NationStates Jolt Archive

Once, long ago, the monkeys were slaves. They toiled all day serving an oppressive overlord, who never gave them overtime pay or sick leave or a holiday on Columbus Day. They would work for sixteen hours without a break, banging rocks together to grind up nuts for the company to sell. At night, they went home to their company-owned banana trees and dreamed of a better world, one in which monkeys could be free and happy and could sleep all day in their own banana trees. But none of them knew where that world was or how to get there. So in the morning, they would go back to work and labor all day for a few bananas, with no hope of improving their lot.

"If only we had a leader," some of them whispered to each other. "Somebody who would stand up to the bosses and demand our rights. If one of us would do that, the rest would follow. Then we'd see some changes around here!"

But when another monkey would say, "So why don't you do it?" they would simply shake their heads and say, "No way, not me. I’m not going first! Why don't you do it?"

And so, nothing ever got done, and nothing ever changed.

But then, one day, a monkey named Bobo decided he'd had enough. "I've had enough," he said, and put down his rocks. "I'm going home to sleep." And he walked off the job.

The other monkeys looked at each other in amazement. There was a long silence. Then another monkey said, "I've had enough too! I'm with Bobo!" And he threw down his rocks.

Then another monkey said, "Me too!" And then more monkeys said "Me too!" until all of them had thrown down their rocks and quit working.

But then the overseers came to see why the monkeys had stopped working. "Back to work, you monkeys!" they shouted, and cracked their whips.

Then a monkey picked his rocks back up, and threw them at the overseers. Then others picked up their rocks, and started throwing them. The overseers were bombarded by rocks. Suddenly, they decided that they weren’t paid enough to deal with monkeys throwing rocks, and ran off.

The monkeys, emboldened by their victory, picked their rocks back up and went to find the bosses. But the bosses suddenly decided they had urgent business overseas, and booked the first flights they could get out of the local airport. So the monkeys tore down the corporate headquarters instead.

When they were done destroying the building, the police arrived, wearing riot gear and carrying tear gas grenades. "All right, you anarchist monkeys," the police shouted, "you’re under arrest!"

But the monkeys charged the police, and took their tear gas grenades and their clubs and their guns. The police decided that maybe they'd rather have been ballet dancers after all, and retreated to the local opera house, and staged a production of Siegfried, which got rave reviews from the press.

And then there was nobody left to oppress the monkeys. "We're free!" they shouted.

"So, what do we do now?" one of them asked.

The monkeys were silent. None of them knew what to do next.

Then one of them shouted, "I know! Let's go ask Bobo! He started this, he’ll know what to do!"

"Yes!" the monkeys shouted all together. "We'll go ask Bobo!"

And so the monkeys went off to find Bobo, who had been sleeping in his tree all the while.

"Bobo!" they shouted. "Help us! We've declared our freedom, but we don't know what to do next!"

"Huh? What?" Bobo asked, waking up from his nap. "What do you mean, you've declared your freedom?"

"We're the Free Land of Anarchist Monkeys!" they shouted. "We have a flag and everything! Look!" And they unfurled their flag to show to Bobo.
http://www.nationstates.net/images/flags/uploads/anarchist_monkeys.jpg

"Very nice," Bobo said. "So, you're free now. Good for you. Why don't you all go away and let me get some sleep now?"

"But," the monkeys cried, "what do we do now?"

"Huh? Why do you need me to tell you?" Bobo asked.

"You're our leader!" the monkeys said.

"But I thought you were anarchist monkeys," Bobo pointed out. "Why do you need a leader if you’re anarchists?"

The monkeys thought about that for a while. "Well," they said. "we're really more like anarcho-syndicalist monkeys. But that wouldn't fit on the form."

"So then, can't you take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week, or something like that?" Bobo asked them. "I'd really like to get back to my nap now."

"But it's your turn to be executive officer this week!" they shouted. "We voted on it and everything!"

Bobo sighed. "You're not going to let me get any sleep until I lead you for a while, are you?"

"That's right!" the monkeys shouted.

"In that case, let's get down to brass tacks," Bobo said. "So we're the Free Land of Anarchist Monkeys. Now just where is our land?"

The monkeys looked around, embarrassed. "We don't have any land," they finally said.

"What? How can you be the Free Land of Anarchist Monkeys if you have no land?" Bobo asked.

"It was one of the options on the form!" they shouted.

"Somebody bring me this form," Bobo commanded. When the monkeys brought him the official UN Diplomatic Recognition Form, he read over it. Then he took out a pencil, scratched through "Free Land", and wrote in "Nomadic Peoples". "There," Bobo said. "That solves that problem."

"But we don't want to be nomads!" the monkeys shouted. "We want to have our own land, with our own banana trees to make our homes in!"

"Well, don't look at me," Bobo said. "I don't have any land."

"Find us some!" the monkeys demanded.

Bobo sighed. "You monkeys are never satisfied, are you? Well then, if it's land you want, it's land we'll get. I'll just have to go to the international community and see if anyone has some spare land."

"Thank you, Bobo!" the monkeys shouted.

Bobo just shook his head. "I should have just stayed in bed," he muttered.

Late one night, the network feed for ESPN is interrupted by a pirate signal beamed to the satellite transmitter. The Flames-Mighty Ducks hockey game goes fuzzy, then dark, and then is replaced by the image of a monkey on the screen. On the wall behind the monkey is a red-and-black flag with a picture of a monkey on it. (Fortunately, it is second intermission, so not too many people are upset by this unscheduled interruption except for ESPN executives.)

"Good evening," the monkey says, demonstrating a surprising command of the English language. "I am Bobo, temporary acting executive officer of the provisional government of the Nomadic Peoples of Anarchist Monkeys. I appear before you tonight with an appeal to the international community."

The shot widens a bit to show two more monkeys behind him, one to each side. "My people, the Anarchist Monkeys, have recently freed themselves from decades of exploitation and abuse. We wish to live in peace with the community of nations, as long as we are free to live our lives according to our own simian culture," Bobo says.

"My people lack a homeland," the monkey leader continues. "We were taken from our ancestral homeland generations ago by oppressive colonial nations who used us for slave labor. The jungles where our ancestors lived have been destroyed to make room for shopping malls and automobile dealerships. So we are appealing to the international community to set aside a place for us to live."

Bobo looks directly into the camera and says, "We ask for some compassionate nation to provide us with a territory we can call our own. We ask for a place where we can set up an autonomous collective run according to our anarcho-syndicalist principles. We promise to be good neighbors, and not export revolution to your people or trash the place with banana peels.

"All we ask is a place to call our own," the monkey leader says. "Just a small territory where we can be free, with trees we can make our homes in."

"Banana trees, preferably," the monkey on Bobo’s right interrupts.

"And no lions," the monkey on Bobo’s left adds.

"Oh yes, no lions," the right monkey agrees. "Or tigers either."

"Or bears," the left monkey says.

"Do bears eat monkeys?" the right monkey asks.

Bobo sighs in exasperation. "No, bears don't eat monkeys," he says. "And I thought you two were just going to stand quietly behind me."

"Oh, sorry," the left monkey says. "I guess bears are okay then. But no lions or tigers."

"Or snakes," the right monkey adds. "I don't like snakes."

"I'm going to feed you both to the snakes if you don't shut up," Bobo threatens.

"Hey, don't get all facist on us, Bobo," the left monkey says. "You're just a temporary executive after all."

"All right then," Bobo retorts. "If you don't shut up, I'll resign, and let you be the executive officer."

The left monkey looks alarmed at the prospect. "Shutting up, sir," he says.

"Being very quiet, Your Excellency," the right monkey says.

"You won't hear a peep out of me, Your Honor, no sir," the left monkey promises.

"Quiet as mice, that’s us, Your Worship," the right monkey proclaims.

"Shut up!" Bobo shouts, and slaps the right monkey across the face.

"Oh, now we see how the masters use violence to control the working class!" the left monkey exclaims.

"Come and see the how the masters use violence to control the working class!" the right monkey shouts, as Bobo grabs onto him and drags him off-screen. "Help, I’m being repressed!"

"Shocking, how quickly power corrupts," the remaining monkey says. "It was only yesterday..." But he is interrupted by a banana hitting him in the head.

Suddenly Bobo and the other monkey lurch back onto the screen. As the monkey tries to escape Bobo’s grasp, the two of them fall towards the camera. The picture shakes as they hit the camera, and then suddenly the screen goes dark.

After a few seconds of static, the ESPN signal resumes, just prior to the start of the third period of the hockey game.