Simply imagine a world without crime
I HAD such a terrible accident the other day. I was driving in my snazzy DeLorean DMX-12 on a winding road up the Drakensberg mountains, somewhere near Wakanda, with John Lennon’s Imagine playing on the radio.
The weather was changing and some dark clouds gathered on the horizon. I reached for my jersey and tried to put it on while I was driving. I must have had the jersey over my eyes for just a few seconds and the next thing I heard was an almighty bang. It was such a big bang.
After I pulled the wool from over my eyes, I looked around and the place seemed so unfamiliar and strange. I was really scared because I was in the middle of somewhere and my heart started beating faster. I looked up and all I could see was the sky.
I looked down at my feet and I realised that I wasn’t wearing the expensive Nike shoes that I was given as a present. “What the hell!” I gasped as the uncomfortable shoes were replaced by simple, comfortable sandals.
“Where am I?” I asked myself, “What country is this?”
You can imagine my shock when a voice answered, “You are in the land of God.” I turned around and saw this dark-skinned man. “Holy Cow!” I gasped, “A hijacker!”
“What’s a hijacker?” he asked with a benign smile on his face.
“You don’t know what a hijacker is?” I asked innocently but with a hint of sarcasm.
“No, not really,” he answered without sarcasm.
“What country is this?” I asked again.
“Country?” he looked confused, “this is the land of God. What’s a country?”
Either this guy is not right in the head or somehow the DeLorean had skipped into another dimension altogether.
“You honestly don’t know what a country or a hijacker is?”
“I don’t know what you mean honestly. I don’t know what those are. Perhaps you can tell us more about it over some food?”
“Do I look hungry?” I asked sheepishly and then added, “you probably don’t know what hunger means as well?”
He smiled and led me down the garden path towards what looked like a barn. On the way there I saw lots of houses, some were very big and some were very small but they all had no security gates or fences. Okay, I lie, some had cherry hedges with plump, ripe cherries.
There were lots of people as well. They were of all shapes and sizes and so many different skin colours. They all smiled at each other and greeted one another with the greetings, “Hello God”, “Lovely Day God” and “I love you, God”.
“What kind of place is this?” I wondered, “Everyone is a God and everybody treats each other as if they are Gods?”
“Come sit here”, the darkskinned man welcomed me. I looked at the seat and it looked like a throne. I shook my head and offered to sit on the simple wooden chairs they all sat on.
“You are a guest in our home”, he explained, “and guests are always given everything that we have.”
I sat down and he introduced me to the gathering. “I found him near the tree of knowledge”, he explained and everyone clapped and cheered. “I’m sure he has much to teach us. Already I’ve learnt new words like ‘hijerkers’, ‘countree’ and ‘honestly’.”
“Hijackers,” I corrected him.
“Hijackers!” he said and they all repeated the word after him with great big smiles on their faces and then asked me to explain what it meant.
“Hijackers are nasty criminals who attack innocent people and steal their possessions and sometimes shoot their victims!”
“Hijackers!” they all repeated with confused smiles. They didn’t understand a word that I said.
He must have sensed my frustration because he suggested that we have something to eat and pointed to several tables towards the middle of the room.
I could not believe the spread: sour herbs dhall, cabbage and dhall, green beans and peas – all my favourite curries. Oh and jack fruit curry as well. I was amazed and piled up my plate and returned to my seat.
Then I realised that nobody was rushing to the buffet (you know, like at conferences were people rush to the buffet and stack their plates). “Aren’t you guys eating?” I asked.
“Not yet”, he explained, “you are our guest so you have to eat all you want and, when you are satisfied, then we will eat”.
“The food must be poisoned!” I thought but I was so hungry that I started eating and soon I was full. The others then served themselves at the table before taking their seats to eat their food.
After lunch, the man took me on a tour of the town. First we stopped at the sweet shop that looked exactly like the one Alice frequented in Oxford but the sweets were not candy but fresh fruit. I took a giant peach and bit into it. It was delicious and juicy.
Then I offered to pay for it with my credit card. “What’s this?” he asked. “It’s a credit card”, I explained.
“What’s that?” he asked. “Well the banks give you credit cards so you can pay for things you want.”
“That’s so nice of the banks,” he smiled, “you are so lucky!”
“Oh no!” I explained, “they charge us interest on the money we spend and we have to pay it back at the end of the month.”
He stood there silently and then asked me to follow him. He led me to a place that looked like a school. There were lots of older people sitting on the grass in a circle around a young girl. “What is this?” I asked. “It’s the place of unlearning,” he explained, “the young girl is sharing her innocence with the older people.”
The young girl come up to me and smiled, “God told us that you were here and that you have some very interesting lessons to teach us. Come please share you knowledge with us.”
I told them about how people work everyday to put food on the table, how they spend their entire lives paying off a bond, how we have so many churches, mosques, synagogues and temples where people go to pray (sometimes women are not allowed to sit together with men and pray), how innocent children are raped, how the most corrupt people are voted into power, how people lived in gated communities in fear of housebreakings and how women and darkskinned people are treated as inferior.
They just smiled and said, “Don’t forget the hijackers!”
Then I heard a commotion around me. Someone seemed to pull the wool over my eyes again. I heard people fighting.
It was the tow truck drivers fighting over who should tow the car! Imagine that!