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Additional Advice To Those Would Be King From the Thiruk-Kural With Commentary
Additional Advice To Those Would Be King From the Thiruk-Kural With Commentary
Additional free advice to those* who would be King from the THIRUK-KURAL with Commentary
[*like presidents, prime ministers, dictators of declining (falling or fallen) nations or even empires]
K442: urranOy niikki uraa amai munkaakkum
petriyaarp peenik kolal
Cherish the all-accomplished men as friends,
Whose skill the present ill removes, from coming ills defends. (Transl. G.U. Pope)
Let (a king) procure and kindly care for men who can overcome difficulties when they occur, and guard against them before they happen. (Transl. Drew & Lazarus)
Pope here makes a comment on Beschi's latin rendering of the maxim which we cannot attribute to him, for he adds the words: "See Pancatantra":
"Evils come from gods [read this word here as"Nature" - my interpolation] (malaiinmai/droughts, mikumalai/excessive rains, kaartru/winds, thii/fire, pini/disease); or from men (pakaivar/enemies, kalvar/thieves, chuttraththaar/kindred, tholilseyvoor/servants).
To remove the former, atonements (saanthigal) must be used. For the latter, the four methods (saamapeethathaanathandangkal) of pacification, disruption, gift, and punishment must be used."
Commentary: Atonements? Can a whole nation, where collective responsibility is the case, atone for its misdeeds? For instance, for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hardly likely. Most unlikely, so let Nature wreak its ravages: let loose typhoons, hurricanes, tsunamis and the like, taking into consideration President Trump's refusal to commit the USA to climate change rescue in Paris.
As for the latter where individuals or groups of individuals are the perpetrators, THIRU-VALLUVAR's advice can make much sense even in our hotch-potch day and splintered age. Let's take just one aspect of the issues at stake: IMMIGRATION and resort to just one form of remedy: PUNISHMENT.
First, massive immigration destabilizes society at large, engenders wherever sizeable minorities gather and take root, differences of opinion, ways and aims of life which produce conflictual situations that do not contribute to harmonious relations, on the one hand, among the diverse immigrant populations, and on the other, with the host communities whether or not their inter-personal perceptions, faiths, attitudes, customs, sense of respect for one anothers' practice of conventions, and ingrained methods of abiding or not by the laws of the country of reception differ or are even partially similar. The illegal immigrant is by necessity and definition a "criminal" who has little to lose but his soul. He is an interloper in a society where - according to all previous aspirations - his hoped-for higher economic condition must be made to prevail over all others who pose by necessity a threat to his safety. In such a conflictual situation the battle is waged first and foremost against his rival - the other immigrant serving another "god". And here, the battle is a free-for-all where the villain is whoever who can take, pluck, steal, dupe, con, batter and even kill. The host merely shuts a conniving eye. When the immigrant populations achieve their aims, and rise above their initial menial circumstances, then they turn on their hosts, passports and citizenship papers in hand, that is, when they feel comfortable enough to sleep with the host's spouses and sire future presidents with the host's daughters; so what's the solution?
SIMPLE. CLOSE ALL BORDERS. SEAL ALL ENTRANCES!
1. Instead of the WALL, construct a high-powered ELECTRIC CORRIDOR; if need be, even in the north. Patrol the shores: this is done normally anyway. (Demonstrate what would happen on tv to those who would want to "scale" the corridor: "Poulet roti" à la française* could serve as a good convincing example.)
2. Impose heavy fines on those who fly, railroad or ship illegal immigrants as a first offence. Especially on foreign airlines and travel agencies.
3. Second offenders must be crippled with payments they cannot afford.
4. Thereafter, prison sentences must be handed out without fail.
5. Next, deportation must be resorted to wherever and whenver possible, if it does not inhumanely split up families - children from parents.
6. All guilty of illegal entry must be made to pay off their "crime" by working on farms and "outsourcing" installations in a COLONY to be created within the States, under supervision by the authorities. This is not a PRISON, and if anyone chooses to leave* the "premises", he or she should be invited to work for his or her passage to wherever the person came from, in the first place.
7. Jordon and Turkey have absorbed masses of Syrian refugees. Why can't oil-rich nations: Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States be persuaded to lay out the red carpet to their brethren? Likewise with other rich Afro- Asian nations with others who flee their own tortuous shores?
* Just to give you an idea of how the Socialist French (who will be ousted in tomorrow's confirmation general elections) grill their chicken, sample this:
In 1983 and 1984, I appealed to the Socialist President François MITTERAND for a "sauf conduit" (safe conduct pass) for me and my handicapped son out of the country. On the second appeal, I received an invitation from the president's Human Rights Counsellor, Mme Cécile SPORTIS to the Elysée Palace (read as the "White House"). After listening to me for over an hour, she asked for the proof which I provided in a dossier surpassing some 500 pages of documents and letters, etc. Appalled, she promised to shake heaven and earth to set things right. She asked me to call back "in a month". I did. Her secretary said that there was no trace of my file, except for a letter to a lawyer Me Jean-Jacques de Félice.
I wanted to know the decision of the President. She said there was none. André Fontaine, then the Chief Editor of the Le Monde paper called to check with the president. His reply was that, as I was not a "diplomat", he could not issue me a "sauf conduit" out of the country.
© T. Wignesan - Paris, 2017
Copyright © T Wignesan | Year Posted 2017
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