The Titanic was a magnificent luxury passenger ship that
sank in 1912, after hitting an iceberg. The First Class had luxurious suites, servants,
French cuisine, private decks and a ballroom with an orchestra. The second class was comfortable but not luxurious.
While the third class, most of whom were seeking a new life in America, were
housed on the lowest level, with simple food and shared cabins. Yet, they all
faced the same fear and the same death in the icy waters of the Atlantic.
The Titanic has since become a metaphor for human society.
Some see it as an indictment of human hubris, others reflect on the class
divisions and the unequal value of human lives between the privileged and the
poor. One can move the telescope further away and look at the inequality of
nations - divided between the highly developed and those much lower down the
rung.
Yet every so often nature makes short work of such
differences. Celebrity homes were gutted alongside those of poorer residents in
forest fires that raged across Los Angeles. Covid 19 did not see bank balances
when it took over 7 million lives of which USA and Europe accounted for 2.5
million. Climatologists warn that all
nations will be affected by climate change, regardless of whether they are
industrialised or not.
Developed and underdeveloped nations have been tumbled around
much like the passengers of the Titanic. Poverty and homelessness grow in rich
countries. Nations that prided themselves on free speech such as USA and UK, are
cracking down on dissent, much like the dictatorships that they, till recently,
reviled.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said “We all came in on different
ships, but we're all in the same boat now.” And G.K. Chesterton adds a bit of
dark humour “We’re all in the same boat, and we’re all seasick.”
Vulnerable humans embarking on a journey with little more
than a vessel between them and the unknown dangers of the open seas has a
breathtaking magnificence. Whether
simple canoes that enabled early humans to island hop in the South China Sea or
the massive steel container ships of today, traversing the world’s oceans, journeys
across seas have symbolized the adventure and heroism of man confronting nature. Viking warriors who died in battle were
placed on a boat that was set ablaze. In Greek mythology, Charon the ferryman
took the souls of the dead by boat into the Underworld.
Everyday language is peppered with nautical terms. We are
told to not rock the boat, we wait for a favourable wind. Someone can take the
wind out of our sails, we change course, we may find our ship has sailed. We
can be rudderless in life, abandon a cause by jumping ship. We can be the rat
escaping the sinking ship or be left high and dry. We face rocky waters, the
perfect storm. We can feel under the weather, lost at sea, find ourselves in
the doldrums or between the devil and the deep blue sea. We learn the ropes,
batten down the hatches, and learn to run a tight ship. We tide someone over,
are taken aback, or are asked to pipe down. We look for a safe harbor to drop
anchor.
Navigating the vast oceans symbolized freedom from the
restrictions of society. Allama Iqbal wrote: bandagi mein ghut ke rah jati hai
ek ju-e-kam-ab. aur aazadi mein bahr-e-be-karan hai zindagi. In bondage life is
a stagnant pool of water. In freedom it is a boundless ocean.
Sindbad’s entertaining adventures by ship are a main feature
of A Thousand and One Nights. In Buddhism, the ship symbolized adventurism
motivated by greed, and history shows that controlling the seas was pivotal for
the expansion of Colonialism.
However, the ship has also been the savior of humankind. All
civilizations have myths of a great flood, where humanity was saved by boarding a ship. In
Abrahamic religions, Noah builds an Ark, in Hindu texts, Manu builds a giant
boat, In Zorastrain myths, one man survives in an ark with his cattle,
in Greek mythology Zeus punishes man with a great flood, and Prometheus advises
his son to build an ark.
In the distressing turmoil of mindless violence and moral
vacuum, one may be excused for waiting for another salvation. More
realistically, as Mikhail Gorbachev put it “We are all passengers aboard one
ship, the Earth, and we must not allow it to be wrecked. There will be no
second Noah's Ark.”
Durriya Kazi
November 13,
2025
Karachi
Comments
Post a Comment