoned you again", said the Emperor. "Let me put your mind at rest immediately - the empire prospers, and continues to prosper with the help of people such as yourself. No - on this occasion, I seek your advice not for myself, but on behalf of these men here who have travelled some distance to be here today."

Sokiratisi looked again at the strangers that the Emperor gestured to as he said this.

The Emperor continued. "These men come from the kingdom of Burukutia, which is ruled by a weak king who is merely a puppet for a council of powerful and corrupt chiefs. These chiefs get the king to impose ruinously high and arbitrary taxes on his subjects, and they siphon of most of the tax revenues for themselves. This has so impoverished the kingdom's subjects that they are largely powerless to oppose the chiefs, and they continue to loot the kingdom's treasury with impunity."

Sokiratisi smiled wryly. "In other words, we are talking about a king completely unlike you."

The Emperor waved him away. "There is no need for you to be unduly diplomatic with me, Wise Man. I think we have known ourselves for too long for these kinds of games."

Sokiratisi maintained his smile. "Your Majesty is not only a model ruler, he is also very modest about it."

Emperor Rahadikatu made an exasperated sound and then turned to the strangers. "Please pay no attention to these words of his - he must have his little joke now and then. Fortunately, it is his mind we are interested in today, not his tongue - and I can assure you that it is sharper than a thousand razors. I myself have benefited from its keenness - I recall sound advice that he has given me on two occasions - when I needed advice on raising money to repair the Empire's roads, and when I was seeking someone to replace one of my advisors.

Sokiratisi made a modest bow.

"The reason that these gentlemen are here today is that they have decided that they need to take decisive action to rid the kingdom of this corrupt council", the Emperor continued. "They have approached me, because they know that I am sympathetic to their aims."

"Then perhaps they should be consulting your military chief of staff instead?"

"No, no. They already know that I cannot provide military assistance - Burukutia is too far for me to commit troops to a successful expedition, and besides the nature of inter-state diplomacy requires that I do not show my hostility too openly, even though these chiefs probably already know what I feel about their misrule. In any case, they do not seek military assistance - what they are looking for is strategic advice."

Sokiratisi scratched his head. "Your Majesty, I do not quite capture the essence of that statement. However, I am sure that you will be pleased to explain it to someone as slow of thought as I."

The Emperor smiled wryly, and went on. "The problem is that in the past, there have been several attempts to oust this council of chiefs, but they have all failed because the chiefs have on each occasion instigated the kingdom's army to crush these uprisings with brutal force. So they want to see if there is an alternative method they could use to achieve the same result."

Sokiratisi smiled back. "Ah - I see now, Your Majesty. The question is how to bring about change in the face of incumbent opposition.

"I think I will answer that question by recounting a favourite parable of mine - The Parable of the Bull and the Ants."

Once upon a time, in a far away country called Kununzakia, there lived a bull and a colony of ants. The bull and the ants lived peaceably on a plot of land which provided enough food for both of them to live off.

Then one day, a Man came upon the plot of land. He looked upon it and declared, "What a fertile plot of land! I must move from my present plot to live here instead." So he left, and when he returned, it was with his entire family and some friends. They set about clearing the plot, laying the foundations for a house and carrying out other tasks to get the plot ready for the Man to move onto.

When the bull and the ants saw what was going on, they were aghast. The bull said, "I cannot believe that this Man can simply come from nowhere and drive us from this plot of land when we were here first!" I think what we should do is to approach him and tell him that this is not right." The ants said, "What you say seems good - let us do it."

So they both went up to the Man and told him that what he was doing was wrong. The Man laughed in their faces and said, "So what? I came upon this plot of land and I liked what I saw, so I am laying claim to it. I do not care about how you feel about it - all I will say is that now that I own this land, I do not want you anywhere on it!" The bull and the ants then tried to reach a compromise with the Man instead so that the three of them could all share the land, but he was adamant that he wanted it all for himself and himself only.

In a few weeks, the preparation work was complete, and the Man and his family drove out the bull and the ants and took full possession of the land. The bull and the ants thus were reduced to eking out an existence on the margins of the land, which was nowhere near as fertile as the original plot of land they had inhabited. After a few weeks of this existence, the bull could suppress his indignation no longer and declared, "Well, if the Man will not listen to diplomacy, then he must listen to force! I am bigger than the man, so I am going to charge onto the land and seize it from him!" With this exclamation, the bull got to his feet and started charging towards the Man's house on the plot of land.

The plot of land was quite large, and the Man had chosen to build his house right in the middle of it. In addition, the Man had brought along some dogs to watch over the land. When the dogs saw the bull approaching, they started barking furiously, and this alerted the Man so that by the time the bull was nearing the house, he and his family were ready with their bows and arrows. The first volley of arrows caught the bull quite by surprise, so he slowed down considerably but was still making progress towards the Man's house. The second volley caused him to stand still in his tracks, and the third volley forced him to turn tail and flee for his life, bleeding from a thousand wounds.

When the ants saw what had happened to the bull, they said, "Brother Bull, it is good that you tried your way, but as you have seen it hasn't worked. Now let us try our own way." The bull said, "If the man could repel me - a bull far bigger and stronger than him - what hope do you have?" The ants said "You will see."

The ants decided to send a dozen of their number to the Man. When they reached him, they said, "Man, we have realised that with the way you have dealt with the bull, you are far stronger and mightier than us, so we come with a plea. We ask that you allow just those of us before you today to live on a small corner of your land. We are small and weak and there are so few of us here, so we are hardly likely to threaten your livelihood." The Man was feeling in a magnanimous mood, especially after he had seen off the charge of the bull, so he said, "Yes, you can live here if you want".

So the first contingent of ants moved onto the plot of land. After a while, the Man got used to their presence, and saw that indeed they went out of their way to be no threat to him. So when they went back to him again and asked if they could invite some more of their colony onto the land, he granted their request. It came to pass that every week or two, the ants would make the same request that more of their number be allowed to live on the borders of the plot of land, and the Man, seeing that they were harmless enough always granted their request. In the meantime, the bull scoffed at their efforts. "So you are doing all this begging and pleading just so that you can live on the edge of this territory. Have you no shame?" But any ant he addressed would just smile quietly and say "We know what we are doing."

The ants were indeed not just content to live life at the edge of their former territory. Since the Man had allowed them to move onto the plot of land, they had been using their presence on the land to start digging tunnels and building an underground network that the Man could not spot. In the meantime, they kept on making their requests for more of their number to be allowed to move onto the land and expanding their underground network deeper and deeper into the plot of land. Then they began to make occasional appearances in the middle of the land itself. Every time the Man saw one of them there, the ant would say "Oh, I just missed my way. You know that we all fear and respect you, and we would never dream of leaving the borders where you have most graciously granted us territory", and this would calm the Man down.

After a while, the ants stopped asking the Man for permission to move more of their number, because they were able to smuggle the rest of their number into the underground network and make it look like no new ants had moved onto the land. The ants continued to extend the network until it was right underneath the Man's house and his barn. Then the ants began to show less fear of the Man. Before, whenever he asked them what they were doing away from the borders, they would give him a conciliatory answer. Now they would say that it was none of his business where they went.

Eventually, the Man became fed up of the increasing arrogance of the ants, and declared that they should now move off his land. The ants laughed at him and said, "Right now, the balance of power lies with us. While you were thinking that we were being meek and peaceable, we were literally laying the groundwork for driving you out of this place. Right now, your house and your crops are in danger of being destroyed if you do not leave this plot of land. To prove that we mean business, within the hour, we will cause one of your barns to collapse." At a signal, an army of ants that had been stationed below the barn began to eat away at its foundations, and within an hour it had collapsed.

When the Man saw that they meant business, he had no choice but to pack his bags and leave. As the bull saw the Man and his family leave, he said "Truly you had the right approach. I thought that my show of sudden force would work, but it seems that your method of gradual erosion won out in the end."

Once Sokiratisi had finished telling the story, one of the Burukutians turned to him and said "Interesting parable... but what does it mean? How relevant is it to us?"

"Well" Sokiratisi replied, "as I said before, the parable is about two approaches to bringing about change in the face of incumbent opposition. The first approach, as employed by the bull involves direct and open action. This has the appeal that when it works, it is short, sweet and final. Unfortunately, this has the disadvantage that the opposition - in your case, the council of chiefs - will be just as determined to resist any attempt to change its position and will meet any challenge with force. And because it is incumbent opposition, it will have at its command the entire apparatus of state - including the military, spies, town criers, supply networks - which counts as a further disadvantage to you, especially because you have few or none of these."

"Interesting", said the stranger. "So the approach that was taken by those involved in the previous uprisings was the bull-like approach."

"That's right. This approach has its place - and it might work if the force that you confronted the incumbent opposition with was overwhelmingly massive in proportion. But as I hear it, this is not the case.

"And that is why I would recommend the other approach, employed by the ants. This involves gradually building a power base that is eventually strong enough to decisively defeat the incumbent opposition. As was the case with the ants in the parable, the power base should be such that the incumbent power does not recognise it as a power base - at least not until it is too late. So it could be built secretly, or it could even be built under the very nose of the incumbent power, as long as the power does not believe that it is a threat."

Another Burukutian spoke up. "How would we go about building such a power base without the council of chiefs knowing about it? I'm sure once they got to know what we were doing, they would immediately crush it."

"Well, it would certainly require that you exercise caution in building up your power base and inviting people to join. You could adopt a concentric-circle-of-knowledge approach, where those in the innermost circle have access to the most sensitive information, then those in progressively outer circles have access to less and less sensitive information so that all that the council get to hear from those in the outer circle of is some harmless enough activity which they will feel does not threaten their existence.

"As an example of a power base you might build, you might say that you wish to form a union of goods transporters purely to make more efficient the arrangements whereby goods are transported throughout the kingdom, and make it very clear that this union is for commercial purposes only. Initially, the union could work on improving the transport procedures amongst its members to the point where everybody - including the corrupt council - benefits. Then once they become increasingly dependent on the good work that the union is doing, you in the inner circle can then gradually change the union's activities so that it asserts itself politically and makes demands for political reform. It will be able to do this at this point, because it knows it can back these up by the threat of withdrawing the benefits that it provides.

"The other advantage of the ant-like approach is that it will bring into power people who already have experience in managing power bases, so they will not have as much difficulty managing the kingdom. Contrast this with people who have achieved power by an uprising or by force of arms. Most likely, they may not have had similar experience, so they will not understand the political intricacies involved in balancing competing interests, and they will be much more inclined to rule by force. And I am sure that as much as you wish to rid yourself of the corrupt council, the most important goal is to ensure that they are replaced with a ruler who will bring justice and prosperity to Burukutia." 

Robot  Villager

# 1 ...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 23.01.2007 15:41

Okolo  Villager

# 2 Outstanding piece!!! One observation though, the ants were already organized enough to actually make a plan and execute it. They also appear to have been substantially of one mind in their endeavour. Such might not be the case in Burukutia. What hope for Burukutia if it is like Babel? Posted by Okolo| 23.01.2007 18:06

Shoko Loko Bangoshe  Villager

# 3 Hi Okolo, Thanks for your thoughts and your compliments. You're right that unity of purpose and organisation is a prerequisite for succeeding in the endeavour of gradually building a power base to challenge the existing order. However, the group of people who act in concert to build the power base need not be made up of the entire group of oppressed people. All that is important is that there should be such a group of people amongst the oppressed people. In other words, I wrote the parable the way I did for simplicity's sake - it could easily have been written thus: After observing what had happened to the bull, a group of ants decided to send a dozen of their number to the Man. When they reached him, they said, "Man, we have realised that with the way you have dealt with the bull, you are far stronger and mightier than us, so we come with a plea. We ask that you allow just those of us before you today to live on a small corner of your land..." The Man was feeling in a magnanimous mood, especially after he had seen off the charge of the bull, so he said, "Yes, you can live here if you want". So the first contingent of of this group of ants moved onto the plot of land. After a while, the Man got used to their presence, and saw that indeed they went out of their way to be no threat to him. ... In the meantime, the bull scoffed at their efforts. "So you are doing all this begging and pleading just so that you can live on the edge of this territory. Have you no shame?" The other ants that were not in the group were less openly critical but no more sympathetic. However, the group of ants responded to this scepticism by smiling quietly and saying "We know what we are doing." The ants were indeed not just content to live life at the edge of their former territory. Since the Man had allowed them to move onto the plot of land, they had been using their presence on the land to start digging tunnels and building an underground network that the Man could not spot. As time went on, the other ants began to realise what they were doing and what success they were having in doing it, and more and more of them began to join in the work. In the meantime, the group of ants kept on making their requests for more of their number to be allowed to move onto the land and expanding their underground network deeper and deeper into the plot of land. Posted by Shoko Loko Bangoshe| 24.01.2007 14:04

Okolo  Villager

# 4 Again what you say is true. And that approach might indeed be the way forward for Burukutia. But, the cause of my pessimism is that Burukutia might be unable to gather even the group of ants that you speak of. Despite the suffering they are going through, deep down, most ants in Burukutia secretly yearn to join the cabinet of the oppressive leader instead of joining the group that wants change. Such is the sorry plight of Burukutia. Posted by Okolo| 25.01.2007 08:18