The tale of an unnecessary road
Part 1
It was once a small wonderful place on earth where nature surrounded a small town with year-round residents, summer residents and a whole bunch of tourists in the Summer season. All of them found their way to the small town just for its scenic location and the absence of urban noise. They could take their morning coffee on the veranda, listen to the birdsong and the sound of the wind from the water or forest. Get fresh air right ouside the doorstep anywhere in the small town. If they wanted to they could go a bit further, out in the countryside. Either they could take a brisk walk of a few minutes or maybe a bike ride, perhaps with a picnic basket on the carrier. For those who wanted to swim there were many possibilities , just a short bicycle ride or a boat trip would take you there. In winter, there were plenty of ski trails right out of nature’s noise-free magnificence. Swimming and biking were exchanged for skiing in the forest and on the winter dormant meadows.
Everyone thought they were living in the best place on earth. They were close to everything and could easily find work. Because they lived in the best place on earth they wanted to do nothing but spend most of their time there. In the many small shops in town you could find everything you needed and the people working there were very friendly and helpful. The creativity and inventiveness of the people often led to even more people found work in the small town.
The small town did not really care so much about the big world, but for some reason the big world found the small town and people from everywhere came to see it. The city attracted artists, writers, actors, film makers, indeed an epoch nationally famous cultural elite put the little town on the map sometimes seriously and sometimes satirical.
You think you might be at the fairytale ending, but no, it has barely started. It starts now.
Part 2
One day, the little town suddenly interested three small men. We can call them Dunno, Yanno and Victor.
Dunno is a little indecisive and do not have the courage to go where the true heart and mind leads. Dunno always listen to what Yanno says and then agree, afraid of making Yanno and Victor angry.
Yanno made it clear that it is he who decides and he who is always right. What Yanno has not really figured out is that Victor has made Yanno believe that Yanno decides. In fact Victor is the one who decides everything and always is the winner.
Victor is smart. He always stays a little bit behind Dunno and Yanno. Victor has no real interest being friends with Dunno and Yanno, other than his own grand plans would not go through without their help. Victor has only one single grand plan of his life. To turn everything he comes across to cash. A lot of money will make him really satisfied. He discovered early in life that he liked turning everything to pure cash. He also discovered that not everyone else had thought of it, only a few. It gave him great opportunities to implement his grand development plans without many understanding what he was doing. Dunno and Yanno were typical examples of characters who did not understand anything of his hidden plans. They really believed in his fair speeches about how great his plans where even for othter people. Yanno and Dunno thought they were the brains behind the plans that Victor had for the little town.
Part 3
Victor was nearly a god for Dunno and Yanno. Victor was the genius of the trio. Dunno and Yanno would very much be like him, the smartest guy they knew. Victor had an enigmatic image and didn’t mingle much with others. He stayed in the background and figured out new grandiose plans and let his development plans go on constantly in all corners of the world.
They knew that he decided, so when they got the chance to boss over an entire small town they did not want to be outdone. They did as Victor told them to do. They did not bother to check with the citizens if they were ok with the grandiose plans. They thought Victor’s plans were faultless, so ask others would only take unnecessary time and create unnecessary issues. Neither Dunno or Yanno wanted inconvenient questions.
They discovered that it was quite easy to implement plans for the city without ask someone else. They liked to hide exploitation and not tell anyone until it was done and finished. Those who went out of the city during the work days just did not have as much opportunity to keep an eye on the trio and their plans for the small town. If anyone still posed critical questions, they managed to always dismiss the troublesome issues by getting the questioners feel uncomfortable. Early on, they had managed to become friends with the paper people, who wrote newspaper articles about the city. So when critical persons tried to get attention for all the secrecy that Dunno and Yanno kept, the paper people guarded Dunno and Yanno. Dunno and Yanno invited the helpful paper people to a small dinner at their annual Christmas brake, as a big thank you. The atmosphere was always very jovial and Victor was rarely seen. Most citizens thought that it was Dunno and Yanno who were in charge and everything was okay.
Part 4
Victor was nearly a god for Dunno and Yanno. Victor was the genius of the trio. Dunno and Yanno would very much be like him, the smartest guy they knew. Victor had an enigmatic image and didn’t mingle much with others. He stayed in the background and figured out new grandiose plans and let his development plans go on constantly in all corners of the world.
They knew that he decided, so when they got the chance to boss over an entire small town they did not want to be outdone. They did as Victor told them to do. They did not bother to check with the citizens if they were ok with the grandiose plans. They thought Victor’s plans were faultless, so ask others would only take unnecessary time and create unnecessary issues. Neither Dunno or Yanno wanted inconvenient questions.
Part 5
They discovered that it was quite easy to implement plans for the city without ask someone else. They liked to hide exploitation and not tell anyone until it was done and finished. Those who went out of the city during the work days just did not have as much opportunity to keep an eye on the trio and their plans for the small town. If anyone still posed critical questions, they managed to always dismiss the troublesome issues by getting the questioners feel uncomfortable. Early on, they had managed to become friends with the paper people, who wrote newspaper articles about the city. So when critical persons tried to get attention for all the secrecy that Dunno and Yanno kept, the paper people guarded Dunno and Yanno. Dunno and Yanno invited the helpful paper people to a small dinner at their annual Christmas brake, as a big thank you. The atmosphere was always very jovial and Victor was rarely seen. Most citizens thought that it was Dunno and Yanno who were in charge and everything was okay.
Part 6
This magnificent plan to continually make the city bigger worked for many years, but Dunno and Yanno had one major concern. The grand plan did not give gold and green forests, which Victor tricked them to believe. In fact, Victor had retained both the gold and the green forest all by himself. But he spoke quietly about that in front of Dunno and Yanno. They would not understand even if he told them, so he didn´t worry that much about that fact.
Dunno and Yanno realized one day that they caused the city great debt. How could that have happened? They could not understand that. They had been so good at everything. Becoming bigger would mean that the economy also became bigger. It became bigger, but on the wrong side, the debt side. They stood there with a big, big blank in a giant million lottery and did not know how to get the money back they had spent.
Part 7
Dunno and Yanno found the advice of the genius Victor of course. Everything was okay again. Now everything should get going again. The city would become even bigger and then everything would be magic. They believed Victor blindly. He was so clever.
Victor had found that they could build lots of houses in his large forest and in his big fields. For some reason, Victor had managed to occupy a large part of the city’s nature. Dunno and Yanno did not understand better than the fact that natural land was completely useless and did not serve any purpose unless you built on it. They saw Victor’s land properties as a gift from above. The city economy had a chance to recover. Dunno and Yanno would make history as those who developed the small city into a big city. Now they just had to convince those who needed to help them to succeed in this magnificent project.
Part 8
Dunno and Yanno could not do everything on their own. They had to convince the outside world that the project was an excellent plan. Victor realized that Dunno and Yanno might not be able to handle the project entirely on their own, so he helped them a little.
Victor knew many people outside the small town that they would need help from. He made sure that they agreed about the false data Dunno and Yanno presented for the inhabitants.
Dunno and Yanno fooled the inhabitants in the city that a great new road would be needed for the small town to get rid of noisey traffic. They did not say that the new road would be built in an area where it really was not needed. In some way, however, Dunno and Yanno fooled the residents that everything was perfectly logical and absolutely necessary. They did not talk at all about Victor interest. He wanted the road so he could build houses on his fields and create a suburb of the small town. The town would become much bigger after his grandiose plans.
Part 9
Dunno and Yanno were not really fooling the citizens in the sense that they spoke widely about the new road or Victor’s development plans for that matter. They simply did not speak much at all about the road or building plans. They did as they always had done, they made their plans a little here and there without the inhabitants of the town noticing anything.
The only ones they needed to convince were those who could build the road and those who could execute the plans. Those who were going to build the road got a really nice offer from Dunno and Yanno. The city could pay most of the road, if those who were to build the road promised to build it fast. They did not know where to find the money to pay with, they made the promise anyway. Victor had said that they only had to make sure that the road was in place, otherwise he could not start building. If Victor could not begin to build, he could not turn his land into lots of money, which was his only plan and the only reason he was hanging out with Dunno and Yanno.
Those who could execute the plans were good assistants to Victor, so they had no trouble simply ignoring whether the road project and building plans were really wise to implement or not.
Part 10
So far into the saga, everything sounds like peace and delight for Dunno, Yanno and Victor. They can bit by bit reveal small small parts of their plans to the inhabitants when they consider themselves to be really forced to do so. They even call for consultation and tell people that they can leave their views, and Dunno and Yanno promise to listen. Dunno and Yanno did not listen to anyone other than Victor, so what the people said they simply did not care about, it would take too much time. Especially if they said something that involved an obstacle to build the road.
However, a problem arose when road construction came closer to the actual start. Dunno and Yanno had no money left in the city’s cash register and they simply could not borrow more money. As usual, Victor saw solutions where others only saw problems. He promised to pay for the road. His plan was of course that the future homeowners in his suburb would pay for the road. Dunno and Janno once again found peace and happiness and proceeded quickly with the project. They where in a hurry.
Part 11
What Dunno and Yanno completely missed out during the long time of expansion of the city was that the outside world made amazing discoveries and gathered new modern knowledge of urban planning. The planet was about to break down because of human wrongthinking. The outside world had therefore decided to change the lives of all humanity to save the planet to future generations of humanity.
All of this had passed Dunno and Yanno without notice. Simply because they were completely occupied with their magnificent projects and, in their minds, thought it was enough to listen to Victor. Indeed, he knew everything they needed to know. He even knew what the outside world had decided, but because it did not fit into his own grand plans, he did not care to follow the councils. He was enough by himself and knew all that he needed to know. No one but he knew his grandiose development plans. Nothing would stop him.
Part 12
Some inhabitants of the small town, which were now becoming a major city, had stopped listen to Dunno and Yanno. Instead, they had turned their ears to the world and knew the big world agreement to stop hurting the planet with noise, emissions and deforestation. Some of Dunno´s old friends tried to talk to Dunno and make Dunno pay attention to the fact that Yanno was on a completely wrong track with road construction. Dunno would not listen, or maybe dared not listen.
Yanno, or probably, Victor had said, that the city must continue to grow to get rid of the embarrasing big debts Dunno and Yanno had caused the city. In what way the economy would change for the better, Dunno or Yanno did not know, they just hoped to find a winning ticket of a pure luck one day. Perhaps when the city became twice as big, maybe when it was tripled. They did not know, they just continued their growing plans. Stop the project would be a prestige loss and mean that the three little men would feel even less. Their love for themselves grew for every meter the city grew.
Part 13
Dunno and Yanno did not realize that the greatest thing a human can do is to acknowledge mistakes and do the right thing instead. Dunno and Yanno also did not realize that Victor’s plans would not benefit the small city even a little bit. The plans would instead cause the city with even bigger debts. Victor did not have a thought of paying for any new road. His worry was that Dunno and Yanno would get cold feet and withdraw from the project. Victor needed to have Dunno and Yanno on his side in order to make money out of his land.
But nature then, you might wonder so far into the story. Yes, nature in the small town did not have an easy living. The animals had a misery with Dunno and Yanno´s constant expansion. Everywhere their homes and settlements disappeared and eventually they did not know where to go. After much desperation, many of the animals chose to move into the small town among the people. It was not a favourite choice but simply the only option left for them.
Of course, this created both confusion and disturbance among residents. They were not used to that animals from the forests and lakes invaded the small town, which has now become much bigger. They turned to Dunno and Yanno with their complaints about the trouble of having unknown creatures in their gardens and on the islets in the water at the city’s port.
Part 14
Dunno and Yanno had learned from Victor how to solve such problems, which in Victor´s world was not even a problem but a pleasure and pastime. For each complaint received from residents, the answer was – We shoot them! He ment the animals (authors note).
The problem solving may sound simple and correct, but for shooting animals, Dunno and Yanno needed permission. Now, Dunno and Yanno began to encounter real problems. The Nature Conservation Department suddenly opposed their plans and said that Dunno and Yanno were not allowed to shoot animals. It did not matter how uncomfortable they experienced the animals that moved into the small town.
As you know, Dunno and Yanno did not like that answer. Especially when they could not do anything about it. They had learned from Victor to establish the martyrdom as defense mechanism. They even got residents on their side, who seemed to be very annoyed by some birds that moved in at the best beach. The hatred birds were food for Dunno and Yanno´s favourite bird the sea eagle, which they gladly promoted in the city’s advertising. They did not care about that. Dunno and Yanno managed to get many of the inhabitants on their side, but it did not help them out of the difficulties with the unwanted animals.
On the other hand, they had now found a universal scapegoat for everything that went wrong in the small city. They blamed all on this single, small-scale problem. Dunno and Yanno had found an excellent diversion. Now the people had occupied themselves with a hunting problem and no longer realized that Dunno and Yanno were about to create a huge future problem, which they might never be able to solve. They could continue their roadbuilding plans without any interference, and Victor continued on his grand plans for his land, which he finally could start turning into great and big money.
Part 15
All of the inhabitants did not fall for the diverting operation. They searched for Dunno`s and Yanno’s history and found that someone with greater influencehad gone beside them from the time the road project started.
They thought Dunno and Yanno would have a chance to correct their subtle plans, trying to remind them that the outside world had changed since their plans took shape. The most sharp residents had also noted that Dunno and Yanno’s reasons for building the road no longer matched. They talked to Dunno and Yanno, but they refused to listen to what the critical residents tried to say.
Dunno and Yanno had full confidence in the project because Victor had once again promised them gold and green forests on the continued plans. Dunno and Yanno wanted to be bigger and bigger, so what Victor promised went completely in line with their wishes for their own greatness.
They therefore continued their project and continued to defeat the residents warning signs that the small town would go really bad if they removed the little remaining piece of nature that was around the small town. The wise people of the world, yes, there are still a few left of that kind in this saga, had come to the fact that nature needed to survive on the planet in future generations as well.
How the story ends?
Yes, my friends, you can decide that yourselves.
Dunno, Yanno and Victor are not three small men who wants to be greatest. Dunno, Yanno and Victor can be any of us in different ways. There may be individuals, politicians, organizations, companies, associations, maybe even the animals happen to be Dunno, Yanno and Victor in their habitats. Victor does not even need to be a person but a hypnotic interest that drives people into magnificent but unwise projects. Victor can be growth, profit, nonprofit, power, yes even environmental interest or something else stuck on the mind of a group of people.
If you think the Dunno, Yanno and Victors in your area do an excellent job, then you shall continue to support their plans.
If you think your Dunno, Yanno and Victor seem to have shameful plans that hurt our planet, you shall continue protesting against the plans by continuing to spread information that will allow more people to open their eyes in time and save what is left to be saved.
In this saga, plans for a new road and exploitation of natural land are the theme. But in your vicinity, something else may happen that has similar actors behind the grand plans.
The moral I leave you with is – Always keep your eyes open when people talk about grand projects and promise gold and green forests. Gold and the green forest never ends up with anyone other than the founder of the grand project. It is always the casino owner who wins. Never forget that!
Anna Bohlin
2017
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