"When My President Gives a Speech, It Isn't Just My Coffee That Turns Bitter, But Everyone's Conversation Too"
That morning I brewed my coffee as I always do.
Nothing was different. The water boiled at the same temperature as the day
before, the coffee came from the same packet, and the cup I used was certainly
not joining any opposition of its own. Yet somehow, the moment my President
finished his address on the screen, the very same coffee, brewed by the very
same hands, suddenly tasted far more bitter than usual. For a moment I
suspected the coffee farmers, wondering whether they were cross about something
and had passed their irritation into the beans. On further reflection, however,
what had actually changed was not the plantations up in the hills, but the
state of the nation's thinking, out there on television screens and timelines.
Medicine packets, as I recall, always list the side
effects one ought to watch for: drowsiness, nausea, dizziness, perhaps a
scratchy throat. Regrettably, state addresses have never once come with such a
warning label, even though their effects can be every bit as real. Some
speeches, quite without their authors intending it, are capable of stirring
lingering unease, sparking arguments in previously calm rooms, and,
as if by magic, leaving the extended family's WhatsApp group busier than usual,
busier even than gossip about a wedding or news of a bereavement. Words
launched from the podium are meant to work rather like sugar, something
intended to sweeten the mood and settle uneasy hearts. Curiously, by the time
those words reach the ears of ordinary people, all that seems to remain is the
dregs, the bitter residue that settles at the bottom of the cup and refuses to
dissolve however hard one stirs.
This country, to be fair, does possess a rather grand
parliament building, complete with plush seats and a well-amplified podium. Yet
anyone being honest would admit that democracy often does its most sincere work
in the roadside coffee shop rather than in the air-conditioned debating
chamber. There, on tables long stained by years of spilt coffee, the
motorcycle-taxi driver becomes a perfectly capable policy analyst, the street
vendor turns into a shadow minister who knows the price of everything, the student
fresh from a lecture becomes a sharp-tongued commentator, and the retired civil
servant sits as an unelected, unsolicited advisor to the state. Everyone, at
every table and over every cup, turns out to be discussing precisely the same
thing: last night's speech. When so many people, at so many tables, are
discussing the same subject with the same bitter tone, the trouble probably
does not lie with their suddenly sensitive palates, but with something rather
more worthy of examination.
In a healthy forest, birdsong fills the morning air,
and it is precisely that noise which signals the forest is alive and breathing.
When every bird falls silent all at once, however, what ought to follow is not
relief at the sudden quiet, but concern about whatever might be happening
behind that silence. Criticism, by the same logic, is the natural sound of a
democracy that still has a pulse. It is not a crack in the building itself, but
the alarm that rings precisely to warn that a crack needs urgent attention
before it spreads. Unfortunately, there are leaders who treat criticism rather
like a mosquito buzzing about at night: irritating, disruptive to sleep, and
best swatted into silence as quickly as possible. Yet anyone who has ever lived
near a marsh knows perfectly well that mosquitoes do not simply appear out of
thin air. They appear because some stagnant pool has been left unattended for
far too long, and swatting the mosquitoes one by one never actually solves the
problem of the stagnant water itself.
Coffee, were it ever called to give evidence, has
witnessed almost everything. It has kept ordinary people company as the price
of basic goods crept steadily upward. It has sat with students pulling
all-nighters over their dissertations, muttering complaints about both
university and government in the very same breath. It has kept the head of a
household company at the kitchen table, recalculating this month's outgoings,
which somehow always turn out larger than last month's. And it has faithfully
accompanied millions of listening ears through promise after promise, hope
after hope, speech after speech, year upon year. So when the very same cup of
coffee suddenly tastes more bitter than usual, it is perhaps not changing its
flavour at all, but rather offering honest testimony about what everyone around
it happens to be feeling.
I finished the last cup that morning down to the final
drop, and it was bitter right through to the end. This time, though, I felt I
understood the matter a little better. It was not the coffee that had changed,
since the grounds and the water were exactly the same as yesterday and the day
before. Nor was it my palate suddenly grown more sensitive to bitterness. What
had changed, if I am honest, was the conversation going on around me, in the
coffee shop, in the family group chat, on the timeline, and perhaps even within
my own heart. When a single cup of coffee tastes bitter, that is merely a
matter of personal taste, the sort of thing one can debate over with a laugh.
But when an entire country, from one end to the other, begins discussing the
very same bitterness in almost exactly the same tone, then perhaps the time has
come, not for the people to go on inspecting their own palates, but for those
in power to sit down and inspect their own words instead.
