Cat and Mouse Disparity

What is more intelligent, the cat or the mouse? Should we ask Tom and Jerry, the cartoon? I think we should move the furniture around and not make the cat the springboard. We tend to concentrate on size, but it does not matter, contrary to popular opinion. In fact, size can be a disadvantage.

She’s playing cat and mouse. The proverb starts with the cat because it is quite big, it’s visible, it is attractive (although I’m scared of the eyes), it has beautiful fur coats and it has nine lives. We presuppose that it is the hunter, looking for the poor tiny mouse. The proverb is not called mouse and cat, because of the glaring size difference. What we fail to understand is that the cat is at a disadvantage because of ammunition. Which is? It’s not about how big your enemy is, it’s about how much you know about  him.

The cat knows very little about mice and doesn’t have time to study them because they irritate it. Therefore, it wastes precious time on irritation, not strategy. Mice can see the cat, but it cannot see them. All it can do, is stare at the hole, where mice disappeared after a chase. That hole makes matters worse. The cat cannot enter because of its size.

This is how Afghanistan defeated the U.S. That is how the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam.  The U.S. army is a big cat. It strides around in jeeps and airborne ammunition, intimidating locals. But it doesn’t know languages and the landscape of countries it invades.

Nonqaba waka Msimang

Executive Blogger