THE SAMARITAN SUMMARY PDF-JOHN LARA

The Samaritan Summary: An Episodic Analysis

 Episode 1 - Launching The Samaritan (P1-19)

Setting:

·        Sagrada Secondary School Hall

·        Maracas Municipality

·         10:00 AM

Event :

·        End of year school closing day

·         Launching the Samaritan App

·         Presenting a present to Alvita and Montano

 

Maracas Municipality Mayor Mossi and other leaders are at Sagrada Secondary School at the end-of-the-year school closing day to launch the Samaritan App and award the students who created the App, a winning innovation at the Secondary Schools’ National Innovation Competition, Alvita and Montano.

While introducing the App, Montano wonders: “What can we do as a society to ensure we have a good future? Right now it seems extremely bleak.” (P4)

During their skit with Alvita and Miss Nicole, Montano tries to figure out the future based on current and past trends. In his vision, 50 years from now, he could see Alvita working as a cobbler. She is severely battered and her nose permanently running.

The future, according to Montano’s vision, is bleak. Some of the problems experienced include:

·        Unemployment & poverty: Many people are educated but there are no good jobs. The country is producing more graduates each year than the number of jobs it is able to create. (P5)

·        Climate change: the awful smell and bad stench that cause Alvita’s nose to run permanently is caused by lack of cleaning water. It only rains once a year and for only 10 minutes. This unpredictable weather patterns can barely support animal and plant life. Most of the animals and plants have died.

·        Lack of food: People are forced to eat strange things such as rodents, insects, crawling creatures and sea creatures. They even feed on bizarre stuff such as plastics, synthetic fibre, and like in the case of Alvita, gunny bags. (P6)

·        Low life expectancy: people only live up to 30 or 40 years at most. People are dying early because of diseases and malnutrition. This is because they could not afford medicine and good food. Another cause for low life expectancy is the high rate of crime. People were being slaughtered like chicken. Just like now, even in future criminal gangs thrived.

·        Corruption: the law enforcers and judges are corrupt. Those who cannot afford to grease their palms resort to lawlessness. Since they have no access to security and justice, they take the law into their own hands. (P7)

Alvita on the other hand has a more auspicious vision.

She envisions a future of:

·        Creativity: intelligent robots have replaced professionals like judges and police officers. Justice and law enforcement is rendered by machines to all people without discrimination, unlike now. These can be made possible using the technology of decision-making algorithm.

·        High life expectancy: it increased to over 700 years. This is because of drugs to regenerate body cells.

·        No need for jobs. All jobs will be done by intelligent machines including running factories, hotels and hospitals. The robots will also attend meetings and use self-driven vehicles while the humans venture outside earth to conquer new territories.

·        No climate change problem: this would be solved by technology for cleaning the air of carbon emissions.

Miss Nicole is skeptical about the idea of such a good future since the current trends spell doom and not prosperity. She wonders where the resources would come from to make this future a reality. She argues that even today hospitals barely have any medicine.

Alvita says that the resources are there even today but we should ensure they are used for the right purposes.

How is that possible? You ask. 

The Samaritan App will be helpful in ensuring responsible use of public resources when people share information, videos, texts and photos on how public resources are used. (P10)

It has already been piloted on protecting the environment. People have shared photos and videos of:

·        illegal activities that degrade the environment in their neighborhood

·        the location

·        the people involved

They simply send it to the municipal department responsible for the environment. All the officials have to do is to log in to the App to see the report.

Does the Samaritan App help in ensuring proper usage of public resources? Asks miss Nicole(P 11)

Of course it does. For instance,  people are sharing information about the municipal procurement process. These Include:

·        what the municipal council is procuring

·        how tenders are awarded

·        who wins the tenders

·        whether those awarded the tenders deliver the goods

·        the services supplied

·         duration of delivery

Abuse of procurement and delivery process is reported to the Crimes and Integrity Commission.

When Mossi hears this information about the Municipal procurement process, he scratches his head thoughtfully. He then sips some water and turns uncertainly towards the School Principal and Harvester.(P 12)

Alvita continues that it is possible to share information on the Samaritan App privately and anonymously. The information is always with the people. These are good people who are ready to volunteer information that advances the public good.  

When he stands up to speak, the Mayor thanks the principal and the teachers for the good work and the school's outstanding performance. He posits that he is genuinely impressed by Nicole and the two students. Schools are nurturing visionaries and innovators who are capable of solving the Municipality's practical problems. He hails the Samaritan App as a useful resource to bettering lives and promises to mobilise resources in support of the innovation.(P14)

Mossi wants to live 472 more years thanks to Alvita's cell regeneration technology. Despite all these accolades that he showers the Samaritan, he declines to launch the innovation and to present prizes to the students. He claims that the outstanding innovation may have far-reaching implications on the social, economic and political life. In real sense, he is only scared because he may be exposed as corrupt and inept.

He orders Miss Narine and Miss Nicole to halt any activities regarding “that thing” until his office gives further guidance. His deputy Ramsidaye nods in approval. (P15)

Too bad for him, the president is set to launch the App early the next year when the schools reopen. Furthermore, the App has been online for a month and is now in the hands of the National Information and Communications Technology Corporation.

Despite Mossi's warning and ultimatums, Ms. Nicole says that she will only do the right thing.

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