January 10, 2004

Most people want nothing to happen.

Posted at 11:27 AM Found

From The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, p 18.

I went to the mines when I was eighteen. We were the Bechuanaland Protectorate then, and the British ran our country, to protect us from the Boers (or that is what they said). There was a Commissioner down in Mafikeng, over the border into South Africa, and he would come up the road and speak to the chiefs. He would say: 'You do this thing; you do that thing.' And the chiefs all obeyed him because they knew that if they did not he would have them deposed. But some of them were clever, and while the British said 'You do this', they would say 'Yes, yes, sir, I will do that' and all the time, behind their back, they did the other thing or they just pretended to do something. So for many years, nothing at all happened. It was a good system of government, because most people want nothing to happen. That is the problem with government these days. The want to do thaings all the time; they are always very busy thinking of what things they can do next. That is not what the people want. People want to be left alone to look after their cattle.

 
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