Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram
‘The world is run by one million evil men, ten million stupid men and a hundred million cowards,’ Abdul Ghani pronounced in his best Oxford English accent, licking the sweet honey cake from his short, thick fingers. ‘The evil men are the power - the rich men, and the politicians, and the fanatics of religion - whose decisions rule the world, and set it on its course of greed and destruction.’
He paused, looking toward the whispering fountain in Abdel Khader Khan’s rain-splashed courtyard as if he was receiving inspiration from the wetness and the shimmering stone. He reached out with his right hand and took another honey cake, popping it whole into his mouth. The little beseeching smile he gave me as he chewed and swallowed seemed to say I know I shouldn’t, but I really can’t help it.
‘There are only one million of them, the truly evil men, in the whole world. The very rich and the very powerful, whose decisions really count - they only number one million. The stupid men, who number ten million, are the soldiers and the policemen who enforce the rule of the evil men. They are the standing armies of twelve key countries, and the police forces of those and twenty more. In total, there are only ten million of them with any real power or consequence. They are often brave, I’m sure, but they are stupid, too, because they give their lives for governments and causes that use their flesh and blood as mere chess pieces. Those governments always betray them or let them down or abandon them, in the long run. Nations neglect no men more shamefully than the heroes of their wars.’
The circular courtyard garden at the heart of Khaderbai’s house was open to the sky at its centre. Monsoon rain fell upon the fountain and surrounding tiles: rain so dense and constant the sky was a river, and our part of the world was its waterfall. Despite the rain, the fountain was still running, sending its frail plumes of water upward against the cascade from above. We sat under cover of the surrounding veranda roof, dry and warm in the humid air as we watched the downpour and sipped sweet tea.
‘And the hundred million cowards,’ Abdul Ghani continued, pinching the handle of the teacup between his plump fingers, ‘they are the bureaucrats and paper shufflers and pen-pushers who permit the rule of the evil men, and look the other way. They are the head of this department, and the secretary of that committee, and the president of the other association. They are managers, and officials, and mayors, and officers of the court. They always defend themselves by saying that they are just following orders, or just doing their job, and it’s nothing personal, and if they don’t do it, someone else surely will. They are the hundred million cowards who know what is going on, but say nothing, while they sign the paper that puts one man before a firing squad, or condemns one million men to the slower death of a famine.’
He fell silent, staring into the mandala of veins on the back of his hand.
A few moments later, he shook himself from his reverie and looked at me, his eyes gleaming in a gentle, affectionate smile.
‘So that’s it,’ he concluded. ‘The world is run by one million evil men, ten million stupid men, and a hundred million cowards. The rest of us, all six billion of us, do pretty much what we are told!’
He laughed, and slapped at his thigh. It was a good laugh, the kind of laugh that won’t rest until it shares the joke, and I found myself laughing with him.
‘Do you know what this means, my boy?’ he asked, when his face was serious enough to frame the question.
‘Tell me.’
‘This formula - the one million, the ten million, the hundred million - this is the real truth of all politics. Marx was wrong. It is not a question of classes, you see, because all the classes are in the hands of this tiny few. This set of numbers is the cause of empire and rebellion. This is the formula that has generated our civilisations for the last ten thousand years. This built the pyramids. This launched your Crusades. This put the world at war, and this formula has the power to impose the peace.’