A Minister in Disarray…

Is there anything more comical than a Minister from a developing country preparing to travel first class? At the announcement of ‘priority boarding’, the Minister – typically, an overweight middle-aged man, dressed in impressive attire and in possession of the latest mobile phone technology – quickly moves through burgeoning crowds of people in the only way that he can: by pushing and shoving. But as he approaches the front of the line, he is greeted by countless angry faces, and is forced to stop in his tracks. He is told by a number of these angry faces that they are also travelling first class, and, like him, are also waiting to board the plane first. But perhaps more to his astonishment is the other group of people: those in possession of priority cards, which are awarded to frequent travellers by most airlines these days – individuals who, despite wearing t-shirts and jeans, are also entitled to board first. ‘What are these “loyalty cards”, anyway?’ he asks himself. ‘Am I not this airline’s most loyal customer? And, do these simple people not have proper clothes to wear? Do they not know who I am?’

This is certainly alien territory for the well-dressed Minister. Accustomed to such privileges only extending to himself and a small group of other elites and ‘hand-picked’ individuals back home, he is reduced to feeling like a commoner for a few minutes. He is outraged, of course, because he feels that he is above these people, particularly those dressed in t-shirts and jeans. After all, was it not he and he alone who was sent to New York on connecting KLM flights to negotiate the deal with the multinational oil company, which will commence drilling offshore at home in less than a year? Was it not he and he alone who was dispatched to London aboard that British Airways flight last month to negotiate the royalty rate for the mining company that has been operating at home for five years now but which the president now believes should be paying some tax? And was it not he who was sent the month before, at the last minute aboard a United Airlines flight, to Washington DC to negotiate a country-level financial bailout package with the IMF?

This behaviour is the ‘Politics of the Belly’ at its finest. This is precisely the type of behaviour we have grown accustomed to seeing, time and time again, from high-ranking officials abroad. Would you expect anything less from the ‘faces’ of autocratic governments, or elites who are in complete control of private and public spaces in their own countries? We continue to feel sorry for the impoverished masses these individuals marginalize to stay in power. But perhaps the humbling – and, from his perspective, completely embarrassing – experience of this Minister is a bit of a consolation prize in an unforgiving environment, where there are so very few positives. The marginalized masses can surely gain some solace from what for them, is a rare ‘chuckle-worthy’ moment: where a corrupt high-ranking public official, who cannot be held accountable for his actions by the public, uses scarce foreign exchange from the government coffers, rides someone else’s jet first class and stays in a five-star hotel to negotiate deals that will net very little money for his country and local people, is made to feel ordinary.