The plight of the underdog

It is the case of reality meeting common sense, and the reality of the fact is that law and its fellow ‘learned’ professions have none of the common sense we need to make sense of the world. It becomes clear at points in the history of time that law and medicine, governance and politics were not designed for the common man or woman. They are based on evidence created only for the aggrandisement of the rich upper classes; otherwise the execution of any of their duties would have the common man in the street in mind at any point. When Ralph Ellison penned The Invisible Man and John Steinbeck penned The Grapes of Wrath it was with the poor common individual in mind and the struggles they have to go through each passing day in the face of calamity. If Ernest Hemingway penned The Old Man and the Sea and The Pearl with poor protagonists in mind, it means that literature has over the years been the only field genuinely concerned with the plight of the downtrodden to the point of creating stories familiar to their daily experiences. Government focuses on installing laws without actually addressing the challenges the common citizens face. There is little one can do except talk about the failures of government in terms of it addressing the challenges citizens under its rule face on a daily basis, in fact, the best one has seen when it comes to addressing the relationship between the citizens and government is just the endlessness of the whole political exercises that come with each government’s entry into office. Only the words and not the deeds of the politicians are discussed non-end on any platform. Law merely enacts statutes without addressing the human element in its acts ‘for the sake of the common good of the people’. Of law’s failures we have no court to argue over because the courts belong to law and no laymen are allowed to present their case, in short, one can never sue law for its failures to deliver justice to the masses of the people hoping in faith that they will get their justice. The current pandemic presents one of the many medical challenges humanity has faced over the course of history, and the medical fraternity have to consider the human element before everything else. If the head of WHO speaks against the nationalisation of vaccines, then why can we not ask the question: will the vaccination not be based on class once again? This is a literary question that is conveniently forgotten every time it has to be asked. Its basis is quite simple to understand if we have to face facts. One glaring fact is that elitism is in fashion or has been since the feudal times. There has always been a class of people that consider themselves superior to the other human beings with whom they interact on a daily basis. The decisions made in society all the way from the single individual to the collective citizenry in a state are made on the basis of one sector of society: the upper class. Colonialism and its aftermath only served to enhance the fact and reality that social class is a reality that will never go away until humanity reaches a point in history one can term as the Marxian Utopia where things will level out and human beings will begin to interact on a classless basis. I know the argument is that Utopia is a pipedream, but the fact of the matter is that it will come after the uprising of the common masses against the continued maltreatment ratified by systems of rule. If our grandfathers served as members of the plebeian or serf class under the governance of white rule, why should we agree to the same type of treatment in an environment that claims to be independent from post-colonialism? The truth is that the politicians share the same qualities as the colonists, the only differences are the race and the class. Where the former colonisers saw ‘natives’ the current governing bodies see ‘common people’. It is a condescending outlook at worst, and uprising will take it out of the human psyche. It is the tale of the common man that rises against all odds that gives people an inkling of hope that things will be better tomorrow. It is this type of tale that we need at this point in time, that is, one should always find the antithesis to the existing argument. The existing argument at this point in time is that all of us should comply ignorant of the fact that we too have children and families that should be fed. The prime minister or the minister have no worries because their problems are covered. This means that they can actually ‘afford’ to comply. What about those who cannot afford to comply and whose families only have them to provide for them? The question becomes pretty simple: Do I comply and die of starvation, or do I go on living like I did before and increase my chances of survival? Children do not understand lockdowns and curfews and other rigmarole in the name of saving us from some strange pandemic. Children only understand food, clothing, and shelter. Every man has a right to determine his own destiny or to fight their own private war in a manner similar to Hawkeye’s address to the Lieutenant in James Fennimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans: You do what you want with your own scalp. Do not be tellin’ us what to do with ours. It is a fact that the whole issue of lockdowns and curfews has been carried out in a haphazard manner, whoever argues to the contrary and is in support of the whole issue of one-sided lockdowns does so because they can afford to buy the next meal for their children. The reality on the ground is that families are starving on a level deep, in fact, it is so deep that starvation might end up killing more people than the pandemic ever will. Medicine never sought to be questioned, it is a profession that is a cat, that is, medicine is familiar only to itself and no other. Sat up there on the pedestal where governments placed it, medical opinion is a science whose conception of the social concerns is at best limited to the findings in the labs. Literature on the other hand compares real life stories with the experiences of the contemporary world to help the individual reader or audience to find similarities with their own world. There is a tale of a boxer of the Great Depression, a common-man hero, James J. Braddock (Russell Crowe), a.k.a. the Cinderella Man that often inspires me whenever the chips are down as they are for many of us in this country at this point in time. Jim Braddock was to become one of the most surprising sports legends in history in a hostile environment of the early 1930s when the Great Depression was at its worst. The tale of the impoverished boxer that was seemingly as broken-down, beaten-up, and out-of-luck was much like the tales of the rest of the American populace who had hit rock bottom after the stock-market crash of the era is relevant to the events of the moment. A synopsis of a movie made based on the life story of this figure states of his moment of desperation as said by Cathy Schultz that: “Braddock’s career appeared to be finished, he was unable to pay the bills, the only thing that mattered to him – his family – was in danger, and he was even forced to go on Public Relief. But deep inside, James J. Braddock never relinquished his determination. Driven by love, honour, and an incredible dose of grit, he willed an impossible dream to come true. In a last-chance bid to help his family, Braddock returned to the ring. No one thought he had a shot.” However, one does not see the attitude of James Braddock in the governments of the moment, who unlike Braddock are fuelled by something beyond mere competition, that kept him winning despite the odds stacked against him. We have adopted a defeatist attitude after a whole year dealing with a pandemic that cannot be questioned because it is the largest medical misdemeanour in the history of time. The tale of an ordinary working man that became the mythic athlete carrying the hopes and dreams of the disenfranchised on his shoulders rocketed him through the ranks, all because he forgot his status as the perpetual underdog and chose to do the unthinkable: take on the heavyweight champ of the world, Max Baer (played by Craig Bierko in the movie) for the sake of his family. That Baer was renowned for having killed two men in the ring or that his arm was broken were not a concern, his children counted more than the realities of the moment. One will never find this type of attitude in an environment where capital interest overrides human interest. Winston Churchill knew the danger of adopting this stance after the flu outbreak in 1943, but the leaders of this day have not fought three wars in their lifetimes like he did. Cowards…that they are. When Braddock like many others in that era lost everything in the stock market and was scrimping on the small fights he could get and on dock work, his wife preferred that he quit boxing but she knew how badly they needed the money to get some semblance of life with their three children. Being forced to watering down milk just to ensure that it would have to do for several more days, Braddock had to return to the ring to supplement his meagre wages as a dockworker. This was the attitude driven by the realities of the time, this is the attitude that forces many families to go the streets to sell wares as vendors this time around. It is the tale of the common people of the day that have to eke for a living doing ‘piece jobs’ all over the concrete jungles of the world. These are questions that Cathy Schultz says we should ask, that is, we should ask: Why does this person fight, I want to know. And why should I care? People fight because their means of living are threatened, and they fight because their children are faced with the reality of hunger, poverty and disease if they do not stand up and fight. One should care because such children will come and rob one tomorrow when the hunger threatens and they have nowhere else to go. We do not have the luxury of a cavalcade of cars and throngs of bodyguards like the decision makers; we are at the forefront of the impact of the lockdowns and curfews and the political decisions made in the name of safety. The 1930’s boxer, Jim Braddock (played by Russell Crowe in The Cinderella Man) answers the questions Schultz is asking. He is not fighting for respect or sparring any inner demons, rather, he is fighting for milk for his family, and is like any other citizen battling poverty, despair and shame, the shadowy enemies of the era are threatening to swallow his family and community. “Let me take my punches in the ring,” the protagonist in the movie says to his worried wife. “At least I know who is hitting me.” At this point, he is washed up in debt and is struggling to find work, like many of us whose only lifeline is found in work on the streets. It is an argument that sounds inconvenient for some, but the reality is that making decisions on whether we should live or die has never been a convenient affair. There comes a time when one has to choose what type of death they want to die and not be given the devil’s alternative to make the choice. The only way out of this one is to do away with the cowardice we have had to deal with for a whole year with calamitous realities unfolding every step of the way for the lower classes of society. When Ralph Ellison penned The Invisible Man, he was exploring the equal experiences of the individual’s experience in the real conflict between expectations and reality that produces what Ellison calls the impulse to self-annihilate which can only be overcome by the will to confront the world head on, to evaluate one’s standing within the unfolding realities, and to present one’s findings without fear to the very system that is causing their problems. The Invisible Man is a record of the individual’s agony in the face of a segregated world and the discovery of the realities that must be faced before genuine answers and solutions are achieved. We have been kept in the dark for too long, and whoever is giving all the laws and rules should be aware that mayhem will follow as soon as the hunger sets in. We are not ready for New World Order yet, not in the pattern forces that be are driving it. There may be views to the contrary, but it is fine, because everyone is entitled to their opinion despite or in spite of the facts. Reality does not care however, it remains real; and the reality is that we shall starve to death if private interest keeps on overriding public interest like it is doing at this point in time. Tšepiso S. Mothibi