Mir Ahammad Ali
Chief Editor, The Golden Line
&
Assistant Professor, Department of English, Bhatter College, Dantan
Special Issue on Diseases, Death and Disorder, 2020
It has been five years since we are publishing The Golden Line: A Magazine of English Literature on diverse areas of Literature. We have started this online platform back in 2015 and worked hard to enrich this magazine taking interviews, articles, reflections, creative pieces from various experts, writers, academicians, scholars and students around the world. This special issue on “Diseases, Disasters, Deaths and Disorders in Arts, Literature and Culture” is quite unique in that sense, it is very much pertinent to our time. It has been quite challenging to publish this issue amidst the constant fear centred on the pandemic crisis where human beings around the world are struggling for their mere survival or existence. The prevalent pandemic situation has changed everything around the world and certainly, it has altered the existing world order too. Predicting the post-pandemic changing world order is not an easy task. The approach of an environmentalist to understand and analyse this covid crisis is quite different from that of an economist, or a microbiologist or an educationist, or a cultural theorist.
Virologists around the world are struggling hard to find out answers to this pandemic crisis. The very contagious nature of this invisible virus has panicked the entire globe and in a post-apocalyptic, dystopian fashion the virus has made human beings a potent threat to one another. Almost all the prevalent systems of the big institutions have collapsed. We are witnessing a complete failure of rapid urbanization, globalization, breakneck eco-industrialization, prevalent education systems and so on. Questions like the following continue to haunt us. How long will it (the Covid 19 situation) continue? How the world order is gradually changing due to this miasmic pandemic crisis? Is it really true that our pristine Nature is taking revenge due to our own wrongdoings on the earth? Are we really combating World War III with the contagious disease as a bio-weapon? Are we constantly moving towards omnicide? Can’t we afford to get over this period of uncertainty? Can we ever be able to live like the pre-pandemic days? Have we really descended to fulfilling our basic needs only and to withstand this pandemic crisis? Can ‘degrowth’ and depopulation save the human species of this planet from the corona induced post-pandemic viral dystopia? There are many more questions that are left unanswered.
Just as in post-apocalyptic fiction, we, the human species, are struggling for our existence amidst this constant threat of death and panic of being extinct. Who knows what lies in the future! Human beings may descend unto their true, raw self as aggressive, barbaric, animalistic and violent beings shedding aside all the pretentious masks of civilization in due course. Invisible microorganism has evolved into a potent threat and just like the invisible/unseen ‘lord of the flies’ continues to haunt us. This pandemic turned to panic, in reality, is pushing us to succumb to our raw nature, to become the slave to our own basic instincts. Human masses may turn collectively in the future as haters, killers and aggressors. In such a dystopic, post-apocalyptic or post-pandemic world, art in general and literature, in particular, can be evolved as one of the most important therapies to tame violent aggressive beings. And hence, the future of Pandemic Literature is immense.
Each and every human being has a unique response to this pandemic crisis. This diverse experience and ensuing narratives would fill up the body of Pandemic Literature or Post-pandemic Literature. Literature too has a huge responsibility to chronicle this angst-ridden time. The responsibility of the artists and writers reside in making this literature in the time of pandemic as an alternate archive to time since internet data, online surveys and media reports are not enough to portray the inner circle of the human dimension that necessarily talks about their sufferings, pangs, pains and panics. And herein lies the importance of art and literature and its critical assessment to understand the human responses towards this pandemic disease. It’s after the fulfilment of one’s basic needs, one generally turns to art, creativity and literature that can provide them solace/ consolation and possible therapy to repair their mental damages, anxieties, disorders, phobias and panic caused by the COVID- 19. There is a potential future of Pandemic and Post-Pandemic Literature.
In the post-pandemic changing world order, human behaviour is also changing drastically. Due to its contagious nature, human beings are necessarily following social distancing and self-isolation and are considering the ‘other’ as a possible threat or enemy to his/her own self. The tangibility of an object has become a potential threat in this Corona pandemic turned virulent space. Behavioural disorders and irrational fear like mysophobia, nosophobia, haphephobia, thixophobia, germaphobia or virophobia are affecting common human beings.
In such a fast-changing unprecedented scenario, the modes of scholarly publication have also been gradually changing. In this post-pandemic phase there is a shift in the collective unconscious, a general human inclination towards more intangible objects and here comes the importance of the digital world both objects and its medium. Jack London has emphasized the role of the media (especially the electronic media like wires, phone calls etc) in the time of plague in his 1912 post-apocalyptic novel The Scarlet Plague. To combat the crisis of contagion, we have already switched over to the advanced media of the contemporary world. Virtual space has evolved as an alternative to the pandemic-stricken physical space. One cannot deny the importance of the human-technological interface in this Covid lockdown. For imparting education and research apart from daily life communication, the virtual space has become the only available option.
According to UNICEF, over 96 per cent of the global student population has been affected across 153 countries due to the closures of educational institutions during this pandemic lockdown. In such a context, virtual communication is the only medium left to get connected with one another and herein lies the importance of the digital publication and digital forum in the time of Corona. One cannot help but embrace the digital medium for locked-down communication. The techno sapiens and the netizens are largely dependent on the internet for every possible communication. Digital communication, distance learning, e-resources are a few examples that have quickly adapted to this changing order. Despite its several pitfalls, one cannot deny the role and importance of e-communication and e-resources for continuing higher education, academic discussions, webinars etc in the pandemic phase. Internet platforms and social media have been used for academic platforms. Examples can be cited as a Facebook group live, Google Meet, Team Link, Zoom, Cisco Webex etc. We are well aware of the importance of such digital spaces in the time of corona. May we think of interchanging the word ‘pandemic’ with ‘pan-academic’ since large numbers of scholars and academicians from different parts of the world across disciplines are engaged with one another in a global context which was not there before at such a level? It’s time to acclimatize the adaptable and resilient modes (online/digital) for both higher studies and the research world; since this pandemic has actually blurred the distinction and prioritization of print publication over e-publication. This pandemic turned pan-academic world has blurred almost all the denominators of distinctions, differences and binaries between the national border, race, ethnicity, class, culture, caste, religion etc. Why then, may we not advocate voluntarily the deconstruction and de-hegemonization of the print publication over the electronic one?
The pandemic situation warns us to become more aware of the importance of digital repositories and thinks tanks for the future and in a sense, pushes us to rethink the future of scholarly publications and serious academic discussions. And therein lies the true significance of this Special Issue on “Diseases, Disasters, Deaths and Disorders in Arts, Literature and Culture” that can be seen as a digital repository of interviews, reflections, remembrances and serious scholarly/academic engagements for the future scholars and researchers.
The worldwide panoptical vigil during this corona pandemic allows the ruling governments to enact absolute control over their citizens. There can be a gendered aspect of this pandemic situation too where the panoptical big others i.e., the powerful governmental bodies have taken the roles of “male aggressors” and by their all repressive means brands its passive, panicked, isolated/quarantined and socially distanced subjects or civilians as “female” sufferers. Slavoj Zizek rightly points out in his 2020 book called, Pandemic! Covid-19: Shakes the World that:
The basic motifs in the cacophony of voices were easily predictable: capitalism will return in an even stronger form, using the epidemic as a disaster boost; we will all silently accept total control of our lives by the state apparatuses in the Chinese style as a medical necessity; the survivalist panic is eminently apolitical, it makes us perceive others as a deadly threat, not as comrades in a struggle. (p. 97, 2020)
Taking a cue from Zizek’s futuristic prediction, we can well assume that under such given circumstances of “total control of our lives by the state apparatuses in the Chinese style” not only the herds will suffer but all the possible modes of communication and academic engagements come under panoptical surveillance. The world of publication (especially published literature) too might face haunted surveillance, vigilance and large scale monopoly. In such a changing global order of creativity, artistry and literature the publications too might face challenges of severe crises, syndications and threats. Switching over to the e-publication would have been a possible alternative. Since print publication is nearly impossible in this corona induced global locked down phase, we have to necessarily be accustomed to the world of digital publishing. It is from this perspective too, this special issue comprising interviews by doyens, reflections by writers and scholarly articles by various researchers and scholars can be considered as a unique approach in the world of literary and scholarly publications.