The violent disorder which is currently unfolding across America could eventually ruin the nation. The levels of violence are out of proportion. The looting, the arson and the attacks on people and their property are symptoms of a strain of politics which remains immune to reason.
This is apparent from the confusing rhetoric which is coming from the protests. The unchallenged belief that somehow all white people are to blame for the social problems faced by some black people. According to this logic a mere accident of birth (and indeed conception) immediately makes you responsible for racism, past and present.
There is a kind of fatalism to this ideology as it suggests that our entire destinies are controlled by our racial privilege or the perceived lack of it. Perhaps that is why violence is either encouraged or at least condoned because this nonsensical belief doesn`t stand up to any intellectual argument. The original complaint was against perceived police racism, but this original and specific complaint has descended into a rabbit hole world of “systemic racism”. This is repeated again and again despite the fact that there is no evidence. In fact the contrary is true the political system outlawed all structural and institutional racism with civil rights legislation some fifty years ago.
The notion of inherent racial privilege needs to be challenged. There is no scientific basis for this, the science clearly shows that we are all members of the human race and so we all share a common experience as members of the same species. Black and Asian people have approximately 99.5% of the same DNA as white people. The tiny fraction of difference accounts for skin colour and eye shape. We have the same physical potential and we have the same emotional and intellectual capacities. We all desire peaceful and dignified lives and we expect the same for each other. Privilege is a contrived phrase beloved of the Left, who with characteristic fashion subverted its original meaning as a gift or an honour. It is a negative view of the world which can never offer anything constructive.
The great Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore said,
“We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us”. Tagore was born into a wealthy Brahmin family but his “caste privilege” meant that he had the freedom and the means to travel throughout Bengal and write about the people that he met.
Some of the people that he encountered lived in poverty, but his poetry helped to illuminate their lives of struggle when they would otherwise be dehumanised by the oppressive and divisive system of the time. We should follow Tagore`s example and focus upon our shared humanity rather than nihilistic political ideologies.
COVID-19 has been proven to be a devastating disease. There is no cure, at least at this moment in time. However a new insidious disease has emerged in our culture, and that is the disease which has already infected and spread amongst the cynical few. It is a seemingly intractable infection which has now poisoned the media.
It seems now that for far too long we have tolerated selfish behaviour, and there is no-one left to speak up for the weak and defenceless. Dominic Cummings flagrantly abused his office and ignored the law, and did not even offer an apology for his actions. Boris Johnson continues to defend him, and his lackeys in the press pour scorn upon the people who are justifiably offended. This just shows how low journalism has sunk. It isn`t the “gutter” press, the press pack now reside much further down the drain. The fact that a pair of entitled, privileged and arrogant men are somehow beyond censure reveals how rotten our culture has become.
It is extremely rare to hear voices which reveal delicacy or subtlety. Instead a new and alarming trend has emerged where aggression and spite dominate the discourse. Ricky Gervais` brand of humour is distinctly abrasive and this has made him very successful and wealthy.
Unfortunately he is also symptomatic of this disease of cynicism and misanthropy. His recent comments about the fashion and beauty industries are revealing. He displays a disturbing bluntness and strange contempt for a creative industry which allows many people, especially women the chance to express themselves. These industries are also a vital part of our economy.
However these attitudes are not new they were prevalent throughout history but in the end were resisted by a great many people. When Oliver Cromwell came to power he imposed an uncompromising and hard line regime in a bid to eliminate all traces of “Popery” from the populace. The results were stark. Clothing was merely functional, along with hair styles cut in the unsophisticated “Roundhead” style. This all changed after the Reformation when a tired and demoralised population yearned for colour and vibrancy after years of functionality and simplicity. This became apparent in the fashions of the day which emerged alongside a blossoming art and literary scene.
In 1930s America society was scarred from years of Economic depression. The arts had suffered after the crash of 1929 but owing to the timely intervention and patronage of President Franklin D. Roosevelt this sector of the economy was eventually saved.
The literature which emerged from this period is tremendously evocative. Carson McCullers for instance writes beautifully about the marginalised but her insightful and humane style of writing would not have been possible in a society like ours. Her voice would not be heard it would be drowned out by more dominant ones, the kind of voices which are self-regarding, cynical and indifferent.
The greatest threat to our health and well being is the culture and style of governing which resembles a dictatorial regime sinking further into degradation.
I was twelve years old when I first heard “Suedehead” by Morrissey. I had just entered a new phase in my life. I had always been quiet, but I still managed to function and I had typically mainstream tastes. Adolescence changed all of that, it almost seemed to turn my awkward self-consciousness murderous. I now had to contend with monthly agonies and indignities.
One morning I was in a science lesson when I became overwhelmed by nausea and cramps. I was finding it impossible to concentrate. I was therefore unaware of what the teacher was telling us so I put my hand up to ask him if I could go home. However the teacher had just asked the class for a volunteer to demonstrate something or other and he thought that was me. I never had the chance to prove his experiment because I fainted in front of the whole class. I was sent home and that happened to be the same morning I heard the song.
I had never heard anything like it. It seemed to encapsulate a very adolescent diffidence. I loved the video of the single. It was an homage to the young James Dean. The video was filmed in his boyhood home of Fairmount Indiana and featured scenes which were pertinent to his early life.
In his autobiography Morrissey explained the significance of certain locations, most poignantly those which were shot at his high school,
“Dean himself occupied these (school) chairs…the stuck pupil awaiting the final bell so that he might be free to become eternal”.
When Morrissey`s first solo album was released I bought the cassette version as soon as I could, then immediately sourced The Smiths back catalogue. It seemed from that moment on all of his music made perfect sense to me. He began to enthral the imagination of a few of my friends as well.
Morrissey spent his adolescence in 1970s Manchester. It was an oppressive experience living in a culture dominated by what we would now call heteronormativity and casual homophobia. All of his songs refer to the sense of hopelessness and futility living in a society where barbarism was just bubbling under the surface.
There is one thing that I have learned over the years is that Morrissey fans are special. We are fiercely loyal of him and his legacy. Music journalists, on the other hand are an entirely different species. It has often been suggested that they are simply failed and bitter musicians out to wreak revenge.
This explains the years of outrageous distortion, exaggeration and libel. Journalists have accused him of all kinds of things, none of which are true. It is clear that these journalists lack the intellectual or imaginative capacity to understand the true meaning behind his songs. They are also bemused by the apparent contradiction between his sensitive demeanour and the confrontational nature of the music that he creates. But you cannot challenge society in a softly, softly approach, it just doesn’t work. The timbre of the music is deliberately aggressive so that the listener notices. Some commentators bristle against the supposed “pretension” of Morrissey the person and complain that he is supercilious or aloof. However I am certain that this is a defence mechanism that he learned to adopt on the rough streets of Manchester. He knew that if he revealed how vulnerable and soft he actually was the bullies would annihilate him.
Truthfully his innate compassion is rare in the pop world. In 1984 he appeared on Top of the Pops wearing a hearing aid. Immediately he was accused of mocking the deaf community, again this was false. In a subsequent interview he revealed that a fan had written to him complaining that as a hearing impaired person her hearing aid made her feel self-conscious. In the 1980s such devices comprised of a transistor box which was worn over the chest and held up with shoulder straps. Morrissey realised how uncomfortable it must have been for her to live with a disability that made her stand out, so wore a similar device in a gesture of solidarity.
However serious accusations of “racism” have dogged him throughout his career. This is a misrepresentation. His songs deal with isolation, alienation and social dislocation. There are people living in our society who feel that they do not truly belong. This includes those who are from an immigrant background and those lost youths who are drawn to the far-right.
Morrissey is a singer-songwriter, not a politician. He presents an artistic representation of the society in which we live, yet he is continually challenged on his politics. He is no different in this regard to someone like John Lennon. Lennon was an idealist attracted to a kind of Utopian socialism. At that time Britain was a deeply conservative country and his long hair, unkempt beard and apparent indolence offended a great deal of people. However it also drew in a wider circle of people to his milieu including a few shady individuals on the far-left. Consequently Lennon was on an MI5 list for years. Similarly Morrissey`s sympathy for someone like Anne-Marie Waters has nothing to do with “racism”. He is sympathetic to her brand of politics owing to her genuine concern for women, gay rights and animal welfare.
It is clear that these important issues are not sacrosanct in a society under threat from sinister political forces. His latest album addresses all of his narrow-minded critics. He states “I Am Not A Dog On A Chain”, and it is a courageous and necessary record in today`s climate. We are living in an anodyne culture and owing to the rise of social media anything that you say in public can be twisted for all kinds of sickening purposes.
Tomorrow I will be celebrating Morrissey`s 61st birthday by playing all of my favourite records. It will be the ultimate homage to a musician who has kept me going through some difficult times in my life and I will salute him.
(Picture: memorial to Percy Bysshe Shelley by Henry Weekes in Christchurch Priory, Dorset.)
In the summer of 1814 an aspiring young writer called Mary Godwin began an affair with the married poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. As news of the scandal broke it sent ripples of outrage across the country. In anticipation of bad press Mary and Percy fled the country. They spent the rest of the summer travelling around Europe. However terrible tragedy would unfold upon their return.
Mary discovered that she was pregnant but experienced a difficult confinement. Her daughter was born premature and did not survive. Mary`s father disapproved of her relationship with Percy. Matters were made worse when it transpired that he had previously lent him a huge sum of money and now could not pay it back. Then in 1816 Percy`s estranged wife Harriet took her own life. Guilt, shame and overpowering grief overwhelmed the couple and they sought exile once more. Eventually they found an appropriate place to stay when Lord Byron invited a newly married Mary and Percy to Geneva. Unfortunately it was a year marked by inclement weather and Mary was frequently depressed. She was haunted by the death of her baby and consumed with guilt about Harriet`s suicide.
However this conspicuous setting inspired Mary`s infamous novel “Frankenstein”. One stormy evening they all told each other ghost stories. According to literary legend the idea for “Frankenstein” came from a terrifying dream that Mary experienced later that night. She dreamed about a monster hewn from the ungodly imagination of a scientist.
In the weeks and months leading up to that night Mary and Percy had troubling conversations about the human impact of science and invention. Galvanisation had just been discovered. This was the process involving electrical current. A successful scientific experiment was undertaken where a dead frog was reanimated using the galvanisation process. Consequently they had genuine fears that science could supersede the natural order of things, including the actual will of God.
“Frankenstein” is the scientist consumed with ambition, but lacking in any human conscience. He soon creates a monster with a terrifying and uncontrollable force. Unexpectedly the reader begins to feel for the monster, a non sentient and dangerous being created through a combination of foolhardiness and scientific error. It is perhaps its lack of insight that arouses pity in the reader, its creator is the truly evil one. This monster is the curse of a vivid mind.
“Frankenstein” is now immortalised into our conscience and culture. He represents the ultimate scientist who chooses to play God. Whenever crude scientific experiments fail spectacularly, the name Frankenstein is often uttered. However at the time of publication this idea must have seemed far-fetched.
In our modern age we regard Mary Shelley as a perceptive and prescient voice. However her life was continually marked by tragedy. She lost a further two children to disease and her only child became a frail and sickly boy and barely survived. Yet he clung stubbornly to life when others around her could not. In 1822 Percy died after drowning off the Tuscan coast. Two years later Lord Byron also died after he succumbed to sepsis. In 1832 her brother William Godwin Jnr died after contracting cholera.
In truth her life had become lonely, as malicious gossip surrounding her marriage and friendship with Byron meant that she rarely ventured outside. In her latter career she kept copious diaries which focussed increasingly upon illness and death. Her 1826 novel “The Last Man” is a reflection upon the blight of disease that threatened to engulf the world and would eventually take the life of her brother.
Many of us are seeking solace or wisdom in literature during this crisis, and Shelley`s novels along with Daniel Defoe`s “Journal of A Plague Year” seem oddly comforting. At this time of global crisis the life and work of this brilliant and imaginative writer can help steer us out of the dark.
According to legend, this country was founded and named after the Trojan hero Brutus. Brutus was believed to have been the first King of this new realm and he boasted a long and glorious lineage dating all the way back to the days of the Biblical Patriarch Noah.
The legend of Brutus is a celebrated part of the lore of this land and is also incorporated into a later medieval concept of the “Body Politic”. Brutus and his legion of Britons convened to create a corporate nation, “corporate” being the Latin for “body”.
If we put this concept simply it refers to the combined might of the King and of the community that he in turn inspired. However as we have become a much more enlightened nation these notions of the divine and absolute right of rulers have gone out of fashion. Yet the convention of the inviolability of the Crown has remained and arguably this has helped to maintain the stability of our society.
In our modern age this stability was tested with the advent of the Second World War. Britain has always been a very tolerant nation. The philosophy of “live and let live” has been exemplary, unlike other European nations such as Spain (Franco), Italy (Mussolini) and particularly Germany (Hitler).
Extreme political movements have always failed to gain any traction here. However this fact has been overlooked and forgotten by people with much more sinister agendas, namely the Left. The Left now present a fictionalised version of Britain during the War years, which is something entirely contrived by them. They also misuse our language and this is dangerous.
(Illustration is by Chloe Scheffe. Will the British Labour Party and its Leftist apologists finally say sorry to the British people for calling them “racist”?)
Consequently loaded words like racism, Nazism and Fascism have been divested of their true meaning. REAL racism, Nazism and Fascism was happening in Europe throughout the thirties and forties when minority communities were persecuted, attacked and systematically murdered. The kind of “racism” that the Left accuse British people of isn`t actually racism in the sense that I and many others understand it.
(Photograph is of the George`s Dock Building in Liverpool in the aftermath of an air raid. This was one of the tallest buildings in the city and was used by the ARP wardens on the look out for bombs during WW2).
The real history is this. Us British fought valiantly alongside our allied counterparts in our old Empire to defeat right-wing racism in all of its nefarious manifestations. We should feel proud that we all pulled together to destroy such a murderous ideology.
But now we are facing a new murderous threat to our “Body Politic”. This is the Coronavirus and frankly political ideology is useless in this war. This is a disease we are fighting. Politics will not kill it. Diseases have no respect for man-made concepts and COVID19 is a ruthless killer. Viruses like this are similar to cancer. They all act to divest the human body of vitality even though they are entirely different biologically speaking. The tragic folly of this country is that we are all engaged in an ideological squabble which isn`t helping anyone.
However this is nothing new, writers have always found ways of highlighting the absurdities of the modern “Body Politic”. Soviet Russia is one example. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn composed his great novel “Cancer Ward” to document this. The novel is set in a Soviet era hospital where all the characters are receiving treatment for cancer. They are forced to dwell upon the futility of their diagnosis and to endure the inhumane indifference of the doctors treating them. The treatments are crude and ineffective, the medicines given to them have side effects which are worse than the illness. Whenever a patient objects or questions the doctors respond with disdain and arrogance because to them they are just experimental specimens rather than truly human.
The cancer riven body is itself a metaphor for the failing political system and also a kind of symbol for the inherent inhumanity of politics. All political ideologies reduce and belittle the human experience and act to deny the individual of any voice or independent agency at all.
Illness allows people to contemplate deeper questions. This enforced confinement has lead to more people reflecting upon those aspects to our own mortality that transcend reductive notions like politics.
In Solzhenitsyn`s novel the main protagonist descends into a reverie. He remembers his experience as a political exile and profound moral questions arise on the price or worth as a human being forced to live and die through a sickening regime. In the political bubble of today very few people actually contemplate the consequences of ignoring humanity for the sake of political ideology.
We are living in an age of uncertainty. All of humanity is affected by some degree or other by a random disease. Arguably there is no better time to revisit the works of England`s greatest playwright. The wisdom contained in his drama is immense. His stunning imagination and insight is vital for these troubled times.
I have written about “Othello” before on these pages. It still stands as a cautionary fable of jealousy. The tragic denouement of the play, Othello`s suicide is a stark reminder of the pernicious effects of envy. Iago is Othello`s nemesis who plants falsehoods in his rival`s head in an attempt to destroy him. However unlike the noble Moor Iago is a contemptible figure who merely arouses pity rather than any iota of admiration.
Shakespeare was no stranger to the cruelty meted out by humans. He was acutely aware of the terrifying savagery that some people were capable of, most markedly in his most controversial play, “Titus Andronicus”. The play is set in Rome during an interregnum where Titus has a fragile grip on power. He was a brave General who made a valiant attempt to build a fortress against the invading Goths. However in his advanced age he needs a younger leader to replace him. His successor is Saturninus, the eldest son of the late Emperor (who preceded Titus), but his succession eventually turns Rome into a land of chaos and barbarism. Saturninus fateful alliance with the Goth Queen Tamora proves to be the catalyst as she was Titus` greatest adversary. The violence that is unleashed, including the savage rape and mutilation of Titus` daughter Lavinia is a consequence of years of acrimony and conflict between native Romans and Goths. Rome is a fading Imperial nation seething with resentment. In the end their destruction becomes complete as animalistic passions surmount reason and humans are irredeemable by their beastliness.
Spite and vengeance are the two main factors that motivate Shakespeare`s villains, like our contemporary world, the most notorious villains forget their own humanity to commit the most heinous crimes. It also seems that pride and any perceived threat to it can lead to the most alarming behaviour. “King Lear” is ostensibly an extended discourse on heredity, but there is an inner story hidden in the drama. Edmund, the illegitimate son of the Duke of Gloucester finds his status challenging.The circumstances surrounding his conception provoke feelings of shame and disquiet. In truth he feels less than a man compared to his half sibling Edgar, the legitimate heir.
His role is played out in parallel with Lear and his daughters Regan, Cordelia and Goneril. These three sisters use flattery in an attempt to win the King`s favour and ultimately his inheritance. Lear is unaware that two of his daughters are feigning their affections for him. He only uncovers their insincerity when fate intervenes and by then it is too late. Meanwhile Edmund convinces his father that Edgar is engaged in a sinister plot to usurp the Estate, which is in fact a fiction cooked up by his spiteful mind. However the Duke is convinced enough to proclaim that Edgar is an outlaw. Again the extremity of human emotion manifests itself in disturbing scenes.We witness the Duke gouge his eyes out as Edgar wanders the heath in a troubling state of derangement. All of the plotting and machinations of the three sisters come to nothing in the end, after Goneril`s suicide the King dies from a broken heart with his beloved daughter`s body in his arms.
The most thorough analysis of the human experience is detailed in the masterful “Hamlet”. It proves to be the most illuminating drama when it is performed in its entirety. Playing “Hamlet” or “the Dane” is still considered by most actors to be the greatest role in the Theatre. It is a part held with such high esteem that to be chosen to play it is seen as a huge honour and achievement. Only this play reveals our fragility and tenuous hold on the destiny of our lives. Shakespeare was a dramatist with a particularly acute sensitivity to our friable existence. Life itself is subject to random vagaries that make little sense.
Shakespeare`s “history” plays are very effective. They are a perfect illustration of the sinister consequences of war and internecine killing. These are shown to have repercussions even decades after their occurrence. It seems that us as a nation, a world even will always remember troubling events which colour our perception of the present and inform us of our possible future. And it isn`t just violent events which influence us, the most insignificant things seemingly shape our opinions. I must single out Prince Hal in “Henry IV” as the most prophetic character in this regard. Currently the tabloids are sniping at our very own Prince Henry, the descendant of Hal. His forebear`s antics are uncannily similar, and as in Harry`s case too played out in two parts. In the first part of the play Hal is alienated from his father,Henry IV. Hal is weighed down with the burden of taking the Crown, and prefers the company of Falstaff and his louche inn dwelling associates. However by the second part Falstaff descends into a permanent state of senility. There is great pathos watching such a larger than life figure diminish before our eyes. Hal`s confidant vanishes, and he is forced to confront his father. The stiff formality of the King rankles his son, he feels much more at home in the dives of Eastcheap than the corridors of the Palace. Our Harry is the modern equivalent who feels more comfortable with LA society and his beautiful and clever Hollywood wife, yet our Queen is ageing and her time will eventually come and he will be forced to make an unenviable choice.
The comedic plays a vital role alongside the tragic. Humour helps to diffuse the pomposity displayed by the major characters. Also the humour reveals a certain kind of wisdom that is noticeably absent from “heavier” characters. The assorted jesters and clowns are oddly perceptive. The notions of wit and idiocy, and of nobility and savagery are tested throughout Shakespeare`s oeuvre. In his final play “The Tempest” an exiled community are contemplating their fate while stranded on an island. In the play the convention of the noble aristocrat is turned upon its head when the supposed “savage” Caliban reveals his great powers of sensitivity and perception.
In this desperate time we are forced into a state of self absorption and we are compelled to face the fact of our own mortality. Shakespeare is the voice of wisdom which illuminates our darkest days. We should celebrate his memory today and always.
Identity is at the heart of The Diddakoi. Is there an intrinsic aspect of all of us, forged by background, upbringing and cultural heritage, that is essentially non-negotiable? Part of our personalities so immutable, even from a tender age, than no degree of outside influence can alter it – and neither should it try? The plight of six-year-old Kizzy Lovell, a troubled gypsy girl marooned in a snooty, resolutely middle-class English village, suggests so.
(Picture is of the Martyrdom of St. Peter as imagined by Caravaggio).
In the year 64 AD Rome was subject to a huge and devastating conflagration. It was the consequence of a vastly vulgar street party conducted by the Emperor Nero. The party included a torch procession and the Emperor parading upon a chariot.
However the “highlight” of the festivities was the obscene spectacle of Christian execution. On that night the victims included the apostles Peter and Paul. St. Peter was believed to have suffered death from crucifixion, reputably upon an upside down cross. St. Paul was believed to have been decapitated before his body was thrown upon a bonfire.
Every Easter we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ but also the courage of the Apostles who lived and died through those torrid years of Roman persecution. We may be walking in darkness because of Corona, but the light will come again.
I am abiding by the UK Government`s instructions to stay at home, to only go out for essentials and to keep a distance from others. It appears that these edicts have caused hardship for many people, but they have also brought unexpected relief for others.
This week the news was announced that the Marquess of Bath (pictured) passed away from the complications of coronavirus. He will be missed by his family and by the wider British public who recognised a genuine English eccentric. He was a flamboyant figure who loved entertaining others in his midst so the restrictions enforced through his last illness must have been very lonely and painful.
This is the most extraordinary and unpredictable period of human history. We cannot know for certain whether we will be stronger people (if) we manage to survive it. Nothing seems normal at the present time, predicting the future is impossible. This isn`t just an unusual way of living it is an unusual way of being. It is taking a great deal of time and effort to get used to these new situations as our tolerance and patience is stretched to the limit.
Isolation has lead to a necessary state of silence and reflection, we are less inclined towards anger and much more aware of understanding and empathising with others. This period has allowed us to think more about our own fragility, our mercilessly short sojourn in this life and given us an uncomfortable reminder of our own mortality. Truthfully we are not that important as individuals, we mean so much more as a community.
“Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge we make promise only; pain we obey”.
I very nearly gave up trying to write anything either original or useful about the Coronavirus crisis. I thought that I would sound crass, trite or worse still both of those things combined. On further reflection, I believe that this is an entirely appropriate time to take a considered assessment of the past fortnight`s events.
This crisis is unlike any other we have experienced. In reality we have never had to deal with events like these even though we have imagined similar disasters unfold in our popular culture, especially in film and television.
However we have forgotten how relatively unsophisticated we were as a nation before the advent of rolling news and live streams. The 1970s were barren in comparison. Britain, throughout this decade was literally another country, so far beyond the modern nation that we recognise today. Television and print media were the only source of information. In the popular imagination human extinction was always a possibility as we lived a much more precarious existence.
We did not have as many luxuries and we were isolated from the rest of the world. Many of us were convinced that the future of humanity itself was at the mercy of hot headed and irascible Generals and Presidents. In 1975 an eerily prescient drama was unleashed on to our television screens. It was called “Survivors” and it was originally written as a kind of allegory of humanity under siege but ostensibly it was a story of a people living under the shadow of a deadly virus.
This drama series followed a community struggling to rebuild after a deadly plague wipes out most of the world`s population. At its heart it is a painful story which reminds us of our human frailties. It soon became a deeply uncomfortable reminder of our numerous foibles and inadequacies as human beings.
The simple pursuit of survival is a fraught one, and shows how fragile we all are. We are completely defenceless in the face of an alien and indiscriminate biological agent with the potential to annihilate all of us. Our response to such a threat is often inadequate, some of us are so overwhelmed a blackly comic approach is often the only means to shield our pain before the bleak reality intervenes. Sometimes we don`t like to admit that we feel helpless, angry or guilty. Shock and grief does all of these things to all of us at some point or another. We need to be kind to ourselves and to others.
Our altruistic natures only work to a point, it is hard to be noble when the risk to our own health is so great. When the drive for own survival is paramount some of us seem prepared to step over the weak to simply acquire the limited resources to live.
The 1980s arrived in the shadows of possible nuclear annihilation. The fear of complete nuclear destruction had not receded completely. A hastily devised guide for survival after nuclear strike was issued entitled “Protect and Survive”. This pamphlet did little to assuage the fears of a nation. The publication of this coincided with a revival of interest in the fiction of John Wyndham. In 1981 the B.B.C. dramatised his novel “The Day of The Triffids”. This was the story of how a parasitic and venomous plant proceeded to destroy humankind. During the first stage of Triffid attack humans are blinded, which is yet another example of how vulnerable we can become as soon as a dangerous and unknown agent attacks. In 1984 I.T.V. adapted his novel “Chocky” in which a boy is placed under the psychic influence of aliens. This situation was replicated in the psyche of a nation frightened and paranoid about a possible Soviet invasion.
Later on in our history there was a general consensus that a “New World Order” would emerge. This would be a beacon of light once the “Iron Curtain” fell. However all that happened in the interim was that the world situation just became much more complicated. The proxy war in Afghanistan concluded in 1989 but this simply lead to the growth of the Taliban who had been funded and armed by the Americans.
Almost as soon as the Soviet troops withdrew from the region Islamist extremism flourished. There was an influx of foreigners seeking jihad, including Osama Bin Laden. Al Qaeda emerged out of the impasse. A new kind of terror entered our world when 9/11 happened, an event quickly dubbed as the moment “when the twenty-first century truly began”. The fear and paranoia experienced by all of us throughout the seventies and eighties was overshadowed by the September 11 attacks. It was harrowing to witness such a brutal and callous attack on live television and then to see it reproduced on the Internet in the years which followed it.
This new digital age of communication has altered our comprehension of disaster. It hasn`t clarified our understanding, it has merely clouded it. But now we have a different reason to feel afraid. 2020 began with a much more terrifying prospect, an unknown biological agent which has become an insidious and stealthier killer than nuclear weaponry, terrorism or even world war. We are now all civilians battling an almost invisible army and I am already scared that we are losing.
Octavia's Odyssey 