Have you by any chance ever watched the movie 300?
In case you haven’t, 300 is a fictionalized retelling of the ancient Battle of Thermopylae and revolves around King Leonidas, who leads 300 Spartans into battle against the Persian “god-King” Xerxes and his army of more than 300 000 soldiers.
At Thermopylae, they construct a wall to contain the approaching Persians and successfully repel the ensuing assault, using superior martial skills and a tightly-knit phalanx formation. Xerxes then sends in his elite guard, the Immortals, to attack but the Spartans successfully dispatch them as well while suffering a few casualties of their own.
Xerxes follows by bombarding the Spartans with a variety of exotic weapons, including black powder bombs and war elephants, but these also fail and it was not until Ephialtes, a hunchbacked Spartan in exile, shows the Persians a secret path to use that Xerxes is able to outflank and surround the Spartans and watches as a massive barrage of arrows from his army kills them all.
That movie rushed to mind over the past few days as I, like most Barbadians, contemplated the New Year plight of the 300 spartan Bajan Government workers who had their employment killed off by a barrage of dismissal arrows.
However, the difference between the fictional movie plot and this true-life story is that in the latter, the 300 are but the first batch of 3 000 or more Government workers for whom Xerxes has his battle axes ready to cut down.
How large will the next group be and from which battalion, of what was once described as an army of occupation, will they come is anybody’s guess. No doubt this will be revealed at tomorrow’s next official announcement and news conference at Government Headquarters.
If, like me, you watch the talent competitions on television like American Idol, X Factor and The Voice, you would be very familiar with the psychological impact on contestants when they hear the words “you are safe”.
It’s where, like the Government workers, some are being cut from the competition by the judges or public votes. So the assembled group waits in suspense with suspended breaths and pounding hearts as the MC, after deliberately retarding the announcement, says to one or more: “You are safe.”
Well, on Friday hundreds of temporary teachers who would have been in line to be among the next 300 to suffer a Xerxesan fate, heard with the greatest relief from their union leaders that they were safe. However, the question now has to do with for how long. As often happens in those competitions, some who is “safed” in one round often are sent packing in a subsequent round.
But don’t despair unduly. The story of the 300 does have a happy ending. It so happens that word of their valiant resistance spreads across Greece, inspires the different city-states to unite with the result that the Persians soon find themselves facing an army of Spartans and free Greeks. And although still outnumbered three to one, they defeat the Persian army at the Battle of Plataea.
In the words of Market Vendor, I gone fuh now, hear . . .
• Al Gilkes heads a public relations firm.