Quote 3: The Rooster and the Corn

Pg 104, Ebook Edition

A Mauritanian folktale tells us about a rooster-probe who would almost lose his mind whenever he encountered a rooster.

“Why are you so afraid of the rooster?” the psychiatrist asks him.

“The rooster thinks I’m corn.”

“You’re not corn. You are a very big man. Nobody can mistake you for a tiny ear of corn,” the psychiatrist said.

“I know that, Doctor. But the rooster doesn’t. Your job is to go to him and convince him that I am not corn.”

The man was not healed, since talking with the rooster was impossible. End of the story.

For years I’ve been trying to convince the U.S. government that I’m not corn.

The first and not the last of Mohamedou’s folktales and fables, this one stood out to me. No matter how big or small you are as long as you are under a “pecking order” you will be corn to the government’s rooster. The act of terrorism even the suspicion of being involved in an act or terrorism will put you on a list to become cornbread. Cornbread that will be teared apart by the masses in their hunger for a quick resolution for the war against terrorism. A resolution that should be one step closer to obtaining with your perfectly planned arrest. Mohamedou’s psychiatrists were of no help like the psychiatrist in the folktale. No confidentiality was apart of their job requirement so they became another type of interrogator and worked with the doctors to keep him alive and sane. The psychiatrist weren't listening and the U.S. government was deaf to anything that wasn’t intel (regardless of crediblity). Once you are corn is it possible to be considered human again in the eyes of the rooster?