Gorilla in the midst

Who let the ape out?

This might appear crazy if not outrageous for speculation, but as parents and children visited Diergaarde Blijdorp Zoo in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, an alpha male gorilla that had been kept in an enclosure for one wonders how long scaled the fence, crossed a moat and went on a rampage successfully attacking and biting a woman and invading the restaurant refuge that people ran to for safety.

The gorilla was finally subdued with a sedation dart to the relief of many.

However, this represents an interesting lesson from the animal kingdom, we can enjoy the pleasures of zoos by seizing animals from their natural habitat and place then in fancy enclosures as we satisfy our curiosities with realities that are hardly viewed on the National Geographic Channel, but those specimens might just have wised up to the fact that this is just no more good fun for them.

Ass of you and me - Ass-u-me

There was the assumption that a moat representing the fear of water and inability to swim is an adequate deterrent - we now know better.

Animal enclosures utilise knowledge of fears, phobias and boundaries to offer comfortable views whilst keeping the contact between animals and human-beings at a minimum.

Governments make use of laws, the punishment of crime, the use of untrammelled police force and many other tools of sovereign purvey to marshal and encage people in some orderly sense of serious unease. As the Economist notes, the military or military-backed governments are often good at micro-managing the citizenry - basically they turn the country into an over-scaled barrack and everyone should fall in.

Paying with arse-wipes

Zimbabwe becomes another case in point as inflation hits 3,731.9%, this is outrageous, and it means one ply of one sheet of my nicely scented arse-wipe can get a lot more than $10,000 Zimbabwean and probably a lot more.

When I learnt of hyperinflation in Economics class, none of these kinds of figures ever featured, it is criminal to the extreme, and how can anyone continue to preside with any dignity on a state so savaged by irresponsible stewardship and megalomania?

It is time for the gorilla in the people to break free from the constraints of unnatural societal cohesion where freedoms are curtailed and rights are trampled upon, enough is enough, in all these places.

Meanwhile, the sedative dart to put a gorilla back in the cage to hit those leaders such that they should face justice maybe from raping the country or destroying the efficacy of democracy.

As the Economist notes again with poignancy, it is not the lack of money that keeps people poor, it is misgovernment; this should be the aim of the UN Millennium Development Goals, good government would lead to achieving the goals.

The gorillas in our midst should return to where they belong.