Once there was a village and in it lived many types of people from all over the land, the Mayor, a few rich merchants and a small group called the Haters.
The Mayor and the merchants controlled the economic affairs of the village, ensuring that most of the money went to them, while the rest of the village had to make do with low wages and high taxes. They told the people that while trading was going quite well, they had to keep their belts tightened because the village was growing and new villagers were placing more demands on keeping the town running.
Now the Haters generally didn’t like anybody much except themselves, but they particularly didn’t like anyone that looked different, like new arrivals to the village. Whenever times got hard, the Mayor, merchants and the Haters would blame any new arrivals for any adversities.
Eventually, times got so hard that the Haters managed to convince the rest of the villagers that the new arrivals had to go. The merchants nodded and stayed quiet.
The Mayor said that something would be done.
Soon the new arrivals packed their bags, and tearfully made their way out of the village, off to find a new place to stay. The Haters cheered, and the Mayor promised that things would get better, there would be more money to go around, and the people felt better about the whole thing.
However, things did not get better for the villagers, although the Mayor and the merchants became even richer than before.
Eventually, the Haters found reasons to hate the other remaining villagers. They decided that some of the regular villagers hadn’t been there as longs as they had, and when they thought about it, looked a bit funny, and behaved in ways they didn’t approve of.
So they got rid of the other villagers too.
Another year went by, the merchants got richer, and the Haters, well, they got angrier. Something still wasn’t right. There were fewer jobs around, and the town was falling into disrepair. They heard stories about how some of the people that had left had built new villages, and were living and working happily together.
This made them furious.
After many years only a handful of Haters remained in the village. The merchants had left because there weren’t enough people left to do work for them, and they found living with the Haters depressing. The Haters started to feel sad and lonely. The Mayor was rarely seen. The village was eerily empty, and they were getting tired of the same old stories from their fellow Haters.
The Haters started to hate each other.
After many, many years, the Haters were so despondent and few in number that they didn’t notice when new people moved into the village and things started to pick up again. New shops opened, businesses sprang up, money was spent on sprucing up the village, and the taverns were full of people with tales from faraway lands. The village was thriving again, and the merchants were back.
On a park bench in the centre of the village, an old Hater would sometimes be seen muttering to himself about how things used to be better in the old days before the new people arrived.
But, for now, nobody paid him any attention.