We have always relied on the arts to give us hope when everything seems to be topsy-turvy. They remind us there is more to life than just this one moment and that there will be ‘an after’. This situation is no different. Since the first mention of COVID-19 on December 31st, 2019, when China reported several cases of pneumonia in the city of Wuhan to the World Health Organisation, the number of registered cases globally is approximately 3,855,812 with confirmed deaths at 265,862. In Uganda, the confirmed cases number 114, with no deaths registered. It’s been uplifting to watch people’s responses to social distancing. The various cross-border shows of support for one another: impromptu mini-concerts, retired medical workers voluntarily returning to the frontline, the UN solidarity flight from Addis Ababa to all African Nations carrying vital PPE supplies, love and support continually being given to essential workers who do not have the luxury of sitting this one out ─the list is beautiful and endless.
While working on a list of reads (see a follow-up article) I was struck by how throughout history authors have used the myriad of pandemics or epidemics we have faced: the Black Death in the 1300s in Europe, the Spanish flu, smallpox, H1N1 or Swine Flu and most recently; HIV/AIDS as backdrops for the fascinating stories they told. Yes, there’s more than Dean Koontz’s The Eyes of Darkness.
I was especially drawn to Jose Saramago’s Blindness. He does not bother with too many preliminaries. I was fascinated by the style he chose but mostly the familiarity of the story intrigued me.
Blindness is set in an unnamed city that grapples with a sudden outbreak of blindness. The blindness is unlike any condition doctors have dealt with before; there seems to be no cause and worse still, no cure. When the blindness, or white terror as they label it, first strikes, everyone assumes that it is a passing condition. The people who respond to the first victim and all who subsequently come into contact with him believe it’s just anxiety and will pass. As more cases begin to spring up in the story, panic sets in. Clearly, the disease is contagious and must be contained. The Ministry of Health gets involved promising proper care for and treatment of those who have been infected, once they are quarantined. As the characters continue to be enclosed within a small space, little by little civility and organization are lost.
While the white terror is the disease that plagues the characters in the book, the writer employs blindness symbolically. The story revolves around seven central characters who remain nameless throughout the book. We can only differentiate them by their descriptions and the mannerisms we come to associate with them. Much like the characters, who are forced to navigate their new world using other senses.
It takes the characters losing their physical sight to realise just how much they took for granted. Though we have sight, we are often blind. We do not see things past their face value and in many cases, are not willing to. Mostly, though, we are blind to the plight of others and that, I think, is the greatest blindness which Saramago hints at throughout the book. I wonder how easy it has been to think the situation is not that bad just because we are comfortable. Blind to the needs of others. We’ve made light of the fact that the lockdown has rendered some people jobless, homeless, and hungry without any source of livelihood. Many with regular health care needs are struggling to navigate lockdown restrictions to reach Caregivers.
Saramago uses themes such as the fragility of society, gender relations, and human nature to give us a well-rounded piece of literature. The book presents human nature through a mostly negative lens and there are points throughout the book which will make you stop and wonder what was going through the writer’s mind or why he would choose to portray characters such as the ones in the book. However, you will realize that the ideas put forward in the book are not far- fetched. As the book explores how easy it is to unravel centuries of development and modernization. Just like that, all the characters’ airs and graces were stripped away. What they were left with were their basic instincts of survival.
The book, however, ends on a hopeful note. One by one, the blind begin to see again. It takes a while for them to arrive at this point and they go through faith-testing situations to get to it, but they do get to it. Blindness teaches us how important it is to appreciate what we do have instead of taking it for granted. I imagine that if our situation were to reach the levels it did in the book, pandemonium would ensue. The fact that we even have (some) leaders who won’t let that happen is a blessing in itself.
We know that everything that has a beginning, has an end. The virus may still be raging on as more and more cases are declared, but we’re beginning to see some hope. We aren’t completely out of danger but it is certainly more uplifting now than the beginning was.
This too shall pass away.
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