Abandon reason all ye
who enter here
May the Deity’s goodness bathe your brow and trickle down
your shoulders. Oh blessed one, my most
excellent friend, you who are so fortunate, to be reading this edition of J-Plus.
As foreseen with my third eye you are special above all, chosen
by the celestial spirits with whom I commune.
You alone will share in great riches and marvels beyond imagination.
Now follow these instructions carefully. Go to the bank and
buy a thousand dollars, ten $100 uncreased bills. Borrow from your neighbors if
you can’t afford, they’ll raze, sorry, praise you later.
Put the notes in an envelope for my courier to collect.
Within ten days he’ll be back with a parcel for you
containing – wait for it – fifty $100 bills.
What will you do with all that wealth?
Friends and family will bless you forever. Your name will be sung in paddy and palace, chanted
in market and mosque.
Farewell. I go hence
to my mountain retreat, meditating with seven nubile handmaidens. I await my
messenger. Peace.
US pollsters and academics wonder why few facts feature in
the presidential campaign. The reason is
simple; journalists winnow the past for grains of truth among the chaff, but
the candidates dwell in a separate fact-free universe: The future.
This is an unexplored land.
American electors who’ve convinced themselves there’ll be
jobs for all in a booming economy fenced off from Muslims and Mexicans simply
by filing a ballot-paper are little different from the clients of Indonesian cult
leader Dimas Kanjeng.
His followers don’t call themselves Democrats or Republicans
but Padepokan. They’re not centered in
Washington DC but Probolinggo, East Java.
Apart from the names and geographical distances they’re still in the
same business – planting dreams in the desert of tomorrow.
Despite a lack of yellow hair Pak Kanjeng is a stand-out
figure in spotless white, slashed by a sash of authority secured by a broach of
mysticism, all topped by a regal turban.
Magnificent! A headdress needs to
be spacious to contain the brains beneath.
Like ‘Make America Great’ the message must be clear and
simple: ‘You will get rich – life will
be better.’ Don’t ask how – details are
for disbelievers. Believe in me. You
trusted your Pop when a toddler - didn’t he have all the answers?
Small wonder scientists have problems explaining global
warming. Will rising seas drown my
house? ‘On the balance of probabilities,
maybe. The modelling tends to indicate a trend.’
We planned an exclusive interview with Pak Kanjeng, 46, who
was educated at an Islamic University in Malang. Unfortunately he recently
moved from his luxury mansion to a down-market address.
He’s actually a guest of the authorities who allege – along
with charges of murder and blasphemy – that he’s filched Rp 1.5 billion
(US$115,500) from his devotees..
He did this, say the cops, by convincing around 3,000 credulous
citizens that he could multiply money. Investigators claim they confiscated 500
bars of gold, each of one kilogram. Total value - about $21 million.
Hopefully this
evidence is safely secured ready for the trial, not like the mysterious cyanide
crystals at the center of another legal event.
Along with the bullion was local and foreign currency made in
a ‘magic box’. Its dimensions are similar to a ballot box.
Kanjeng, like Clinton, Trump and all other guarantors of
glory has, his accusers claim, mastered the
ancient arts of alchemy. One it was turning
lead into gold. Now it’s the transmutation
of ticks on slips into a fantasy world our life experience and native instinct
says cannot exist.
Then add the gnawing logic which asks: If these guys really know how to make the poor rich why have they waited so long? If
they’ve found the Eldorado why share with strangers?
When I’m handed the elixir of life be sure I’ll first be fermenting
a brew for family and friends before the formulae goes on Creative Commons.
Pak Kanjeng will be answerable to his critics in a few weeks
time, Ms Clinton and Mr Trump on 8 November. Here’s a promise that I guarantee:
At least one will be heading for a four-year sentence. Trust me.
First published in J-Plus, The Jakarta Post 22 October 2016
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