Why are we trying to save this filthy system?

In 1957, two writers were voted for the Nobel Prize. Albert Camus secured one vote more than what Nikos Kazantzakis bagged and was awarded the Nobel Prize. Camus said, “I have received the reward, but Kazantzakis deserves it a hundred times more than I do”.

Kazantzakis was about two and a half thousand years younger than Homer — and was the second modern Homer. Or better say that since some work was left from ancient Homer, he was reborn as Kazantzakis and wrote master pieces in Modern Greek language. Written on Kazantzakis’ tombstone is: “Now I have no fear, no desire. Now I am free.” Obviously, this text must have been written on Kazantzakis’ desire itself. He was well aware of the truth that man cannot be free unless he overcomes fear and desire. Fear gives birth to desire and desire gives birth to fear. Meaning if you capture one of them, the other automatically dies and then you will be free.

Here comes the question of what you need to do. Intellect and consciousness are the only things that will set you free. When the Goths sacked Rome, Rome was converted into a narrow and dark village. When we consider why this happened, we find that the people there surrendered in despair and refused to advance in fear. In England in the nineteenth century, we find images of economic exploitation, political oppression, injustices and atrocities in the writings of the writers of this period.

In his poem, TS Eliot portrays a poor and backward family and writes, “When the family fell into the depths of humiliation, they had to auction property at a very low price. The father became addicted to drugs in desperation and the mother, suffering from anger and mental disorder, killed her son. The daughter was forced to sell her virginity, fed up with the poverty.” The poem ends with these lines: “Oh God, how expensive is the bread and how much the blood is cheap.”

In 1844, Thomas Hood wrote a poem, Song of the Shirt, in which he writes, “With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags, Playing her needle and thread– Stitch! stitch! stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, She sang the ‘Song of the Shirt’. Work! work! work! While the cock is crowing aloof! And work-work-work, Till the star shine through the roof! It’s O! to be a slave, Along With the barbarous Turk, Where woman has never a soul to save.”

George Bernard Shaw said: “We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everything that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinions, of our experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins.”

Similarly Charles Dickens and Thackeray in their novels represented the downtrodden classes, while Victor Hugo, Balzac and Zola depicted the France of that period in there writings. On the other hand, Tolstoy, Pushkin and Chekhov highlighted the lives of ordinary people in Russia.

Isn’t it true that we are also going through the worst period of our history, have given up, and are refusing to move out of fear? We are not willing to stake what is left with us. We have become a crowd of people without a purpose and destination, with each of us living only for our own selves. We had better set this filthy system on fire with our own hands. Instead, we are trying to save this system that has gone dead, and investing all over energy into reviving it. We have started believing that poverty, diseases, humiliation and filth as our destiny. We have been dead for years, only afraid of not being resurrected. That’s why there is silence in the whole country because the whole country has become a big graveyard and the dead never speak.

Nietzsche says, “Look at the dead bodies, they are absolutely safe, there is no danger to them, their graves are safe because they cannot die again”.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 21^st, 2023.

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