When Donald Trump referred to himself as the king last week, he did so in his usual manner, which allows his supporters to say he was simply joking. Of course, the problem with that claim is that Trump doesn’t have a sense of humor.
But I do. And Trump’s fantasy of his own self-proclaimed royalty reminded me of a classic Rudyard Kipling short story from 1888 called “The Man Who Would Be King.”
In Kipling’s tale, an hustler named Daniel Dravot hatches a plan to convince the natives in a remote corner of Afghanistan called Kafiristan that he is a king, and initially his scheme seems to be working.
But when the people of Kafiristan figure out he is not a king, they summarily execute him. His fate is confirmed when a companion shows up at office of the journalist-narrator (based on Kipling himself) with Dravot’s severed head still wearing his crown.
I visited the village at the heart of Kipling’s story, Camdesh, some 82 years after he wrote the story. “Kafir” is an Arabic word meaning “nonbeliever” and the word was still in common use in Afghanistan during my time there.
But the region that had been known as Kafiristan in Kipling’s time had been since renamed by Islamic conquerors as Nuristan, which means “land of light.” Otherwise, not a lot had changed there since Kipling’s time.
The people I met there were uninhibited and unimpressed by outsider pretenses. They loved hashish and dancing wildly around bonfires. It’s been 55 years since my visit, but I suspect that if Trump somehow showed up in Camdesh tomorrow, he'd end up just like Daniel Dravot.
HEADLINES:
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As Facebook Abandons Fact-Checking, It’s Also Offering Bonuses for Viral Content (ProPublica)
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Forgetful Man Playing Fast And Loose With Free Trials (The Onion)
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