Monday, 21st July 2008
The ant and the grasshopper: A new version
Two different versions! Two different morals!
Old version:
The ant works hard in the sweltering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
Moral of the story: Be responsible for yourself!
Modern version:
The ant works hard in the sweltering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a news conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.
One TV, Net TV and TVM, The Times, The Malta Independent and MaltaToday show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. Malta is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Harry Vassallo appears on Xarabank with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing It's Not Easy Being Green.
Daphne Caruana Galizia stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing We Shall Overcome. Ms Caruana Galizia then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake. Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and a few ministers show up to support the group who are also supported by Joseph Muscat.
Lou Bondì, Peppi Azzopardi and Alfred Zammit exclaim in an interview with Charlon Gouder that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.
Finally, the Ministry of Social Welfare drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.
Emmy Bezzina gets his law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients.
The ant loses the case.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it.
The ant has disappeared in the snow.
The grasshopper is found dead in a drug-related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorise the once-peaceful neighbourhood.
Moral of the story: Be careful how you vote next election.
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Comments
I don't know why Daphne got so upset about it and why she calls me "mean". I'm not mean and nasty, Daphne and you're the last person on earth who could address me with such titles.
I truly admire your sense of humour.
However the story is not complete.
It so happened that a cow passing by destroys the ant's abode. The poor insect finds no place where to shelter. The grass hopper comes along and witnessing what happened invited the ant to share her little food and dwelling. The ant surprised looks bewildered at the grass hopper:
"Is it not you that yesterday I refused to help and to-day you invite me to share your dwelling."
"So what, retorted the grass hopper. Don't you know that the poor help the poor and besides that, you will not take too much space?”
From "The school certificate French course" Weekley and Hayes. University Tutorial Press Ltd London.
A different moral. Comments are superfluous.
Whatever the moral of the story is, it's a great way of portraying maltese society in all it's hypocracy.
Well done Mr Grech. Great imagery!!!
@Mr. Grech - get a life!