A modern take on “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” (Part 1)
The World According to Chandra D:
Photo by Kat J on Unsplash
When is it acceptable to follow the status quo? When it is beneficial to you, to others, to society as a whole? What if the benefits to many necessitates the grossest type of injustice, abuse, and degradation to a few?
Over the past couple of years, since the beginning of 2020, the world has been preoccupied with a Public Health Crisis, the Pandemic of Covid-19. Terrified of the high and rising death toll among the elderly and the physically vulnerable (those battling autoimmune diseases and cancer or those with comorbidities like high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity), worldwide organizations like the WHO and leading national medical institutions like the CDC and the NIH in the US and the PHAC in Canada recommended a range of measures to contain the spread of the virus.
Many of these measures were drastic, including lockdowns, isolating vulnerable people (notably the elderly in hospitals and care homes) from contact with their family and friends, social distancing outdoors and indoors (even in family homes among family members), closing schools, restaurants, gyms, places of worship, parks, and small businesses. In fact, these Covid-19 measures even included outlawing participation in “non-essential social events” like Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, weddings, christenings, and funerals.
While some of these measures seemed unpalatable but warranted at the beginning of the pandemic, other measures were unfathomable. For example, curfews were imposed on bars in Quebec, Canada. These bars could be open until 11pm, but not 1am, as if the Covid-19 virus respected the deadline for infecting the patrons of the bars. One assumes from the provincial measure that the patrons received amnesty until 11pm, but at 11:01pm, the virus was free to do its worse. Similarly, people could shop in huge multinational retailers, like Costco and Walmart, but going to small family-owned stores and corner shops was problematic. Again, presumably, a bargain was struck with the virus not to infect customers of “acceptable” retail stores.
Many of these pandemic measures have now been repealed or suspended, but the amazing thing is that they were enacted by our governments in the first place, without solid scientific support. Even more incredible is the fact that these measures were accepted by the vast majority of the populations around the globe.
Perhaps this acceptance was due to desperation and fear, which seems in retrospect to have been fostered by the media, the governmental bodies, and public institutions, or it could be fear of rocking the boat and being labelled as an “other”. As a reminder, any dissent was immediately squashed by “concerned citizens” and the legacy media. Furthermore, these dissenting voices were labelled as cruel, callous, narcistic non-citizens who did not care about the children or the elderly in their community.
In other words, the needs of the many far outweighed the needs or the concerns of the few, to paraphrase Spock in Star Trek.
This brings me to The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. In the 1973 short story written by American writer Ursula K. LeGuin, a wonderful society filled with happy, thriving citizens has a dark foundation: all its good fortune is dependent on the abuse and torment of a young child. This is not a secret as every citizen is shown the child’s deplorable conditions and its degradation as soon as they are able to understand the situation. The official reason for this is that these citizens need to appreciate their good fortune is based on the sacrifice of another.
This child has not done anything to deserve its horrendous treatment, and it neither understands the reason behind its fate or expects to be rescued by the multitude of onlookers that routinely visit it to verify its presence. In the story, the child is no longer a “he” or a “she” as it has become simply an object or a symbol of sacrifice and necessity.
The citizens respond in a number of expected ways to the child’s presence: disbelief, horror, anger, rage, impotence, and helplessness upon first seeing the child. However, in the majority of the citizens, after some time has passed, these reactions metamorphose to understanding, justification, and ultimately, acceptance. The child’s suffering is vital to the survival of Omelas, they realize, and the wondrous success and beauty of its society and citizens.
You see, the citizens are told that once the child is freed from its shackles, the society will crumble and all the good it has achieved, all the shining glory of its citizens and surroundings will be marred and destroyed. Whether this is really true or not, it is accepted unquestioningly, and no one, as far as we are told, ever fights against this edict.
The citizens of Omelas who cannot accept the child’s fate or the benefits that Omelas achieves as a result of this child’s complete and absolute torment have only one choice: they leave Omelas. Like thieves in the night, they quietly depart for parts unknown, to a future that is also shrouded in mystery.
Do they move to another city and civilization like Omelas, where the sacrifice takes another form? Do they move to a world like the one we presently inhabit — dark, dirty, corrupt, complex? Do they simply fade away and die? Do they congregate in another place and organize an insurgence against Omelas?
We don’t know because we aren’t told their fate in the short story.
However, let’s return to the present and to my corner of the world.
Right now, in Canada, there are several ongoing court cases mounted against the federal (Liberal) government’s Covid-19 measures, including the vaccine mandates and their effects on the lives of Canadian citizens. Karl Harrison, a plaintiff in one of these cases, was interviewed by True North’s Rupa Subramanya on August 5th, 2022. Mr. Harrison said something that is extremely on point: “With radical or damaging political policies, there are basically three choices: accept them, fight them, leave/run away. Maybe there is a blend of these three as well. …[However,] it’s usually foolish to watch another person being persecuted, imagining that that might not be you.”
In the case of Omelas, the citizens have given up their right to question or debate the way their society works. They are being or have been conditioned to accept the presence and the necessity of the child. They are also being brainwashed into accepting without protest or opposition that at some point in the future, when that particular child dies, and another child has to take its place, that chosen child might be theirs or one of their family members.
The citizens of Omelas have traded security and comfort, the world they know, for slavery, injustice, and turning a blind eye. Perhaps, in Ursula K. Leguin’s fictional world, Persian poet Jalal ad-Din Rumi’s poem does not exist: “Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?”
Simply put, live your life honorably and compassionately. Protect the weak and defenseless to the best of your ability, and never, ever accept injustice and immorality, even if it seemingly benefits you.
Chandra deVita
August 26th, 2022