On why the killer rabbit is preferable to the fluffy one!

For the 5-year-old that I was then, the rabbit and its pompom, it was for girls! Among the signs of the Zodiac, I was more interested in the Tiger, or even the Dragon. Fan of Bruce Lee, I wore a black Dragon on a turquoise t-shirt, on the day I departed from Paris' Gare d’Austerlitz to my first summer camp. That made me instantly popular amongst my friends although I was the youngest of all.

It was only when I was around 10 that the Rabbit moderately attracted my attention after learning that there were many “Mr. Rabbit” in the telephone book! Encouraged by my best friend, I’d pick up the house phone, and - protected by the anonymity of the then analog technology, and a counterfeit voice - I’d call some unfortunate contemporary by the vernacular name of the lagomorph:

- "Hello…, Mr. Rabbit?"

- "Yes?"

- “Bang! Bang!” …

... and we would hang up hurriedly, laughing out loud at our prank. How very innocent was juvenile delinquency at the time!

However, apart from its ability to activate our zygomatics, the rabbit had hardly progressed in my personal pantheon. It is indeed not very glorious to find oneself in the shade of a hutch in my grandfather's garden, or to lose each time the race against the tortoise in Aesop’s story, or the eponymous Jean de la Fontaine’s fable.

As a good little French boy, it was cooked with cream and Dijon mustard by my grandmother, rid of the pompom and the ears (not my grandmother, the rabbit…) and with fresh tagliatelle, that I liked the Rabbit!

It was not until around 18, when I learned that it was always ready to mate every day, in any season, and that it sometimes had red eyes (a consequence?) that I first felt sympathy for this member of the Leporidae family.

However, in Chinese culture, the Rabbit is popular. A symbol of longevity, sweet and friendly, it it said to guarantee years of peace and prosperity. And yet, 1939, the year of the outbreak of the greatest world conflict to date, was a year of the Rabbit...

The Chinese year 2023, year of the Water Rabbit, is the combination of the Rabbit, which symbolizes "beauty, luck, prosperity, longevity, peace", etc... and the Water element, which has a "very good adaptability, and represents wealth in Chinese culture". In general, most astrologers say that the year 2023 promises to be “a year of hope and happiness”, after a year 2022 marked by contradictory emotions and confrontations. Many warn however, that with the Rabbit's gentleness and adaptability comes “a weak mindset, and weak principles”. Usually an escaper, the Rabbit would therefore be a follower... If these last traits mark the energies circulating in the world this year, we run the risk of encouraging an already strong tendency for disinterest and resignation.

It is indeed undeniable that for several decades, the voice of the people has been losing its strength. Political and Economic leaders at the highest level, often linked by a caste sentiment, can decide their own objectives, and act without offering explanations, while people give up exercising their voice, and even their vote.

Often trained at great expense by the State (i.e. by people’s taxes), the senior civil servants who should serve, serve themselves first, navigating from the public to the private sector as opportunities arise, with the blessing of the leader. With a lack of long-term vision and spending discipline, public management has been emptying the coffers, increasing the debt, reaching the point where countries run out of funds for their essential expenditures, the ones that people really care about, which ensure civil security, and pay doctors, nurses, teachers, or retirees.

This situation prevails in many countries around the world, where it appears that the Peoples have become more and more of a Mass, having only the right to obey (hello Shepard Fairey!) those very individuals who owe them their position.

As a French citizen educated during the decades 1970-1990, I was trained in critical thinking, and encouraged to develop an individuality which - according to the Rousseauist principle - wants to tend towards freedom, and not towards frenzied independence. “When everyone does what one pleases, one often does what displeases others, and that is not called a free State. Freedom consists less in achieving one's will, than in not being subject to that of others; it also consists in not submitting the will of others to ours” Rousseau writes.

Unfortunately, critical thinking and individuality are slowly waning. The vast majority no longer make intuitive reflections and have neither the time nor the desire to do so, drugged as they are by the unproductive and mind-numbing time killers that social networks are. On Meta, Twitter, or Instagram, only hate, the fear of others, self-flattery, sex, and cute cats prosper. Expressing beneficial thoughts, or generous social projects is not encouraged by algorithms, because it does not bring any financial outcome.

What is more, geopolitics have become more complex each year, with increasing access to new technologies (information, genetics, armaments, etc.), in a context of worsening climatic conditions, and a desperate quest for natural resources and minerals that have become rare, and strategic.

Here is a sour recipe that could make us return quickly to 1939 if, of the 2023 rabbit, we only keep the "weakness of spirit and of principles", rather than leveraging on its excellent 360° sight (clairvoyance), its large ears with the fine hearing (analysis), and its ability to hit the ground in case of danger (sovereignty, and exercise of citizenship).

We all want peace and prosperity for ourselves and for the greatest number, but history has shown that these can only be deserved.

Thus, so that the gentleness of the Rabbit is not swept away by the fury of the Dragon, we must reflect on our life, on our way of producing, consuming, and educating. For that, we must come out of our burrow. We need strong principles, being generously connected to our emotions, and showing through our actions that we are worthy of all the accomplishments we wish for ourselves, and for our world.

Happy New Year of the Rabbit!?

Benoit Badufle - 22 January 2023