Scapegoat

^{Illustration | thinkpiece.club}

ONCE upon a time, there was a country where all the people had a profession as a thief.

Every night, each resident went out from their own house carrying a crowbar and a petromax lamp-then robbed their neighbor's house. When they returned to their homes at dawn, while carrying the stolen goods, they would find that their house had been robbed.

That way everyone lives in harmony, no one is too poor-for one person robs another, and that person robs another, and so on until the rest of the community does the same. In this country, business and fraud are a whole. 

The position of seller and buyer is equally depraved. Government in this country is also formed by criminal organizations that deliberately designed to cheat people. While the people spend their time rigging the government. So life goes on without any problems-and the people of this country are neither rich nor poor.

^{Illustration | Pixabay/LillyCantabile}

But one day-somehow-an honest man appeared in the country. At night, when other residents are busy robbing the neighbors, the person just stayed home smoking and reading novels. When a group of robbers arrived at his home, they were surprised to find the house in a state of light. Finally they went quietly.

Of course, this state creates inequality. The honest man is rebuked and advised that his reluctance to rob makes others lose their livelihood. Because if he does not participate and get out of his house at night, then there will always be families who are forced to starve the next day.

The honest man can not defend himself. So he agreed to leave his house every night and return at dawn; but still he did not want to steal. He is an honest man, and that can not be changed. Every night, he walked over to the bridge and watched the stream of water below. After that, he will go home and find his house has been robbed.

In less than a week, the honest man finally fell into poverty. He had no money and his house was ransacked. No food at all. But this is his own fault. Because he wants to live honestly, the system that has been able to sustain people's lives is now a mess. The honest man has allowed himself to be robbed, without robbing others; then every dawn, there is always a family whose whole house is still intact-which should have been robbed by the honest man the night before. 

Well, therefore, families whose homes are not robbed eventually become richer than others. This causes them to stop stealing. While the families who took turns ransacked the house the honest man was forced to return home empty-handed and thus became poor.

^{Illustration | Indialeaks}

Every night, the wealthy follow the habits of the honest man to stand on the bridge while watching the water flow below them until dawn arrives. This adds to the chaos of the atmosphere-because the rich get more and more while in the same time the poor are growing as well.

Now the wealthy citizens realize that if they spend time on the bridge every night, they will also be poor for too long. Then, they think: "How about we pay the poor to steal for us every night?" So the contract was made, complete with the approval of salary and bonus percentage (stick with this trick from both sides: they still have the mental thief). Until the end: the rich get richer, while the poor get poorer.

The rich live so abundantly that there is no need to steal or pay people to steal for them. But if they stop stealing, they will fall into poverty: it is inevitable. The poor will surely rob them all out. No loss of mind, rich citizens offer wages for very poor citizens to protect their homes from other poor people. Then a police unit was formed, and a prison was built.

That's it-a few years after the emergence of the honest man, no more citizens are talking about robbing or robbing: only about wealth and poverty. Even so, they still behave like thieves.

There was only one honest man in the country, but his life was shortly after: for in no time he died of starvation.

^{Illustration | Cartoon A Day}

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The story above is originally titled La Pecora Nera by Italo Calvino and first published in 1993 in a collection of short stories titled Prima che tu dica 'Pronto'.

Italo Calvino is an Italian journalist, novelist and story teller who has produced over 20 books, both fiction and non-fiction. He belong to one of the best known Italian authors in the world.

Wait! Then why am I busy translating and telling you about this truth. In fact, I checked on Google and online plagiarism checker program. It passes 100%.

I want that 1,000 SP! I do not want to die of starvation either.

^{Illustration | Pat Heyman}