Mouseland is a political

fable Fable is a literary genre defined as a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a parti ...

first told by Clarence Gillis in 1944, and later and most famously by

Tommy Douglas Thomas Clement Douglas (20 October 1904 – 24 February 1986) was a Scottish-born Canadian politician who served as the seventh premier of Saskatchewan from 1944 to 1961 and leader of the New Democratic Party from 1961 to 1971. A Bap ...

, leader of the Saskatchewan Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) that became the

New Democratic Party of Canada The New Democratic Party (NDP; , ) is a federal political party in Canada. Widely described as social democratic,The party is widely described as social democratic: * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Editors of ''Encyclopædia Britann ...

, both

social democratic Social democracy is a Social philosophy, social, Economic ideology, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achi ...

parties. The story is about a nation of mice voting for either black cats or white cats to run their country, and expresses the CCF's view that the Canadian political system was flawed in offering voters a

false dichotomy A false dilemma, also referred to as false dichotomy or false binary, is an informal fallacy based on a premise that erroneously limits what options are available. The source of the fallacy lies not in an invalid form of inference but in a false ...

: the choice of two parties, neither of which represented their interests.

Synopsis

The mice voted in black cats, which represented the Progressive Conservative Party, and then they found out how hard life was. Then they voted in the white cats, which symbolized the

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. For example, while the political systems ...

and things were different, but still not good for mice, because the government was still run by cats; subsequently they alternated the two, then they tried a coalition, and ultimately spotted cats were voted in which sought to sound like mice. A mouse got an idea that mice should run their government, not the cats, was accused of being a

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

, and was imprisoned. The concluding point was that one can lock up a mouse or a person, but one cannot lock up an

idea In philosophy and in common usage, an idea (from the Greek word: ἰδέα (idea), meaning 'a form, or a pattern') is the results of thought. Also in philosophy, ideas can also be mental representational images of some object. Many philosophe ...

Variations

A variation of this story is told in

Douglas Adams Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author, humorist, and screenwriter, best known as the creator of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the ...

' novel '' So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish'', involving a democracy where people vote for lizards as their leaders. No one is happy with this situation, except for the lizards, but the people continue voting for the lizards "because if they didn't vote for a lizard ... the wrong lizard might get in". In 2006,

Brad Wall Bradley John Wall (born November 24, 1965) is a former Canadian politician who served as the 14th premier of Saskatchewan from November 21, 2007, until February 2, 2018. He is the fourth longest-tenured premier in the province's history. W ...

, Leader of the

Saskatchewan Party The Saskatchewan Party (SP or Sask Party) is a conservative political party in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The party was founded in 1997 by a coalition of former provincial Progressive Conservative ...

, the opposition party in

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...

, parodied Mouseland, a place in which the mice govern as destructive creatures, as an attack on the

Saskatchewan New Democratic Party The Saskatchewan New Democratic Party (Saskatchewan NDP or Sask NDP), branded as the Saskatchewan New Democrats, is a social democratic political party in Saskatchewan, Canada. The party was founded in 1932 as the Farmer-Labour Group and was kno ...

. In 2010, Wall carried his parody further by giving "A Mouseland Update" to the Saskatchewan Party's Annual Convention.

References

External links

Video Animation of MouselandThe Story of Mouseland
(Audio clip from CBC Radio Broadcast)

(Introduction, audio clip, transcript, and description)

Brad Wall parody of Mouseland (RealPlayer required)
{{Dead link, fix-attempted=yes, date=October 2010 20th-century speeches New Democratic Party (Canada) Canadian political phrases Political history of Canada Tommy Douglas 1944 in Canadian politics

Synopsis

Variations

See also

References

External links