Monday, August 18, 2008

The Ultimate Fairy Tale

Are politics a real life replica of a fairy tale? Politics seem to be one of the most complicated matters. However, when the subject is juxtaposed to fantasy, it appears a bit clearer.
In short, politics represent the process by which a group of people make decisions about their government, whether civil, academic, corporate or religious. Civil is the most commonly recognized as a political process –such will be the focus. More specifically, politics deals with the regulation of a collectivity, regardless of the circumstances and methods used to create and implement policy. A fairy tale relates the story of a folkloric character and enchantments through an exaggerated sequence of events. At the end of which, after having suffered many difficulties, a form of happiness is usually attained.
A race for a political position in a country run by a representative government is comparatively similar to a fairy tale. In a political race, a candidate uses all of what is available in order to portray the image of the perfect candidate. The candidate reveals only those attributes and sides of her personality that will help her win the position for which she postulates herself. In the same way, on a fairy tale the protagonist only exposes those qualities which will make the reader believe why she deserves better; while also making clear that all the suffering she endures is unreasonable. Thus, the protagonist of a fairy tale also strives to portray the perfect candidate, but in this case, for emancipation.
A political candidate uses her family to help her achieve her goal. All of a sudden, her children are the flawless example of what all the children in the community she will represent should be like. Her husband is the ideal husband which every woman should hope to marry and the husband every man must aspire to become. And her, she is the most wonderful woman there ever was. Of course, such image expands to her extended family and all the people that she has connections with. The protagonist of a fairy tale also uses her family as means to prove how much she deserves a better life. Indirectly, the protagonist ensures that at home she only suffers, and that she must leave before her chances of a better future obliterated. At the same time, she becomes the kindhearted person who does not complain; which makes her even more deserving of liberation. Both characters, then, fight a battle which will, at the end, make them or break them.
The campaign takes the candidate as well as the collectivity through a roller coaster of decisions. The same repeats itself in a fairy tale. In a political campaign, the candidate must choose where to make appearances that will benefit her campaign. She must be careful to choose the correct place and talk to the right people. In a fairy tale, the series or events are more or less the same. The protagonist tries tirelessly to survive in the unfavorable environment in which she finds herself, with some success, but without hurting anyone in her efforts.
Then, election time comes. If the elected candidate is that one in which the community had place all their hopes and dreams, the ending is absolutely magnificent. In the fairy tale, this ending is achieved when the protagonist finally finds her future attached to that of her prince charming. However, the reader is never told whether prince charming turned out not to be so charming after all. Nor does the reader ever find out whether the protagonist was simply pretending to be abused at home because she wanted a different type of life; one where she could enjoy all the pleasures of life. This might mean that when she was able to leave home, she could have bared her shell and shown her true self which was not as delightful as she made believe when she was home. In the same way, election time is too soon to recognize whether the newly elected candidate will rise up to the expectation of the community and be true to her word by fulfilling all the promises she made as a candidate.
Thus, the game of politics is simply a play on a fairy tale. One does not really know if one will get what one voted for. In the same way, that one will never know if the happy ending in the fairy tale was truly a happy ending and not simply a new beginning.

xoxo,
Poison Drops


©Copyrighted 2008

No comments: