SEEING COVID 19 AS A VOICE OF RESILIENCE AND RESISTANCE:
AN ECOCRITICAL APPROACH
Dr. S M Yahiya Ibrahim
A lecture delivered online under the aegis of ARKA Jain University, Jamshedpur on 25th July 2020
The continents blasted
Cities and little towns,
Everything become a scorched, blackened ball
The news we hear is full of grief for that future
But the real news inside here
Is that there is no news at all.
(Rumi)
Pandemics, in human history, have always created not one but many crises. The present threat of Covid 19 is no exception. On one hand it has created great loss to economy and our material life while on the other it has created deep ruptures in our social relationships. Not only our professional and economic activities have come to a standstill but our social relationships and interactions have come to a halt. Corona has created deep social ruptures and emotional stasis in our lives.
It is difficult to guess and gauge the post Covid 19 situation right now but one can surely assume that we are going to live in a world which will change substantially. Our social contacts, relationships and our emotional quotients are certainly under a severe threat.
HOWEVER
The present session intends to deal with two juxtaposed concepts: resilience and resistance. And we have been asked by the organizers to keep the eco-critical perspective in mind. So I intend to break my talk into two sections. In the first section I will be talking about resilience and recovery part; that how the world or rather our environment, has recuperated due to Covid 19. In the second part I will be talking about ‘resistance’. I see ‘Resistance’ as a thrust of life. Aristotle saw ‘conflict’ as the main propelling part of drama, I look at ‘resistance’ as the most existentialist part of the drama of life.
I don’t think that much is needed to say about how the environment is healing because of Covid 19. All of us know that the eruption of Covid 19 and the subsequent global lockdowns have resulted in a repair of our ecology. It is claimed that the air quality index has improved. Numerous varieties of birds, insects and animals are seen. We have seen the reports and pictures that were shared through media claiming that the quality of water of different rivers has improved. People claimed that the snowcapped peaks of Himalayas are now visible from our rooftops in the ‘tarai’ region of Uttarakhand and Uttarpradesh.
In our day to day dealings with Covid 19 we are adopting eco friendly ways. Though in our vested self interest but we are giving in for nature. Our staying at home is surely impacting the pollution level. It has perhaps lowered the power consumption also. E-communication and work from home has enabled us to wasting less. We are returning to home-made food, organic food resources etc. The avoidance of air conditioners, chilled water etc and the emphasis on drinking luke-warm water, chewing tulsi leaves, or raw garlic or drinking ‘kadha’ are just a few examples.
The outbreak of Covid 19 has also been resulted in the slowing of time. That mad rush is not visible nowadays. We are more focused on the family. We are showing more concerns and empathy for others. We are paying more attention to even smaller things.
Even we have witnessed a return to art and literature. People are reading, and writing too. People are talking about books and music and about other creative things. Literature and art and the associated online activities have become strategies of survival. The online activities are not just promoting academics or professionalism but they are fostering interactions amidst physical distancing. We are creating new communities. Faith is on the rise. Return to God and nature is the catch phrase. We have become aware of our pettiness in the face of an invisible omnipotent virus.
But all this resilience and recuperation has a darker side too. Let me present this through a very strong prophetic poem by the 13th century Persian poet Hafiz Shirazi. It’s a long poem and I am presenting before you just a select part. The translation of that part of the poem runs like this:
City empty, roads empty, streets empty, homes empty,
Goblets empty, tables empty, cups and measures empty.
Our friends, the nightingales, have migrated flock by flock
Orchard empty, garden empty, branches empty, nests empty.
Oh! Woe to the world, where lovers fear one another,
Where thirsty buds fear the gardens,
Where lovers fear the sounds of union,
Where hands of musicians fear instruments,
Where doctors fear the sight of the patients.
Songs were smashed, and
The poet’s torment reached all bounds
Years of wait passed in agony for you and I,
Friends are turned into strangers
As soon as I gave my hand,
My life became a barren land.
I wept and I wailed
I knocked on every door
I poured upon my head
The dust and mire of this ruined shelter, bit by bit,
Yet the world went on as usual, no one cared.
The fountains dried up, the seas turned weary;
the heavens took our legend lightly.
Drinks have lost potency
Love has no bosom to embrace thee
Not a single soul hears out my lament.
Come back, so that the gone away
Caravan, would also comeback,
Come back, so that the tender sweet hearts,
Would come back tenderly,
Come back, so that they all would comeback,
The minstrel, the music and the mandolin.
Spread your forelock, for your
Gracious sweet heart is coming back.
Come back so that we may bow before Hafiz
Spreading flowers and filling our cups with wine.
HOWEVER
This wine of Hafiz Shirazi has nothing to do with the decision of opening the wine shops at Delhi or other parts of India. With this I come to the second part of my talk. RESISTANCE
I have no problems in saying that Covid 19 and its resultant effects have deepened the socio-economic rift across the globe. We can see a huge marginalisation taking place because of this Covid 19 situation. The concept of eco justice in terms of the rights of other organism versus the rights of human beings may be or may not be addressed in the light of the ‘resilience’ aspect of Covid 19, I am not sure of this but I am sure that with its start as a life style epidemic Covid 19 is now the largest and dreadest ever pandemic effecting and exposing those who are the most vulnerable.
Covid 19 is now a civil rights issue. Inequality in jobs, in equality in access to jobs, loss of jobs, food, housing and health care has opened the pores of structural racism as well as environmental racism.
The older disease of racism has erupted once again with the newer disease. Cawo M Abdi and Saida M Abdi African-American Professors at University of Minnesota write “Alas, unlike Covid 19, this older disease cannot and will not be eradicated with stay-at-home orders and the wearing of masks”.
The vulnerable communities are in a worse position. The virus does not discriminate but our systems do. We need an equaliser but generations of inequity and an unjust system has placed certain communities significantly more at risk.
An emerging data from America shows that African Americans make up over half of all corona virus cases in America. Ibram X Kendi, Director of the Anti Racist Research and Policy Center at American University says “sometimes racial data tells us something we don’t know. Other times we need racial data to confirm something we already seem to know.”
When trying to receive health care, certain communities or classes experience barriers to effective health care.
Essential workers who cannot afford to stay at home are largely madeup of people from vulnerable class or community.
A very recent study of Harvard University sees a clear link between air pollution and Covid 19 fatalities. The study confirmed what the environmental justice organisations are saying from a long time.
The placement of industrial plants, refineries, atomic stations, huge dams, even landfills and bus depots are in the areas of vulnerable communities.
Lubna Ahmad, Director of environmental health at WE ACT for Environment Justice America says “In public health it is often said that you Zip Code is more indicative of your health outcomes than your genetic code.”
Corona virus has cast a spotlight on largely unnoticed segments of society, from low-income people in polluted neighborhoods, to residents of vulnerable areas, frontline workers and prisoners, to workers in different sectors of the country.
Sacoby Wilson, an environmental health scientist at the University of Maryland, says “One thing that Covid-19 has done, it has made a lot of populations we made invisible, visible.”
I do not see any reason to repeat the story of the tragic crisis of immigrant workers, their loss of job, their exodus. All of us are aware about that.
Hence there is frustration and rage. The vulnerable individuals and groups, communities and classes have controlled their reaction so far or you can say that their desperation and angst is not visible yet because they are more fearful and apprehensive of the disease at present but how long. You cannot crush the feelings of protest and resistance.
If as a nation we want to act differently, our society, our leaders and most importantly our institutions must act differently. If we don’t urgently transform these institutions to more just and more accountable bodies, the vulnerable individuals and groups, classes and communities will either be marginalized forever or they will resist with rage and revolt against injustices in the decades to come.
Ecuadorian poet María Clara Sharupi Jua was born in the Ecuadorian Amazonian Forest and belongs to the Shuar Indigenous People who live between what they call “high mountains and mighty rivers”. Never renouncing her freedom or her origins despite many discrimination for being an indigenous woman, she decided to move to Quito, where she studied at the University and currently lives. She has constantly maintained her many roles; fisherwoman, craftswoman, potter, weaver and a knowledge keeper of ancestral Shuar oral knowledge. In the face of the discrimination and inequality suffered by her people, she has re-assumed the “power of the word” to transmit her ancestral knowledge in literature by writing and disseminating Shuar poetry.
How has the Covid-19 pandemic affected your life and your community?
MC: I believe this pandemic is a call to the human conscience of all peoples, communities and nations. From my perspective, as an Indigenous Shuar woman, I believe that what is happening is due to the human transgression of the laws of Nature which has caused instability in the harmony of life. At the beginning, I recognised that borders, social classes, powerful governments and developing countries do not exist anymore. This is a fatal threat and we all need to accept a collective responsibility on the right to life for ourselves and others.
My personal life has radically changed: economically, socially, culturally and personally. Although I have always fought against gender, ethnic, and social-class barriers, Covid-19 has once again placed me at society’s margins. My daily thoughts and actions focus on how to elevate the spirits of my children and other family members by trying to keeping hope through songs, poems and paintings.
Like Maria Clara Sharupi Jua I also see literature as a great healer and as a great catalyst of rage, protest and resistance.
Literature not only exposes the lived experiences of the people and communities but it shows solidarity with them. It tries to evolve an egalitarian society by creating socio-political consciousness. Events, social, political or otherwise, inspire writers to react. Art and literature born out of protest and resistance always remain relevant against undemocratic tyrannical regimes or even unjust times. Literature protests and resists against the dark times. I am reminded of a poem by the revolutionary German playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht that keep us reminding ‘In the dark times/ Will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing/ about the dark time’.
©S. M. Yahiya Ibrahim
