While attempting to summit the unconquered
summit of a mountain, a mountaineer slips and falls down the far side of the
mountain. At the end of his descent, down a snow-slope in the mountain's
shadow, he finds a valley, cut off from the rest of the world on all sides by
steep precipices. Unbeknownst to him, he has discovered the fabled
"Country of the Blind". The valley had been a haven for settlers
fleeing the tyranny of rulers, until an earthquake reshaped the surrounding
mountains, cutting the valley off forever from future explorers. The isolated
community prospered over the years, despite a disease that struck them early
on, rendering all newborns blind.
As the blindness slowly spreads over many generations, the people's remaining
senses sharpened, and by the time the last sighted villager had died, the
community had fully adapted to life without sight.
Nunez the mountaineer descends into the valley
and finds an unusual village with windowless houses and a network of paths, all
bordered by curbs. Upon discovering that everyone is blind, he begins reciting
to himself the refrain, "In the Country of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is
King". He realizes that he can teach and rule them, but the villagers have
no concept of sight, and do not understand his attempts to explain this fifth sense
to them. Frustrated, he becomes angry, but the villagers calm him, and he
reluctantly submits to their way of life, because returning to the outside
world seems impossible.
He is assigned to work for a villager and
becomes attracted to the man’s youngest daughter. They soon fall in love with
one another, and having won her confidence, he slowly starts trying to explain
sight to her. She, however, simply dismisses it as his imagination. When he
asks for her hand in marriage, the village elders turn him down on account of
his "unstable" obsession with "sight". The village doctor
suggests that his eyes be removed, claiming that they are diseased and are
affecting his brain. He reluctantly consents to the operation because of his
love. However, at sunrise on the day of the operation, while all the villagers
are asleep, the failed King of the Blind sets off for the mountains (without
provisions or equipment), hoping to find a passage to the outside world, and
escape the valley.
He sees
from a distance that there is about to be a rock slide. He attempts to warn the villagers, but again
they scoff at his "imagined" sight. He flees the valley during the
slide, taking his lover with him.
The
Country of the Blind was written by H.G Wells in 1911. The people
in power did not heed Nunez’s warnings. They were content with the status quo
and saw him more as a dreamer, than a concerned member of society trying to
further improve the progress that they had made. He could see that their
situation was not a stable one and whilst there was a lot to admire, the
ignorance of this fifth sense and any danger that could be occasioned by it,
was not in their consciousness.
The political machinery in Nigeria triumphs
because it is united minority acting against the rest of us. I know that there are many out there who care and can see the
impending danger, but how do we communicate this to the majority and galvanize
them into action? What did the mountaineer do wrong? Why could he not convince
the powers that be that they were treading the wrong path? The assumptions upon
which they make their decisions are flawed and in fact it is they and not he
whose imagination is making their reality difficult for them to grasp. Why were
the ears of other members of the society shut off to this? They were blind but
not deaf.
Are we all living by this assumed
reality? Why do we accept our situation as OK? Do we feel powerless to change
it, as this is the path that God has chosen for us, or is there a missing link
somewhere? Are we blind to the ineptitude and corruption that eat away at our
society and keep us ignorant and indigent? We have a malaise, need help and must hark to
the calls of our fellow citizens; outsiders, who can see, are real and warn of
the rock slide which the vast majority of us will not survive. We cannot
continue to allow our leaders to hack away at our laws and persecute anyone who
dares to speak the truth or even a contrary view.
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