Two decades after Y2K
I was explaining the apocalyptic fear in Blake's poetry to my students. To offer a contemporary example, I mentioned the Y2K software problem that led to global panic responses, almost creating a doomsday scenario at the turn of the century. Most of my millennial students, however, gave me a blank look as they had no clue about the "millennium bug" that almost brought the world to a supposed end. It took me quite some time to realise that the entire generation was born in or around Y2K. They were too close to the problem to either remember or realise the full effect of what has now become a non-issue. The phones that they carry now probably have more access to a data-pool than a mainframe would have had 20 years ago. The idea that hard-disk-memory shortage could lead to a global crisis to an extent that computer programmes worldwide would fail to distinguish one millennium from the other is beyond comprehensible for most of my students.
My generation was born in or around 1971. We were too close to the birth pangs of a country. We benefitted from the sacrifices of the millions; then again, we grew up taking the independence of the country for granted. Our apathy to the plight of the selfless freedom fighters has been driven by our selfish pursuits. Our concerns have mostly been with the political promises that our politicians have made or albeit failed to deliver in the last five decades. We have seen presidential assassinations, rise and fall of dictators, birth-anesthetising-rebirth of democracy before the recent growth of economy that promises us a lift out of the LDC pit and a place by the Middle-Income-Country banks. As we approach the New Year, a ring of fire wreaths the sun for one last time—reminding us that no dark phases are permanent, and they are there to be either witnessed or participated in.
No one in the right sense of mind today would equate the celestial darkness with the national flow of events—as one would have done in the bygone days. Movies such as Indiana Jones and Tarzan cashed in on such possibilities to construct spectacular thrills. Now we are in a better position to compute the cause of such astronomical events and assess their consequences. They become part of our stories that recount events that are beyond our control. They are reminders of our previous stories that used to consume and engulf us with momentary darkness and fear. But humanity (like the metaphorical sun) has always shone through. The challenge always has been to brace against any dark design, analyse its course, and charter a plan of action analogous to the way we deal with cyclones or flood. We know that the onrush of neighbours or the twister of twisted ideas/foreign threats may (im)pose a temporary ring of fire. But the body (i.e. biological/social/political) knows how to act and react, and wriggle out of any potential danger. Our DNA is a storehouse of memory that offers us instinctual or habitual guidance in moments like these. At the same time, the rotten bodies within our body that are spreading like cancer need to be arrested—whether with chemo or radioactive ray is a Stately matter. In a democratic state, the energy of the body determines the method. Student politics, for instance, can shine in its full glory if some hostile and malign bodies are removed or taken care of as has been desired by the public. This is equally true for any situation where we have malpractices and corruption. With an optimistic viewing lens, it is possible to think beyond the darkness that shrouded us yesterday. We can even think of it as a fiery ring through which tigers would jump through and stun a global audience with all the successes it wants to attain before its silver jubilee.
Back in my school days, we would store X-ray films for months, wash the aluminium basin tubs to hold water as reflectors, or borrow sunglasses in preparation for the sighting of an eclipse. Little did we have the privilege of virtual viewing! Our approach to events are changing, so is the way we narrate them. Yesterday I followed online the fate of the sun during the solar eclipse, which in Indian mythology was once considered the act of Rahu, a demon whose head was snapped off while trying to swallow ambrosia that would have made him immortal. It was the timely spotting of the sun and the moon that alerted Lord Vishnu about Rahu's attempt of sneaking into the line of gods hoping for a drop of the divine elixir. By the time Vishnu beheaded Rahu, the ambrosia had already immortalised the severed head, which from then onwards continued to hold grudges against the celestial orbs. According to this myth, eclipses happen when Rahu manages to eat up the sun and the moon before they slip out of its neck. Many mythical stories have been told by our ancestors to rationalise and explain natural phenomena. Different tribes, different races hold out their respective prisms to come up with their own stories.
Sky-watchers today have one story—the one that tells of all orbital movements, of lights and shadows, of umbra and penumbra to explain an eclipse. As Yuval Noah Harari reminds us in his 21 lessons for the 21st Century, "Humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers or equations, and the simpler the story, the better." The solar eclipse story thus sounds better when we think it in terms of an eternal Tom-and-Jerry episode involving Rahu and the orbs.
Harari offers a simpler story to explain the current affairs by depicting history as a battleground of stories. "In 1938 humans were offered three global stories to choose from, in 1968 just two, in 1998 a single story seemed to prevail; in 2018 we are down to zero." The demise of Soviet Union allowed western liberalism to appear as the only surviving story that received a final blow once the global finance took a nosedive, and gave birth to Trump- and Brexit-mania. The West needed the immigrants to become the scapegoats. This is the nadir of liberal ideas; the dark demonic force that has eaten up the source of light. I find this reductive version as another dark phase that needs to be defeated.
For Harari, the naught narrative that humans are about to experience, involves the exponential growth in biotech and infotech. The algorithm to analyse many complex human issues, the Big Data, including voting behaviours, now require the aid of the non-human AI. For too long we have been focusing on the external body. We ignored the fact that some of the stories are digging into our selves at a neuronal level. So far we have managed to kill the mosquitoes that buzzed outside our existence, but we have not been able to kill the buzzing thoughts that keep us awake. Consequently, while we sleep, our phones pursue our digital footprints and convert us—their owners—into analytical data bytes. Unknowingly, we are becoming a character in someone else's story over which we have no control.
As we prepare for the New Year, we must be ready for a new story. A story whose threads are many and they are integrated into our capillary veins. A story whose characters are ingrained in a distant cloud. We do not know how this story will define our mortal or immortal selves as long as we stay under the dark cloud. We do not know if a utopian or a dystopian world awaits us once this dark cloud disappears! For now, let us seize the moment to celebrate the ring of fire and the New Year, and use it as an opportunity to cleanse the darkness that is both inside and outside. Let us reflect on Blake, and recite: Tyger, Tyger burning bright!
Shamsad Mortuza is Professor of English, University of Dhaka (now on leave). Currently, he is Pro-Vice-Chancellor of ULAB.
Email: shamsad71@hotmail.com