Trust

Princess Matilda is articulate, swift of mind, exquisitely manicured and media savvy. But Matilda has a problem. A vicious pestilence has broken out in her tiny kingdom of 17,000 souls. At the moment the afflicted are small in number, but she is shoulder to cheek with neighbours on every side and this pestilence will not stop at the borders.

Princess Matilda is not convinced that her neighbours are trustworthy. Six generations ago there was the great Lego debacle which made trading tricky and communication tense. To this day red lego bricks are a precious commodity and sold on the dark market.
So our monarch has a choice. She can let this pestilence take its course and try to contain it with her limited resources and expertise. Or she quarantines, goes into lockdown and shares the insights and information with her neighbours, thereby saving many lives across the whole region. If she takes this second option she will become economically vulnerable. Will her prickly neighbours be co-operative and supportive? You see her dilemma.

To remain in a cauldron of febrile distrust, where nations and nationalities do not to take action, where they distrust each other, must inevitably result in the highest of losses for everyone.

If Princess Matilda could trust other nations to come to her aid and work with her … then the short and long term benefits are mutually beneficial and the great Lego debacle might be forgotten in a new regime called ‘co-operation’.

Each of our must make a daily choice. From the recently retrenched and redundant, to our fearless leaders, to those whose hard slog is invisible. Mistrust or trust. We can choose to bicker and play with matches while the fire rages, or we can say to each other. “In this new world where we might have to stand a little apart, we must never choose to stand alone”.