It seemed far too ironic two nights ago while I sat on my couch reading William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies”, the images of the day’s news still fresh in my mind. Just hours before, I had witnessed American citizens storming their own Capitol Building in protest of the results of their federal election. Political tensions had been rising for years, and just when the hope of a brighter new year was beginning to burgeon, we watched as windows were smashed, offices were ransacked, and politicians from both parties were smuggled to safety from the very citizens they worked for.
“The rules!” shouted Ralph. “You’re breaking the rules!”
In case you’re not like me or the others who got to read this book in high school, Lord of the Flies is about a group of kids who crash-land on a tropical uninhabited island. With no parents and no clear sign of rescue, the kids try to scrape out a living for themselves while also searching for a way home. Ralph, a somewhat flawed but generally nice kid, is picked chief in a fair election, which bugs Jack a lot. You see, Jack is arrogant and used to being in charge. During a general meeting of all the kids in chapter five, this conflict comes to the forefront.
“You shut up!” Jack cried to Ralph. “Who are you, anyway? Sitting there telling people what to do. You can’t hunt, you can’t sing—” “I’m chief. I was chosen.” Ralph replied. “Why should choosing make any difference? Just giving orders that don’t make any sense-”
Jack doesn’t care that Ralph was voted by the public. What matters to him is that he’s not currently the one in charge. He wants everyone to focus on hunting a mysterious “beastie” that no one’s ever actually seen, whereas Ralph is trying to bring everyone together so that they can get home. The kids are getting lost in an imaginary problem, losing sight of the true issue that they’re embroiled in. That’s when Ralph bursts out that Jack is ‘breaking the rules’.
“Who cares?” Jack demanded. Ralph summoned his wits. “Because the rules are the only thing we’ve got!”
But Jack was shouting against him. “Bollocks to the rules! We’re strong—we hunt! If there’s a beast, we’ll hunt it down! We’ll close in and beat and beat and beat—!” He gave a wild whoop and leapt down to the pale sand. At once the platform was full of noise and excitement, scramblings, screams and laughter. The assembly shredded away and became a discursive and random scatter from the palms to the water and away along the beach, beyond night-sight.
What’s so intriguing – and heartbreaking – about this book is the way that the kids descend into a sort of messy civilization that unfortunately wouldn’t have played out much differently if adults had been there. Their island becomes a place of them-versus-us, of whispered rumours and misinformation. A place of drown-out-the-opposition, because listening is boring.
“We’re all drifting and things are going rotten,” one character, Piggy, said as Ralph and a few others watched Jack lead the group into chaos.
“At home there was always a grown-up. Please, sir, please, miss; and then you got an answer…grown-ups know things. They ain’t afraid of the dark. They’d meet and discuss. Then things’d be all right—” “They wouldn’t set fire to the island.” “They’d build a ship—” The three boys stood in the darkness, striving unsuccessfully to convey the majesty of adult life. “They wouldn’t quarrel—” “Or break my specs—” “Or talk about a beast—”
These kids believe – naively, with an innocence that we’re all longing for these days – that adults wouldn’t have these kinds of immature problems that they’re facing. If only a grown-up was here, there wouldn’t be needless destruction of property. Or rambling sessions about made-up monsters.
They wouldn’t set fire to the island.
American news commentator Van Jones said something yesterday that bears repeating – because our little island is in grave danger. And it’s not the threat of a faceless beastie. It’s the threat we ourselves have created.
"I understand some of these people,” Jones said. “They're angry. Fine. You have a right to be angry. You don't have a right to insurrection. You don't have a right to sedition. You don't have a right to break into buildings and to hurt police officers. There has to be a line."
Something should separate democracy from other forms of government because of its commitment to giving people their voice and defending their right to it at all costs. There’s something different about democracy. There has to be. Because otherwise we will continue to ask the same question Jones asked last night.
“Is this the end of something, or the beginning of something?” he suggested. "Is this the death throes of something ugly in our country, desperate, about to go away…or is this the birth pains of a worse disorder?”
Because for Ralph, Piggy, and the others, I’m only on chapter five of a book that has a whole lot more misfortune ahead. I hope and pray that democracy is on a different path.
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