English | kkenpo

Long, long ago, the Bird clan and the Beast clan waged a war. When the situation turned in favor of the birds, a bat faced the birds. He said "I am a bird because my wings are like yours". Then, the situation turned in favor of the beasts, he went to the beasts. And he said "I am a beast because of my fur and fangs, like a rat". Later, when the war was over, both the beasts and birds disliked the bat, because he betrayed them several times. So, he couldn't live with them. He had to live in a dark cave in the daytime, and wait for nighttime.

The peace went on during several years. But a hawk who was then king thought to start a war. He made his followers say bad things about the Beast clan, and collected many things for war. There wasn’t a clear reason, but a hatred for the beasts was spreading in the Bird clan.
There were some birds who thought the Bird clan going the wrong way, and they tried to alter the direction. A dove went to a lot of places to tell the birds the story of her experiences during the last war which killed many birds and beasts. She wanted to alter the perception of war. But one day, she was arrested and they took her to a prison.
A myna bird wanted to alter the direction, too. But he heard that they had taken the dove to a prison. He was scared they would do the same to him, so he didn't say anything. When the birds were going to start war, he didn't do anything.

The war was started by a surprise attack of birds. And it turned to the Bird clan because of their attacks from the sky. Then, a wolf king summoned his followers into a strategy meeting.

A fox opened his mouth to speak. "I heard one of monkeys invented a tool to make fire. I think we can burn the forest of the birds with it".
"But how can we get to the forest? They'll find us before we reach there".
"There is a bat which lives in a cave. Unlike the bird, he can fly without a light. Let's make him do it in the night when the moon doesn't appear. I'll tell him that we will allow him to become a member of the Beast clan. I guess he'll be pleased to do it".
The fox went to one of the monkeys, and took the tool. Then he went to the bat, and gave him the tool. He told him the strategy.
"If I do it, lots of birds will be killed at once".
"You are a bird. If you don’t do this, I will kill you".

One night the moon didn't appear, the bat made a fire in the forest of the birds. The fire spread immediately, so many birds were killed. Almost all babies who were sleeping in the trees were burnt to death. Many parents who tried to help their children were killed by smoke.
The myna bird was there, but he couldn’t do anything in the huge fire. In the aftermath of the disaster he managed to escape. But he felt he had done something terrible, he cried and wailed.
“If I have done something, this might not have happened”. He decided that he’d do anything to prevent war happening again.

There were so many victims in the war that many birds thought they would have to change their system. It wasn’t good that a king decided everything, and others obeyed him. Because a king was bad, a war was planned. Because a system was bad, a war wasn’t stopped.
The myna bird said they would make a new constitution. “We will have a constitution that a king must obey, that says we don’t wage war and we won’t make the same mistake again”.
The birds were surprised by his opinion, but they decided to make a constitution not to wage war. Then they asked the myna bird to make a draft.
“I can’t do it alone, but with the dove and others that were against war, we can do it”.

Their draft said they won’t wage war, and they don’t have anything to use for war.
One of the birds said. “If the Beast clan attacks us, we won’t be safe without something to attack them”. The myna bird answered. “We did the right thing before. The right way to solve something is to talk about it rather than fight, isn’t it? If we wage a war, there are many victims on both sides. We will do the right thing no matter what others do, and we’ll decide to have nothing to use for war, so no war will happen”.
After that, they talked about the draft. They added some rights which they didn’t have before. Because they regretted that they had sent the dove to prison, they made “Freedom of thought and conscience” and “Freedom of speech”. And they made difficult procedures to change the constitution, so that any kings who wanted change it couldn’t do so easily.
“Right thing” that the myna bird said was the “Renunciation of war” as “Article 9” in the draft. After all, this draft became the constitution with the agreement of all.

After this constitution, the Bird clan didn’t wage war again, and nobody attacked them. But after several years, a prime minister wanted to change this constitution, and some birds who didn’t know any wars agreed it. So, the myna bird and the dove and some birds went around speaking about the terror of war and the greatness of peace. The myna bird spoke about fear and his experience of the huge fire that the dove knew none of this because she was in prison, and told them to keep the constitution and don’t go back to the bad old days.
They stopped changing the constitution. And they asked the myna bird to keep telling those stories. The myna bird took their proposal, and he was proud of keeping their constitution, so he kept telling those stories even if others felt he was noisy.
You know myna birds are noisy, because there were all these things.