Sheharazad’s thousand and second tale or would you let your daughter marry a green hair?
Know then, oh glorious king! that in days of yore and in times and tides long since gone there existed a strange and wonderful land known as Vespucci. The inhabitants of that country, as was universally the case even in those days, were divided into rich and poor, but this fact was not that which made Vespucci a strange and wonderful land. There was a different sort of division among the people that cut across economic status and which, confusing as it may seem to us, was the cause of much more confusion than it is easy for us to imagine. For the Vespuccians were also divided according to the colour of their hair.
Not that they had as many divisions as there are colours! No! There were but two general divisions—those with green hair (the minority) and all the others regardless of colour and combination of colour. A Vespuccian might have but a faint tint of green in his hair against a background of any other colour or combination of colours, but the green tinge officially stamped him as a Green Hair. He might have no green hair visible whatsoever yet he was classified as a Green Hair if both or either of his parents were officially Green Hairs. Only if he chose to hide the fact that there were Green Hairs in his background could he pass as a Normal Hair when, of course, the green in his hair was not visible. There were a few of the Green Hairs who disappeared from the census each year but by and large the divisions were constant.
Vespucci was also divided geographically into Upper Vespucci and Lower Vespucci and although there was a common law for all citizens which was inscribed in a book and interpreted, from time to time, by a group of nine old Cadis in the capital city—a town named Dryington— the separate sections of the country also had sectional laws pertaining to Green Hairs, written laws in Lower Vespucci, unwritten laws in Upper Vespucci. In Upper Vespucci the Green Hairs were, for the most part, segregated in housing and schools in a de facto manner while in Lower Vespucci the segregation was maintained as a matter of law. And this arrangement lasted for many generations with segregation carried out fairly generally and even in the armed forces and the prisons.
But certain developments began to take place in the economic life of the nation, developments which caused a great stir throughout the length and breadth of Vespucci. On the one hand a growing number of Green Hairs began to earn more money than had been the case hitherto and, at the same time, to get more education. On the other hand the larger manufacturers and merchants of the land found it expedient to expand into the more backward areas where more underprivileged Green Hairs were to be found and these big moneyed interests felt that a greater degree of stability among the working population (Green Hairs and Normal Hairs alike) was in order.
The wealthy Vespuccians, like the rich of our own times, were altruistic and never had other than the general welfare at heart. And so the group of top-ranking Cadis decreed in their wisdom that the arrangement that had, up until now, been legal was no longer legal and that all Vespuccians regardless of the colour of their hair were equal under the law, the only inequality , henceforth, to be that which is natural and normal and fitting—the inequality caused by the possession or non-possession of money in large quantities.
There was no great rush, however, to obey the new law on the part of the Lower Vespuccians and several years passed with no more than a token breakdown in the segregation pattern and even this in a restricted area of the Lower section. So great discontent became generated among the Green Hairs of Lower Vespucci while, in the other part of the nation, their fellow Green Hairs decided that de facto segregation would also have to go. They felt that their children were getting an unequal education and they resented the social inequality which was their lot despite there being no written laws on the matter in their area. And so they, too, began to demonstrate and to demand rights.
As of now, Your Highness, the affair should not seem to be too confusing. The Green Hairs were discriminated against in every manner and they were organizing to do something about it with the help, let me add hastily, of a number of Normal Hairs. They demonstrated in the streets, they picketed places of employment, they argued with school boards and with politicians, they boycotted stores, and many of them were subjected to various degrees of brutality by the forces of law and order. All of this is understandable. The Green Hairs wanted “Freedom” and they shouted to the rooftops that they wanted it now. But despite the fact that everything seems to have been quite in order, a certain confusion begins to develop in the story and seems to hinge around the meaning of the word Freedom, and also of the word Equality.
The Green Hairs were by no means united in their fight for Civil Rights. There were a number of organizations which represented them and which ran, in attitudes, all the way from conservative advocates of passive resistance—meek and humble followers of Christianity in its meek and humble forms, down through the more militant sects of that Infidel Religion, and even to the followers of the one, true, faith, the Muslims (Green Hair Muslims). And even the chosen of Allah were to become divided on the basis of militancy and action between the followers of the old leader, Mustapha Prophet, and the adherents of a younger and more fiery leader, Roderick Zee. But despite the divisions and differing attitudes there seemed to be one thing in common among the organizations of the Green Hairs and that was their universal agreement in a “practical” interpretation of the meaning of the terms Freedom and Equality. And this will best be explained by recounting the following adventure of a colour-blind Vespuccian who spent much time among the Green Hairs.
Our hero, who we will call Ali McKhan, chanced one day to step into the office of the largest of the Civil Rights groups, the National Brotherhood for the Aid of Green Hairs. He felt impelled to have a look at some of the literature of this organization and he entered into conversation with an official named Emmanuel Prince. “Right at this moment,” he was told, “Our main concern is in breaking down discrimination in housing. We are attempting to compel landlords in all neighbourhoods to rent to Green Hairs, and real-estate brokers to sell to them regardless of how snooty the neighbourhood.”—“Very interesting,” remarked McKhan, “but tell me something. I know a lot of Green Hairs in the Ghetto and I’m certain that most of those I know can’t afford to pay the rents in the better neighbourhoods and certainly don’t have enough money saved for a down payment on a house in the swank sections. What about them?”
Prince waved a deprecating hand, “We can’t be concerned with those people. The trouble with a lot of my fellow Green Hairs is that they just don’t have the initiative to better themselves. Let them stay where they are.”
“But,” argued McKhan, “It is my understanding that there are some new and wonderful machines on the scene today that make it possible to produce an abundance of food, and clothing, and houses, and everything else. Don’t you think it would be better if your organization tried to get all Vespuccians, regardless of colour, to see that it is now easy to produce enough for everybody and that something should be done to change the present basis of production for sale — change it to a system where everybody can have free access to their needs? Don’t you think that nobody would pay any attention to colour of hair under such conditions? That all Vespuccians would become colour blind?”
“My dear fellow,” snapped Prince, “ You arc obviously some sort of Red. What we want is freedom and equality. The freedom to rise on the economic ladder and an equal chance with Normal Hairs to compete for his freedom. How can you have freedom if you do away with poverty? And we don’t want everyone to become colour-blind. We’re proud of our colour. We are a rich mixture of great ancestors and we have a glorious history. Furthermore, we are loyal Vespuccians and we demand nothing more than our rights under the Constitution of our glorious nation.”
So McKhan sadly bowed his way out and went down the street in the direction of the Green Hairs Freedom Now Society. “They’re a militant bunch, not like that other gang of phonies,” he muttered. But on the way he suddenly noticed a bright sign with a star and crescent over the doorway of a building. He straightened his shoulders and pounded fist in palm. “ The devil with the rest of them. This is the real McKhoy, the headquarters of Roderick Zee, the New Muslim Leader. (The name was formerly Zed, but the new arrangement called for a revolutionary change.) This bunch will really understand what freedom and equality mean.” And he went in.
Fortunately for McKhan, Roderick Zee had overcome the old dislike of being friendly with Normal Hairs and he found the young Green Hair Muslim to be not only enthusiastic but affable. “Yes, my friend. What we Green Hairs need in order to attain freedom is a country of our own. We demand that the Vespuccian Government give us an area where we can set up our own government and produce and distribute for ourselves. We want Separation, and we want it now, even if we have to organize rifle clubs among the Green Hairs ”
McKhan was dubious about the separation bit and even more dubious about the rifle clubs. “Seems to me,” he interposed, “that it will take more than rifles to offset the weapons of the Vespuccian Government. And what’s this business about separation into your own country? I like the idea of producing and distributing for yourselves, but why restrict this to Green Hairs? Don’t you think it is possible to produce enough for everybody, regardless of colour of hair, to have all they want if we stop holding back the machinery and produce for use? Of course, we would have to abolish private property universally, though, and not just for Green Hairs”
Roderick Zee’s eyes bulged in horror. “Get rid of private property?” he screamed. “What in the devil are you talking about?” Didn’t you hear me say we want Freedom Now? How can we have freedom if we don’t have the freedom to own private property and hire other people to work for us – Green Hairs, of course. We don’t want any Normal Hairs in our factories.”
“But,” argued McKhan, “why would anybody want to work for you if they were producing for themselves? I thought people worked for other people just because they have to in order to eat, because they don’t own the means for producing things. And you say they—all of the Green Hairs—will own their own factories and workshops and still most of them will go to work for some of them? Its all quite confusing.” He was still mumbling as he was led out the door.
And so you see. Oh Illustrious King, that the Vespuccians, regardless of the colour of their hair and regardless of the animosities between the Green Hairs and the Normal Hairs, did have a common belief in the meaning of freedom and equality. They understood that unless one could rise above his fellows, climb over the bodies that form the broad base on the bottom of the economic pyramid toward the narrow apex at the top, there can be no freedom. This was the basis of Vespuccian Ethics and Vespuccian Religion and Vespuccian Morality and Vespuccian Law, and it was written in a big book in the capital city of Dryington and interpreted, from time to time, by nine old Cadis.
H. MORRISON