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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol. 38, No. 12. June 4 1975

Lift up the Banner

Lift up the Banner

Lift up the banner

Once upon a time, in the animal world, a fox by its cunning and support given by the pack of wolves, managed to succeed to the throne once occupied by the lion.

Aware of his own impotence and weakness, the fox wants everybody to stop thinking so that he can continue to rule with his cunning and deception.

But he needs all the other animals to grow food to feed him, and growing food means allowing them to come together. The sly old fox recognises that allowing them all to come together means also exchanging of ideas and thinking is possible. So it devises all kinds of distractions such as movies which focus on animal mating and family control in order for peace and plenty in the animal world to prevail.

As time goes on, some of the animals become bored with all these distractions, and started to think on their own. Why is the fox our ruler?' 'Why must I work so hard to feed him?' One day the rabbit asked the squirrel: 'Why do you think we are not allowed to speak out our thoughts?' 'Shhh, not so loud', said the squirrel, 'or the wolves will hear you'.

Undisturbed, the rabbit continued: 'I think the fox is afraid of us. Otherwise why should he forbid us to think or to share our ideas?' 'Huh! the fox afraid of you? You must be joking', snorted the squirrel. The fox is not afraid of me alone, but of us all,' replied the rabbit. 'How I wish I can share this with my friends', sighed the rabbit.

'Maybe you can', softly spoke the squirrel. 'If you can write your message onto a banner and lift it high, the others will also know the fox is frightened of you. Then perhaps we will not need to work so hard to feed him and his pack of wolves'.

'But beware; if you are caught, [unclear: t], you could be killed by them', warned the squirrel. The rabbit sat there with a twinkle in his eyes.

One cloudy night, the rabbit stealthily ran up a hill-top and stuck its banner up. But just as the crowd started to gather, the wolves came and tore it down, and took the rabbit to jail.

One jackal was heard commenting: 'Well, that's a proper end for those who think so big of themselves as to overthrow the fox'. He was rebutted by the turtle which said : 'You coward. Don't you know you are cowardly and not comparable to one fraction of our hero rabbit? Sure the rabbit is put in jail, but there will be many more rabbits, squirrels and elephants to come.'

All will Try to Lift up the Banner and One Day we will Succeed.