from: The Testimonies of an Enumerator:

A digression on a planet

Whatever you do to the web
Of life shall be returned to you twicefold

The book of Shadrach: Navaho section

[Contributors note: In these testimonies recorded by an unknown enumerator we have so far been privy to an unfolding event in a region known as the Azanian Konfederacy. They are reproduced in much the same form as they were found allowing for variances in translation. Where necessary or useful for additional illumination, some ideas are clarified by the Editor or Contributor: i.e.: Ed’: or Contr’:]

The section you are about to read, is a divergence, and contains information relating to an existing range of competing events and entities external to the Azanian Konfederacy.

Some of the statements made would seem based on the unknown enumerator’s familiarity with those things, rather than expertise and so, much of the information is unclarified hearsay.

Unfortunately we have little else to provide validity other than the various monuments to ancient so-called ‘civilizations’, which we now know did exist. Where necessary we have referred to Koz: Legends of Urdos as a form of reference validification.]

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“…Oppression is a degree- by- degree process. It is however prompted by a pre-emptive action, and thereafter the citizen becomes a reactive entity for a time until pacified.” [Corinth Starr the Elder]

It was Starr’s view that the citizen had been reduced to a passive, almost peripheral entity made all the worse for having no obvious range of choice in the marketplace for political ideas than that presented by the existing governing order and not particular presented by any of those who were, it seemed, unwilling to govern, having carved comfortable niches for themselves within the existing status quo as a smug form of opposition..

“The agenda of all government is the greatest happiness of all the citizens…And the Gender agenda is Basic Pay” said Corinth Starr in her closing speech before the election and by election day itself the statement had become a national saying, peeple were humming it in lifts, singing in dense traffic and even in the outlands or auslande as they were more commonly known, goatherds were shouting the slogan at their goats.

It is possible that the governing party completely underestimated the power of the gender vote have taken it for granted for so long. They may well have simply taken the voter for granted there having been no real opposition for at least five to ten years. Where anyone had presented any credible threat that person or group had been ‘bought’, using the floor crossing route, which was so much more efficient a method of subverting the democratic process than the “murder incorporated” strategy followed by the evil oppressive governments of the ‘dispossession’ era. [Notwithstanding this murder of political persons was not uncommon.]

And it had worked. There had been peace and stability for nearly a full generation. The region had shown modest growth and many of those who had been dispossessed in the past came to acquire great wealth and standing in society. The routine deletions of interesting political persons, was almost ingrained: car accidents being the most common form of assassination [as this variation on presence deletion was called.] and the most probable.]

However there were issues that were not being dealt with or, more commonly, were being dealt with but the rate at which they were being dealt with was outpaced by the accelerating rate at which the issues became worse.

For instance, at the physical level, the disintegration of the national road communication system accelerated and the pattern of macadamised road infrastructures, that along with a plentiful supply of dams had been some of the few useful inheritances of the dispossession era, gradually either wore out, disintegrated or worse. In many cases entire road networks were uplifted and removed to isolated areas where they were re-laid as basketball courts and other facilities (or at least this was what people came to believe). In some places roads were dug up because it was believed they were covering valuables: a deadly belief as it turned out eventually.

So gradually the only way to travel was via toll-roads, paying ever rising fees to travel shorter and shorter distances and gradually this reduced the traffic to essential traffic only. Travel by rail, formerly a major means of inter- regional travel had also gradually become more and more problematic as sections of rail were stolen, together with equipment and on occasions entire pick up stations which were appropriated as dwelling materials. Trains were also increasingly vulnerable to ambush and derailment by armed bandits who gradually, insidiously, came to proliferate, as the rural areas were depopulated and the means of policing those areas became less effective..

There had for instance been a time when peeple had travelled great distances during their popular annual festival holiday seasons. At these times peeple stopped working (when there was work) and went far away to enjoy recreation time in relaxed places. Fewer people did this anymore, and travel off main roadways was both unsafe due to the rise in banditry, and hazardous due to the condition of the roads. Life had come to centre much more about peeple’s home territories.

This was not an issue that peeple voted over but was undoubtedly a problem with all the rest: declining health care availability as the system sagged under the strain of the plagues, robberies at isolated pension payout points, and a low-key, informal ‘civil conflict’ had seen the deletion of more than ten thousand agricultural workers over the period since the formal end of the Dispossession struggle. Incidents of Murder [ a particularly aggressive form of unlawful deletion ]of those designated “witches” with allegedly supernormal powers* [*see: The further testimonies: The Yonka Memorandum] had also surged and there were rumours of slaughter being in the thousands. [Slaughter: another form of Deletion activity, usually unlawful,l and on a large scale. Ed: ref Koz.]

Much of this latter violence was due to the ease of robbing isolated places, rather than by design but the effect, as in other parts of Azania was the marginalisation of rural regions, with a consequent effect on income generating opportunities. The masses out there did listen to the radio though, and they voted for Corinth Starr in their hordes, notwithstanding widespread difficulties with voting points and attempts by the ruling party to force their influence… ultimately the scale of defection was too great.

On the powerful side though, the year of Starr’s accession was also the year the first of the great ‘food towers’, as they came to be called, was built in north west zone one [by the Corinth Starr Construction consortium] This perceptive move (there were ultimately five) enabled Zone one to achieve a high measure of food security notwithstanding the growing problems of water supply.

This water supply issue was the most serious long-term problem facing Zone One, and although sensible measures had been followed for decades in respect of conservation of water resources, the demand was constantly outpacing supply. Zone one was the most attractive destination in the whole of Azania and the people flowed there in their multitudes. The era of advanced Water Wars was looming, as was the renewed era of [water forced ] limitation on peeple’s movements. Water access and provision had been so called “privatised” early in the era; a move which had been controversial amongst the masses who felt, rightly in some opinions, that water should be freely available to all as it was critical to survival on Urdos.

The populist ‘good ole’ opposition oligarchs had chosen the theme of: “limiting the influx of aliens into Zone one”, as a primary election platform issue. They were calling for water permits limiting all citizens’ water access rights and providing overnight permits for travellers. Gratuitous migrants of whom there were many would not qualify for water rights after the first five days of their presence in Zone One. The party pulled a remarkable number of votes. The governing party found itself coming third in Zone one, and did little better in the wider country.

In the event the government conceded defeat, rather gracelessly, at twelve o clock on the day following the announcement although they kept hoping for a last minute miracle that would reprieve them from immanent unemployment.

Corinth Starr took fifty two percent of the popular votes making her the biggest single block in the house. It was an upset unequalled in generations. Various natural allies added another six percent to her muscle and suddenly the country was looking at a whole new political outcome. The presence of a lone, maverick, Progressive Market Libertarian Party representative, as one of her coalition allies kept the financial markets from sliding into chaos and the whole place took a deep breath and prepared for some horse trading.

While the mass murder and rape scandal in an Ausland territory provided the spur of rage that catapulted Starr the elder to power, it is doubtful that Corinth Starr would have been any more effective than any of her predecessors were it not for a series of events in the outer world which combined to give her the space and the leverage she needed, to effect her own revolution and so we must digress for a time to identify what happened, in order that her ‘reforms’ can be seen in their own perspective.

The great ‘clash of civilizations’, that had characterised the conflicts on the planet during Starr’s incubation for power had taken an abrupt and violent turn during the opening year of the 21st century, with an infamous military strike called the ‘Twin Towers’ incident. In this attack the great forces of unreason on the planet were launched into an assault on the world of reason. The world of reason retaliated.

This was followed by a period of revenge taking which saw the great Firmian empire, the target of the Towers assault, reaching out to strike at its enemies in ways that reduced their physical capacity for conflict while, theoretically, nourishing their enemies capacity for functional participation in their “system” of global connectedness.

In reality there were more than two civilization systems, which came into conflict at that time.

The prevailing system in much of what was called the “developed” world, was known as the least-path-of-resistance system, whereby the so called ‘Rule of Law’ prevailed, and when it didn’t ‘common sense’, whatever that means, prevailed. These systems were termed democracies and there were competing forms of democracy. Those that proved most durable were, according to Koz: citing its sources; were those “where the citizen had the unfettered right to change those thieves* that governed them on a routine basis when it was felt their thieving had got out of hand.” Common sense [sic] demonstrated that wherever peeple had the unfettered right to change thieves then the populace remained relatively compliant. Where the right did not exist tensions grew, and common sense became spurious and often fatal. [Editor: The word “Thieves” in this instance seems to be a synonym for the more common word “Politician”. There is evidence that the two names were synonymous, although there are some [smaller] numbers of sources that perceive the relationship between the two words as symbolic or metaphoric.]

There were times when common sense did not conflict with what were regarded as the inalienable rights of peeple: that is, the right to pursue happiness and fulfillment, in peace and peeplehood. When it didn’t concur it was often because the peeple were in the grip of some mass delusion that apparently took various forms. [In many of these delusions the particulars of the delusion itself took priority over the rights of peeple and led to great bout of peeple rights abuses: ref Koz: Contributor’s comment.]

Most peeple favoured this ‘common sense’ democracy system: a favourable, if exasperating idea. I.e. it was common sense to steal as little as possible from the Peeple while governing them, so that you could be re-elected. And then, notwithstanding its many flaws, it was arguably the most successful system on the planet for achieving its objective for the largest number of its proponents. These people who adhered to the ideals of a ‘changing-thieves-routinely- democracy’ were known as the ‘Sensibles’.

In contrast to the “Sensibles” were the “Rules Ffirsters”. Rules Ffirsters, who came in a variety of shades, both physically and consciously, worked on the basis that the most important rule of peeple was self-reliance and that no one should be helped in case it made them weak and unable to take part in the game of life. Obviously “Rules Ffirsters” helped those they regarded as “theirs”: their adherents, and were cloying with those they perceived to be convertible. They were invariably rude and offensive to those Sensibles with whom they came into conflict, rude and offensive to the point of murder* [ Editor contribution: murder: unlawful termination of incarnate entity manifestation otherwise called Deletion.]

“Rules Ffirst” was also the dominant philosophy of those people who were also known as Irrationalists. Irrationalists were for the most part people who believed that the concrete world in which all Peeple lived was imaginary and that there was another external world in some mysterious No place called ‘Heaven’ where those who obeyed the right living rules would be allowed to live when they ended their period of time in the so-called ‘reality’: represented in this case by Urdos. Where these delusions were localised to a few individuals those people were often locked away for their own protection [ and that of others ] However some delusions were truly global in scope, with millions of adherents; and therefore these delusions were often accorded honory reality status. This caused huge confusion amongst all classes of Peeple.

These Rules Ffirsters had certain books of “rules” [naturally] to which adherence was mandatory on pain of deletion. After a long period of decline during which sensible rationalism had helped peeple become more prosperous and comfortable than ever before, in the long story of Peepledom, they had made a great leaping comeback on the brink of the changeover from one era to another. Irrationalists were adept at exploiting peeple’s understandable fear of uncertainty and promoted a ‘death or else’, millenarian, or apocalyptic vision. This was a vision of chaos and destruction to all who would not adhere to their varying brands of Irrationalism.

“Irrationalism was an attractive and simplistic idea and helped those termed “the meek” to cope with the living ‘hell’ represented by reality in Urdos: a place in which otherwise ordinary peeple lived lives of desperate convention”* [ Koz: ref Ibid P 867]

Rules Ffirst Irrationalists were also by no means a united group and the many divisions between them were the basis of the so-called: ”Clash of Civilisations” mentioned earlier. Apparently competing groups of Irrationalists presented their own allegedly unique version of the world allegedly populated by irrationalist citizens. This world was subject to the whims of some external, non-evident, dualistic non-physical entity of immense vindictiveness. This entity was referred to by many names, but was most commonly called “God”.

At the same time all the strugglers amongst the peeple had to obey abstract rules of selfhood that were often founded in myth and ceremony and were frequently abstract and interpretable only by a ‘rules’ specialist expert. It was a though the world was all a stage, as someone called William said, and the scene was beset with disparate groups of performers in a trillion arranged settings all wearing funny hats and diverse ceremonial gear. They were dressed for a multitude of pantomimes, playing to a bored audience of prospects; who were all, themselves, locked into material joy. This led to absurdities at times. For instance a citizen in one place could, name something as trivial as a children’s iconic toy known as a ‘teddy bear’ “Mohammed” without raising an eyebrow; while in another place the same act could result in a crime so heinous that presence deletion was called for. [Contr’ note: we do not fully understand the motivation behind this observation. According to Koz the Teddy” part of the teddy bear was originally Theodore. It is presumed that the observation relates to the freedom peeple had to change their names.]

To break that link with comfort and reveal the pain beneath the surface was the goal of the Irrationalists. It was the source of their power. In many places dominant groups of Irrationalists sought to prohibit any competition from competing Irrationalists and even from systems developed by Sensibles. This meant that Sensibles were forced at times into uncomfortable and compromising alliances.

It was certainly true that life beyond the most basic level was an invented game and one that brought great pleasure to even its most minimalist performers.

Early in the 21st century the ‘Rules Ffirsters’ team became the ascendant team in the world with the Firmians coming to be ruled more powerfully than previously by a brand of that philosophy. Meantime the world body charged with maintaining world peace [an oxymoron of course] was still governed by the least-path party derived from Sensibles philosophy; with paralysing interventions from coalitions of the irrational.. Very little positive happened, as each side had a vested interest in the failure of the other, and like or not, themselves. Not all games are played to be won the best are played for as long as the pleasure remains.

Then there were those who argued that both the Rules Ffirsters and the Sensibles were playing an elaborate game in which only one way of perceiving the world was permitted, and it was a game played successfully by sophisticated adherents while the poor suffered and became poorer, because there was no way that the system, as it was then evolving, could ever accommodate them.

For some of these general opponents of the status quo their alternative form of system was based on the belief that there was no system. They (the proponents of unreason) held that the entire purpose of Peeple’s existence was to prepare for an anticipated joyous existence in an alternative quantum dimension. Any significant participation in the systems created by the various material empires of the day, were guaranteed to destroy Peeple’s ability to prosper in that alternative existence.

This so-called alternate existence allegedly followed upon non-presence in this existing ‘apparent’ reality. This was a confusing concept for peeple, which is as it should be, since it was founded on a nonsensical idea that imaginary things were actually more real the real things. It helped the cause that for many in the world of unreason, the main way to reach peeple with their message was by murdering peeple. Randomly murdering peeple in the interests of a so-called ideological issue was guaranteed to prove advantageous to those committing the deed.

The irrationalist purpose being that if they made everyone scared enough then they would generally agree to be guided by the principles of unreason.

According to the Sensible materialist’s position, the philosophy of unreason was based on an illusion. It was though an immensely powerful and attractive illusion and claimed a growing number of adherents …peeple disillusioned by the horror of their present reality longed for the liberation brought by non-presence. They used their own non-presence assaults as a means to force their enemies to negotiate with unreason. They, and many materialist opponents of the existing systems as well, claimed, [reasonably, as it turned out. Ed] that both the “rules” parties on the planet, and the ‘least resistance” parties, were all pursuing unsustainable policies that would end by destroying everyone’s capacity to survive.

And the system was under threat. Global aging, for instance, was apparently a new disease that threatened to bankrupt the developed regions, to destabilise the global economy and overturn the existing geopolitical order. Most of the most established peeple were elderly (had been present for too long). They had achieved a life that no peeple in previous ages had ever achieved (to the best of anyone’s knowledge) and were fearful of it being threatened: and took active steps to protect their positions.
A generation of peacefulness had softened peeple. There was nothing more desirable than peaceful ness…peeple were prepared to give their presence and happiness for a peacefulness moment.

It was into this ambience that the infamous 9/11 assault took place. Peeple simply making their way in life were summarily executed (deleted) at the workplace…Reduced to non-presence without option. The horror changed the world forever. The lands of the Firmians, and the GrÖlanders (another power bloc on the planet): changed forever….

To be continued…