“But there was a leader with a difference. The president at the time of a small country, with a little over three million people, thought differently from many other leaders. He said we all needed a change in thinking.” The Professor directed his voice a little wider to the growing audience.
“This humble man opened up the presidential palace as a shelter for the homeless. He and his wife continued to live in their modest farmhouse, with their three-legged dog and almost no security. He gave every child in the country a computer, free education and taught them farming. His was the first country to legalize marijuana, and this included growing and selling it. And they even taxed it, hahahaha! He said it was a fight against drug trafficking. He was a smart old codger. He said they had given the marijuana market as a gift to the drug traffickers by making it illegal. And he said that what he had done wasn’t liberal, it was logical.
“And the people trusted him. As a young man, during the period of military dictatorship in his country, he had been a guerilla fighter, a Robin Hood guerilla. He had robbed delivery trucks and banks and distributed the food and money among the poor. Sounds all very dashing and marvelous, but to the contrary. He had been imprisoned for over 10 years; two of those in solitary confinement at the bottom of a well. They say he talked to frogs and insects to keep himself sane. Oh, the inhumanity of it all. Anyway, when the military was overthrown he was released. He kept going with his political involvement and many years later, by then an old man, he was elected president.
“He made an extraordinary speech at a conference where he spoke about the things that he said, ‘we had to talk about’. A recording of it was passed around the wobbly-wobbly-wobbly. As they used to say then, it ‘went viral’ and it was like an infection, an infection of hope. Millions saw it.
“He was probably the first politician to tell us what we knew deep down but had never heard from a political figure. He told us we had to reexamine and revise the way we lived. He said that the most important thing for the environment was human happiness. Heavens above, dear Jono, it was the first time we’d heard a darn thing like that from a jolly old poli!
“He talked about the consumer market as a motor and said that we were governed by it. We thought if we stopped consuming, the world economy would collapse. But he said we would see this to be untrue, and we needed to start the fight for another culture.
“And he said wealth was when you had all you needed. But a poor person was someone who always needed and desired more and more. Ah, the power of that humble man. Such an example.” The Professor paused as a sign of respect to this man, took another long drink of the fresh ale that had arrived, and continued.
“The speech inspired many, including a few corporations, and they took the leap. An enterprising young man, about your age, met up with Sean in the early days of the Academy and set up the company ‘Made to Last’. He promised his products were built to last and he wanted you to buy them only once. And it was very successful. His products were expensive, but there were many who were tired of the throw-away society. They wanted to look after things they owned and hand them down through the generations. He attracted great designers and top engineers and used the best materials he could find.
“Finally, an electric light bulb that would last forever was available. Textiles and other materials that would last and last appeared. It was a change in thinking. Even with existing things, people got them repaired instead of replacing them. Repairs and spare parts businesses boomed.
“Fashion became out of fashion. Sure, there were always new things that people had to buy, but nothing was replaced only because of fashion. We bought things we needed instead of buying things to make us feel good. Clothes, homewares, electronics, mobile phones, you know, the early wrist-cells,” he explained to Jonathan who nodded. “The cars of the day, you name it. It became fashionable to have something that had lasted and lasted and lasted. Everyone was a little happier with what they had, rather than feeling they had missed out on the so called ‘latest and greatest’. We started to feel that we had enough. And guess what, the world economy survived, hahahaha.”