'Let them eat cake' - Thought Leader

Submitted by James Tobias

Put aside your political agendas and concern yourselves purely on a humanitarian level for a moment.

Driving my kids to college on Monday morning, I heard that our local town hall had been transformed into a place of safety for immigrants who were fleeing from an inexplicable onslaught on their possessions, homes and lives.

I decided to pass by the hall on my way home, concerned that the violence would now spread to the towns and cities — my home was only a few kilometres away.

Within seconds of seeing the plight of these poor people spilling from the hall and on to the sidewalks, any thoughts of self-preservation were dispelled.

Mothers, dozens of mothers, were feeding their children in the gutters, toddlers sitting on the cold pavements wearing little more than shabby T-shirt and shorts. We had all seen the pictures, but nothing had prepared me for seeing it in person. We have a built-in tendency not to believe what we see on television.

I pulled over in my luxury car and headed toward the dishevelled congregation, where I received little more than passing glances. A sense of walking among ghosts sent a shiver through me.

The large wooden doors of the old colonial hall grated open. I took my chance and ducked, without hindrance, past the doorkeeper.

The hall was empty with only a small gang of conscripts cleaning the floor. The crowd outside had spent the night here and was merely outside so that a little housekeeping could be effected.

I approached a small group of people who looked like they were in charge of proceedings; they broke off their meeting and greeted me with an unexpected exuberance.

A young, fresh-faced man from the unmistakable Salvation Army with a pleasant demeanour shook my hand. Two men from the Red Cross, a delightful woman from a church and another concerned citizen in his private capacity completed the band.

Finally, a shy and introverted young man joined the group and introduced himself too — an immigrant who had taken it upon himself to coordinate the whole fiasco.

Before discussions could continue, we were joined by a slim, almost skinny, well-dressed man whom we would come to know as Comrade — our local councilman, who was closely followed by a large, brusque police officer.

Instead of concentrating on the discussion, I looked at each face in our small circle.

The holy lady spoke 10 to the dozen, reassuringly touching the arm of each person to whom she spoke. The concerned citizen scribbled down lists while insisting on structure; the Red Cross men disappeared to find tents.

The baby-faced Salvation Army officer somehow managed to listen intently to two conversations at once. The police officer laid down the law on security in a manner that made many of us wince at his somewhat insensitive language, but in fact his only concern was the safety of the terrified hordes outside.

Our Comrade councillor bit his lip to avoid educating the officer in the art of political correctness; instead he fiddled with the breast pocket of his impeccable suit from which poked what looked like Mao’s Little Red Book. I surreptitiously scanned his pockets to see if I could see the bulge of Mein Kampf.

A flicker of flame reignited from the embers of my badly burnt South African pride. Our small group of diverse South Africans was here for a common cause: to help those afflicted and, if possible, to restore our country’s proud history.

After a couple of days I came to realise that these charitable people worked tirelessly and selfishly for the good of others. Instead of a halo forming above my head, I became more and more depressed and emotionally exhausted — no warm, fuzzy feelings washed over me at my apparent goodwill. It is a thankless vocation that only the tough and dedicated can endure.

By the third day, I had to return to work. I set about giving my number to those remaining, should they require my help. I said my goodbyes and stood at the rear of the hall watching the next line of people being served their lunch from the stage.

The scene reminded me of Charles Dickens’s classic story A Tale of Two Cities, set during the French Revolution in which the elite were brutally overthrown by the poor. The notorious line “Let them eat cake”, often attributed to Marie Antoinette, sprang to mind.

A sharp tugging on my trousers brought me back to reality as a young lad of about five years looked up at me. I smiled at him, as I had with many before, thinking he was another chancing their arm for a small treat. This one was more persistent, pulling vigorously on my jeans, so I knelt to his level.

He looked me in the eye and put his arms around me for little more than a second before running off to join a rough-and-tumble game that had spontaneously broken out nearby.

In that magnanimous moment of inhaling his pungent destitution, I was converted from the carer to the cared.

I don’t remember driving home; in fact, I don’t remember much about anything until I got home and found I had opened Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities and read the opening paragraph.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

James Tobias is the owner of a successful company and confidante to a number of businessmen. his goal is to have his business running efficiently so that he can spend more time on his passion — writing. He has published a number of articles, both fiction and non-fiction for glossy periodicals