High

by Andrew Osmond

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  There was strange news coming out of Africa. As with all news out of Africa, it took some considerable time for the West to be aware of it, longer still for them to exhibit any interest in it, and longer still for them to take it seriously: so rarely did any events on the forgotten continent cause any repercussions that could upset the cosy balance of life in the prosperous households of Europe and North America. This time, though, the news was too big to be ignored. The faces of several hitherto anonymous foreign correspondents, based in places largely unfamiliar to the viewing public, such as Asmara and N’Djamena, suddenly became regular, recognisable images on the TV screens of the cable world.

  At first it appeared as though a widespread migration was occurring; reports indicated that there was a gradual - although measurable and significant - shift of population from the more traditional enclaves of civilisation - by the coast - towards the dark heart of the vast continent, specifically towards the Congolese-Rwandan border, where a massive, sprawling, new settlement had established itself. Further analysis of this demographic phenomena revealed that, in most cases, the resettlement was not permanent and that the migrants would eventually return to their home towns and countries, but with as many new travellers continually setting off as those returning, the overall impression was still one of mass emigration. Perhaps, unsurprisingly, it was principally only young, healthy men who were involved in this peculiar, circumforaneous behaviour: traditionally it has always been the male of the species who has set off to explore lands anew, and this new trend was no exception to that rule, the arduousness of some of the travel involved dictating a certain level of fitness if not necessarily being so rigourously gender-specific. Several field anthropologists and one or two Christian missionaries were the first Western people to take any notice of the sudden nomadic proclivity of the people they worked amongst, but such was the level of disinterest in their work by the world at large, that their findings were confined to the pages of only the most scholarly - and unreadable - academic journals, or purely reported in terms of puzzled anecdotal amusement in personal letters to friends and colleagues back home.

  It would take an economic reason for the African migration to pierce the protective bubble of global ignorance that the TV-viewing public maintained around itself to disconnect itself - and the associated feelings of guilt - from the harsh realities faced by people of less-developed countries, and which, through the medium of television, were potentially capable of being transported directly into the cosy enclave of the living rooms of the West. This economic change occurred in two distinct phases, neither of which were immediately linked to any demographic shifts on the African continent: firstly, there was a sudden disappearance from the shelves of most high street retailers of various electrical goods, which, during the course of the previous two decades, had transformed their status from luxury items to essential requirements in most First World households. Personal computers, mobile phones, video game consoles, manufactured supplies all dwindled and became scarce for no apparent reason. This situation did not last long though, the shortages being reversed as rapidly as they had first occurred, although it was noticeable that amongst the items now filling the shops one new brand name suddenly prevailed: Mancala. There was a new kid on the capitalist block.

  From a standing start, in the space of less than one year, Mancala the company, had established for itself a secure position amongst the most profitable global multinationals; it was listed on the NYSE*; and had offices in twenty three countries world-wide, with a magnificent HQ based in New York and, bizarrely enough, an East Asian base located on the top six storeys of the Wendelson Building in Pyongyang. Other giant multinationals involved in the electronics industry all appeared to want - or need - to buy into a piece of the Mancala success story, and a proliferation of established brand names ‘in association with Mancala’ became a common sight, stamped on the packaging of every form of electrical good.

  For a company with such a visible profile on the High Street, the opposite could be said for the people - or person - behind the organisation. Mancala’s first published annual report did not disclose the name of its founder, instead listing the contact details of twenty high-ranking individuals within the firm, who it quoted were, ‘collectively responsible for the day-to-day running, decision-making and viability of Mancala.’ It was widely accepted that the twenty names were little more than the visual ‘suits’ of the company; enigmatically, a separate paragraph of the annual report stated that, ‘the mission of Mancala is to fulfil the commitments made on 31st December 2010, the responsibility for which is the sole endeavour of Ghiliba.’ Several journalists from various respected business magazines made a number of unsuccessful attempts to gain an interview with the entrepreneurial Ghiliba, leaving them to fill their column inches with pure speculation and vague hearsay about the motives, history and lifestyle of the mysterious founder of the new conglomeration. In the end, it was a doctorate student of theology who stumbled upon something closest to the truth behind Mancala’s dynamism, when he attempted speculatively to apply an established criterion for testing the veracity of various sects to be considered as genuine religions, to a range of other organisations and ideologies, including Marxism, postmodernism, and globalisation. Depressingly, for his own personal research and the particular slant he had hoped to adopt in his thesis, he was forced to conclude that under the test conditions he had imposed, almost every organised institution could be considered a religion to some greater or lesser degree and, as a blow to his own spiritual beliefs, some displayed a far higher propensity towards religious faith than the system he had been brought up to believe true, and the Mancala organisation was no exception. If there had not been such heightened press awareness about everything associated with Mancala at that time, the student in question’s unproved, and largely unfocussed, ideas would never have received an audience beyond that of his closest contemporaries and a couple of external examiners who were paid to read similar examples of such ill-argued nonsense, but someone, obviously with an eye to the main chance, submitted a condensed version of the ‘business as religion’ theory to Global Economics magazine where, slightly reworked, it was to run as a feature article the following month, under the banner headline, ‘The Truth According to Ghiliba.’ The article provoked an uncharacteristically pugnacious and rapid response from Mancala’s solicitors, which, rather than intimidate the editor responsible for publication, in actual fact had exactly the opposite effect, and went some considerable way to convincing him that the words he had submitted contained some discernible degree of truth, so much so that he immediately commissioned a team of eager newshounds to forage to the bottom of the story. It was not long before - with the benefit of an expense account and a promise of publication behind them - the team had unearthed the organisation’s African origins and, indeed, had even gained an interview with an eye witness who had been present at the Goma gathering on New Year’s Eve 2010, the day which forever after would be recognised as the day of conception for Mancala.

  Of interest as all this was to economists, still it was not the sexy stuff of TV news reportage: there were no deaths - certainly no Westerners dead, which were the only statistics that really mattered - there was no natural disaster and attendant dramatic photo opportunities; there was no celebrity gossip. It would have needed something like a major Hollywood film idol to be caught up in an insider trading shares scandal that went belly up when Mancala stockprices crashed due to an earthquake wiping out their major manufacturing plant, for the new electronics giant to really capture significant media ‘up time’ and so indelibly make its mark on the public consciousness.

  Either that, or an announcement that Mancala were close to completing construction of the tallest building in the world.