Shangrilla is a virtual –reality utopian Kingdom at the foot of the Himalayas negating a hell of a real country in Sub-Shara Africa. Rasselase is a resident of Shangrila who graduated from the former Haileselassie University with a BA in economics and an MBA from the US Stanford University. After graduation, Rasselase joined the CBE’s (Commercial Bank of Ethiopia’s) Business Development Department but soon became disillusioned with the promise of career challenge he had anticipated and moved to the nearby NBE (National Bank of Ethiopia) where he was made a senior member of the Economic Research Department.
After working for about ten years at the NBE, Rasselase unfortunately developed a schizoid personality, which he still attributes to the contradiction between the media hype and the reality on the ground as regards Ethiopia’s national economy. The media hype, he maintains, puts the annual GDP growth of the country at about 11 percent. On the other hand the stark reality on the ground for the vast majority of the population indicates not positive but negative growth. The economic propaganda machine, he says, propagates the notion that nearly 2 million jobs are created every year while impressionistic and anecdotal economic evidence shows that the country is engulfed by a sea of overt and covert unemployment. State controlled media channels argue that inflation has been controlled, that the rate of exchange is stable and that the fiscal deficit is within limits and that foreign direct investment is growing rapidly while facts on the ground point to the opposites of these developments.
So, Rasselase’s mind which was no longer able to accommodate such a simultaneous utopian sureality and a dystopian reality created the idyllic Kingdom of Shangria and started inhabiting it. When the Governor of the NBE once asked him to write a report on the state of the Ethiopian economy, he submitted an assessment whose opening statements ran as follows: “judging by my lifestyle, Shangrila no doubt is heaven on earth. My usual lunch is an eleven – course affair. I chase my lunch down with the finest wines in France, Spain and Italy. I live in a sumptuous mansion and drive a limousine. My wife is a fashion model who was crowned Miss Universe the year before. I commute to work by helicopter, of course privately owned. My monthly salary is more than that of the Prime Minister of Singapore. I own a beautiful luxury yacht which I use with my good friends President Essayas Afeworki. My net worth, my accountants tell me, is now more than that of President Trump. I can’t realy complain. In fact, what more do I want?”
The flabbergasted Governor of the NBE, shocked at the extent of Rasselase’s mental disorientation, did not quite know what to say and how to respond and simply said: “Rasselase, are you ok?”
“How do you mean, Ok? You know that’s only the introductory part. I will definitely get the whole report ready well before the deadline.” The Governor said “never mind” and left. He phoned his Head of Personnel and instructed him to take Rasselase to an experienced psychiatrist and to tell him the diagnosis and the course of treatment required. The personnel head did as he was told. Three days later he met the Governor with the psychiatric consultancy results. The handwriting in which the diagnoses and the prescriptions were written was awful, but since the Personnel Head had asked the psychiatrist and had written them out in his own more legible script, he read them out loud as follows: “Definitive symptoms of schizophrenia with significant markers of previous psychoneurosis.”
“ And what does all that mean? Never mind, just go get him the medications prescribed from the Banks Clinic and let the pharmacist tell him how to take them”, the Governor said and hurried to go to a meeting with the Prime Minister.
The Personnel Head accompanied Rasselase to the Banks Clinic and the pharmacist on duty, who recognized the patient, asked: “Ato Rasselase, anything the matter with you?”
“ I have no idea why anybody would want to drag me into a place like his when my life and health are marvelous beyond description in my heavenly Shangrila,” Rasselase said.
“Do you know why you are here?” the pharmacist asked.
“I ll be damned if I do! I haven’t got the slightest idea why anybody would want to be in the company of sniffling, smirking, gasping and yelling sick people and patients,” Rasselase replied.
“Well, Ato Rasselase, you have unfortunately been diagnosed with a serious mental illness called schizophrenia accompanied by assorted psychiatric abnormalities,” the pharmacist said, picking the prescribed medicines from the shelves behind his desk and entering their labels in the computer on the desk before handing them over to Rasselase and his assigned companion, the Head of Personnel.
Then Rasselase launched into an extended lecture –like confabulation: “There is a lot you don’t know about me. I am a BA economics graduate from H.I.M. Haileselassie University with very great distinction and an MBA graduate from none other than the world-famous US Stanford University with honours. All economic, business and financial information, knowledge and wisdom reside in my person, the one and only Rasselase of Shangrila. I have lectured all and sundry in Ethiopia that the only way they can transform Ethiopia into a cornucopia of economic and financial abundance is by utilizing the coruscating genius of formidable intellects like my own (excuse me for being rather narcissistic on this point) to construct the sinews of economic infrastructure and then, you guessed it, the wings of economic take- off. Since we have all failed to do that, and particularly since I have failed to do what needs to be done on this front, I have chosen to become a disembodied soul residing in the virtual –reality Kingdom of Shangrila at the foot of the Himalayas. My body was separated from my soul by rampant inflation because I was not able to earn enough to put body and soul together at the current skyrocketing prices! I was in fact murdered and slaughtered by rampant inflation and by a perverse incentive system which rewards corruption rather than merit, mediocrity rather than genius and brilliance, treachery rather than honesty and integrity and duplicity rather than probity!”
The pharmacist was astounded at Rasselasse’s verbal incoherent coherence. There was a lot that made sense in what Rasselase said, but then his acute narcissism was almost palpable. It was as if his brilliant lucid intervals were interrupted by distinct schizophrenic lapses. At any rate, Rasselase was finally sedated after taking two of his different psychotropic medications. Rasselase and the Personnel Head left the pharmacy and the Banks Clinic and the HR man gave Rasselase a ride home.
Home for Rasselase was a nifty two-bedroom villa in a newly gentrified locality in Addis Ababa. But as the effects of the sedative and psychotropic medication waned, Rasselase began having hallucinations and started to defend himself against his imaginary (to us) enemies who were real to him. He reached for his 0.38 colt revolver in his bedside drawer. He thought for a moment to decide who his real enemy was: Himself or rampant inflation. His narcissism helped him to point his finger outward beyond the self. Then he started talking to himself aloud: “Am I not the MBA graduate of the famous Stanford University? Have I not mastered the old and modern quantity theory of money? Don’t I know that the velocity of money does have the de facto impact of increasing the volume and supply of money? Am I not the equal of Milton Friedman in unequivocally asserting that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon? Aren’t NBE and CBE equally responsible for the 6000 percent cumulative inflation in Ethiopia? Who rendered me unable to pay my bills: NBE or CBE? The Governor of NBE, the President of CBE or the Currency Manager of NBE? Are these persons or institutions? How can I kill institutions if they are the latter ? Or maybe I am my own worst enemy!”
Then, he pulled the trigger and once again became a disembodied soul and flew back to the virtual – reality utopian Kingdom of Shangrila at the foot of the Himalays. Thus, thousands of miles away from the ravages of hyperinflation, exchange rate depreciation, unemployment, housing, water, electricity and transport shortage, and now Covid -19, the psycho of Shangrila lived happily ever after!
BY TEKLEBIRHAN GEBREMICHAEL
