You're probably not aware of
Mediocrita. It's a little nation bordering a few other nations and
nothing much happens there. It's never been invaded or anything. It
has no raw materials to covet. It is of no strategic value. Its
indigenous population has never left and no one has ever arrived, at
least not for long. A few Vikings showed up at one stage but they got
bored and split after about fifteen minutes. The people there are
pleasant enough but a bit dull. They never really developed any kind
of unique culture so when the odd anthropologist does drop by they
soon give up on the hope of forming a decent thesis and leave.
The citizens of Mediocrita are proud
enough of their unremarkable nation. They find its unremarkability
the very thing that makes it remarkable. Nothing making the place
unique is what makes the place unique. Mediocritans are a people who
value stasis. They are an unambitious and sedentary crowd who do not
seek adventure and so never leave their shores. The people of
Mediocrita never have anything good to say about each other but they
never have anything bad to say about each other either. They think
each other are OK and they are united in their OKness.
Mediocrita has a national anthem, the
only piece of art of any sort that has ever originated on this land.
It goes like this:
It's OK here.
Yes it's OK here.
Nothing really bad happens,
Year after year.
It's OK here.
Yes it's OK here.
There's much worse places,
Or so we hear.
So it's OK here.
Yes it's OK here.
And on the weekends
We might go for a beer.
Coz it's OK here.
Yes it's OK here.
We have no volcanos or mad animals or
that
So there's not much to fear.
Sure it's OK here.
Yes it's OK here.
There's not much laughter
but there's rarely a tear.
Coz it's OK here.
Yes it's OK here.
So if you want an OK time
You'll be OK here.
(It is at this point that the anthem
ends and the Mediocritans fire their cannon. They have a cannon for
defence but they never need it for that
reason so it is only put to ceremonial use. Sometimes it doesn't
work. No one complains when it doesn't go off. They just shrug.)
What no one knows about Mediocrita is
that it has a secret. A big terrible secret. A secret I'm about to
share with you now. In the mid-nineteen seventies a spacecraft
arrived bearing an extraterrestrial ambassador carrying a message of
Universal peace and a cure to all known ills. The citizens of
Mediocrita were a bit put out. The status quo that provided them with
their valued cultural identity was obviously under threat. New
standards would be set by this saviour from
outer space and everyone would be expected to up their game. Worse
still, it was considered that if the little green man was to make
Mediocrita his base then that would attract global attention to the
Mediocritan homeland and they'd have loads of visitors and have to be
making heaps of sandwiches and that. So, after some modest debate,
the citizens of Mediocrita decided to bash the alien in the head with
a rock, place his body back on his craft, set the craft on fire, and
never speak of what took place again.
Indeed, no Mediocritan ever did mention
what took place again. However, the memory of the incident sometimes
does come into the heads of Mediocritans but they vanquish it by
closing their eyes, clenching their fists into balls, and singing
their national anthem to themselves – over and over. When the
anniversary of the outer space visitor's arrival occurs no one says a
word. They all just gather around the cannon and repeatedly fire the
thing which seems to do the trick as long as the cannon works, which
it sometimes doesn't but, you know, you can't have everything, so
that's OK and you don't get much better than OK. Mediocrita rules OK!
