Most of us are likely somewhere between casually or intimately familiar with the Hans Christian Andersen story titled “The Emperor Haas No Clothes“. It’s a popular tale that has an important object lesson, and for this reason it is often employed as a metaphor for gullibility of the people in power, be they Presidents or Prime Ministers or established politicians in general. And for the most part, that interpretation is understandable, while yet, in my humble view, grossly mischaracterised.

The object lesson can certainly stand the test of time; however, the unfortunate mischaracterization begins at the very top: The King. For all intents and purposes, the king in a Democracy is not the elected official in the persona of a President or a Prime Minister or any member of Parliament for that matter. If one would recall the etymology of the word “Democracy” as being found in the Greek word “demoskratia”, it would then be recalled that therein the “demos” part of the word can be translated as “common people”. The latter half of demoskratia hails from the Greek word “kratos” meaning rule. When combined, the word speaks to the rule by the common people. One definition describes democracy as “system of government in which the sovereign power is vested in the people as a whole exercising power directly or by elected officials.” Therefore, the “Emperor” in this timeless tale (at least as far as a democracy is concerned) is the citizenry or the common man and woman.

Then where do the presidents or prime ministers and their fellow politicians fit in this age-old parable? To answer that question, one must first appreciate the answers to a few simple questions: who benefited the most in this entire story? To whom did wealth amass? And which actors were able to design and install a new way of thinking that quickly became an institution? A quick re-read of this relatively short story makes plain that the only actors that receive an affirmative reply to each of those questions are the Swindlers.

One must, of course, admire the ingenuity of the Swindlers, for while they clearly did not create any fabric, they created a new system with its own rules that worked to their advantage. “[C]lothes made of this cloth had a wonderful way of becoming invisible to anyone who was unfit for his office, or who was unusually stupid.” There you have it. In 25 words, a new system and way of thinking has been introduced: Whoever cannot see the non-existent fabric being “expertly” woven by the Swindlers is “unfit for his office” or is “unusually stupid”. Inherent in those words are its penalties and rewards and a system for survival: conform with the lie, you get to keep your job or social status. Speak the truth and you may be deemed ‘unfit’ or “unusually stupid”, a judgment that speaks to the core of social acceptance and is bound to suffer from high levels of dissonance reduction efforts.

But this echoes of that famous quote from Federic Bastiat: “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” Here, the ‘moral code’ glorifies the lie regarding the nakedness of the King, again who is better characterized as the Citizens.

The Emperor’s ministers in the story are, in fact, better reflected in the roles of the public servants who make up the Public Service in every democracy around the world. As the story goes, the Emperor rightly sends his best and most honest and dutiful minister to inspect the progress being made with the garments. However, while seeing nothing (as there was nothing to be seen), the fear of being judged ‘stupid or unfit’ by this new Moral Code (again, the only thing that the Swindlers actually manufactured) engendered conformity to an obvious untruth. For a man whose entire self worth and value systems hinged on his reputation, the possibility of being declared unfit would instinctively be met with a tendency to fall in line. The poison of this new Moral Code and system would also infect the King (the People), who similarly does not wish to be considered “unusually stupid” for not being able to see what is, in all actuality, not there.

In working their new Moral Code, the Swindlers, while pretending to be diligently at work, also siphoned off the kingdom’s assets and resources (in the story, the ‘gold’ and threads) for themselves as payment for the non-existent garment. (There is much that could be said here about how this speaks to the need for Results-based Public Sector Management, but let’s leave that for a later date). Is this siphoning off not analogous to what happens in democracies worldwide where corrupt systems allow political swindlers to walk away with the people’s wealth for simply appearing to be working in the people’s favor?

Now, we all know how this story ends: A child, likely immune to the talons of the ruse-based Moral Code, pointed out the obvious: the Emperor hath no clothes. Of course, those closest to the child begin to “whisper” the same, and before long the crowd begins to echo the same truth. Sadly, however, at this juncture, even though he himself shivered at the possibility that the crowd is right, he decided that the procession must go on.

That is how we are as the common people: Even when realizing the obvious, painful truth, the ‘procession’ must go on. There are so many individuals, who when spoken to in private, would boldly declare that we, the People, have been swindled. We may even preach the gospel truth that the system we have adopted is indeed perverse and must be changed. However, the swindlers’ Moral Code had wrought the ultimate damage: it damaged the mind. That is, it damaged our way of thinking, especially as it pertains to matters of self-preservation and economic “survival”.

Bringing it Closer to Home

Applied to a real-world, Belizean scenario, the King in our story has been trained to believe and accept certain lies as natural truths. For instance, there is the lie that Alternative Political (Minority) Parties such as the Belize People’s Front (BPF), the Belize Progressive Party (BPP), or the Vision Inspired by the People (VIP) could never win or cannot govern properly for lack of expertise. But one need only ask from whence came that thought? Is it not from the established politicians? Is that not akin to the work of the Swindlers, who set the rules of the game for the King and his kingdom?

Another lie is that politics should be tribal, with each side taking turns, as the saying goes, “to eat”. What sort of utter madness and foolishness is that type of Moral Code? The illogical nature of such an unwritten rule is the bedrock of absolute inefficiency from a socio-economic vantage point. This type of tribal spoiler system essentially leaves, at any given moment, close to 50% of our fellow citizens out in the proverbial ‘wilderness’. This Moral Code keeps the true King in the Democracy “divided”, thereby, affording the Swindlers (politicians) more power in the Sovereign’s Game (see Weingast, 2005, p. 5). The fact is this: ALL BELIZEANS SHOULD BE EATING (whether PUP, UDP, BPF, BPP, or VIP, or no “P” at all) AT THE SAME TIME. The UDP’s are brothers and sisters to the PUPs (in many instances, quite literally, in fact). Therefore, the real leader that this country needs is one who is committed to UNIFYING all Belizeans, while still leaving space for legitimate policy debates.

Connected to that latter point is another lie: That is, that the Swindlers are the ones from whom to receive resources. The lie that these thirty-one men and women are your breadwinners and providers is possibly the greatest lie of them all, because inherent within this deception is the threat of punishment. I could recall during a previous election when the media interviewed a voter within a certain southern constituency. I recall the voter pleading on LIVE national television for the incumbent government to not “punish” them for the choice of the majority voters in the area.

This mindset was also seen in a 2012 news interview in which certain citizens went as far as to describe the Prime Minister and another minister as their “father” or “daddy” (see interview HERE). One interviewee, speaking candidly, made his motivations for voting clear: “[Y]ou know me, I am a die-hard UDP to the max. We don’t have anything against the party. We are red down the -line. We voted in both elections down the line – keep your job if you vote for the red, if you vote for the PUP you will lose your job. Now it doesn’t make any sense, maybe if I voted for the PUP I would have a job now” (Emphasis added). That’s clientelism in one of its purest forms, and it must be broken; however, it is not for the politicians to break it: It is for the “King” to realize who we are, and that like the Emperor in the tale, we’ve been lulled into accepting a system and its  Moral Code that promotes a series of “lies”.

The Child and Others

The astute reader would likely notice that thus far I have not yet spoken as to the typification of the child. If the Emperor is the people, and the ministers are the public servants in the Public Service, and the Swindlers represent the established politicians, who do the child and the others who eventually echo the truth represent?

I am not certain as to why the author of the fable chose a child. Honestly speaking, he could have easily chosen a visitor to the country, or even an elderly woman or man. In either of those cases the opportunity cost of speaking out would be relatively low. Remember, the only threat in this newly manufactured system is that you would be either deemed “unfit” for office or considered a foolish or stupid soul. A visitor would likely be immune from either the former or the latter, as this is not his country or his countrymen from whom he needs acceptance and acknowledgement. And an elderly man or woman would have less to lose, especially if already retired.

Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the child being the first to speak up is reminiscent of the role to be played the next generation. The Moral Code of the Swindlers is enshrined in the system we inherited from our former colonial masters, and it is the new generation of citizens, which include the so-called millennials (born between 1980 and 2000) and even the up-and-coming Gen-Zs or post-millennials (born in the late 1990’s to present), that will have to be the first ones to speak what is already on everyone’s minds: The Emperor has clothes, and we the people (the Emperor) have been robbed, and, therefore, we need to completely demolish the system and its twisted Moral Code that allowed this robbery.