Bertolt Brecht once stated, ‘to those who do not know the world is on fire, I have nothing to say.’ Given his was writing in the first half of the 20th century, such an observation is understandable. What would Brecht say today?
Whether looking at the spread of COVID-19, increasing signs of social unrest, or the very direct and immediate consequences of climate change, the image of fire has both real and metaphorical resonance. When certain conditions are present, the likelihood of a conflagration increases. Fortuna and sparks in the air. And then it burns.
For bush fires, it is hot weather, strong winds, dry vegetation. In Australia at the beginning of 2020, the skies were full of smoke, the sun blocked out, the earth charred and alight, as bush fires ripped across the country. This year there were similar scenes in Europe and North America. Next year, surely they will reappear somewhere again. Even as the world is literally alight, people still stubbornly refuse to recognise such obviously examples of a world out of balance. And so it burns.
In discussing how COVID-19 was spreading across the United States in 2020, Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s T. H. Chan School of Public Health, used the metaphor of forest fires to help explain the conditions by which clusters and hotspots can appear across the country: ‘forest fire has the advantage that it kind of conveys the instability—that a spark can set off more fire whenever there’s dry wood around. I think that’s a helpful metaphor. I think we have a fire burning.’ How about in 2021? Perhaps the world will be smouldering for some time to come, COVID-19 spot fires appearing here and there, countries and regions see-sawing their way back to an incomplete normality.
Likewise, in society certain conditions make unrest more likely. Economic inequality, corruption, state overreach and governance failures, all greatly increase the possibility for social unrest, protest, and violence. To turn to a particularly acute example: with the Arab Spring, revolution, unrest and protest spread across the Middle East and North Africa, and it began with one spark: a fruit vendor who was pushed too far, and set himself alight in protest. Here the spark was both real and metaphorical. Access to life’s basics - food prices, energy, fuel - were pressing concerns before the Arab Spring, these were the dry vegetation and strong winds. And if similar conditions appear again, don’t be surprised to see more sparks and fires.
The image of the bush fire has great resonance, especially in terms of the combination of facilitating conditions and difficulty of controlling. It perhaps also contains a kernel of hope. In the Australian bush, fire is part of the life cycle, it leads to fresh growth and rebirth. Yet another kind of fire is the chemical fire. No hope or regeneration here, just bad luck and malfeasance. Unlike a forest fire it might be more controlled, limited to the facility and perhaps the neighbouring area. Sometimes it can be a fire that simply cannot be extinguished. Until there is no more fuel, it burns, sending toxic smoke into the atmosphere, filling our lungs, leave the smell in our noses, the taste in our mouths, and our eyes watering. Sometimes, it just burns.
And so, would Brecht have anything to say to us? For now, perhaps he still would. Yet, there is plenty of tinder, the wind is strong, the sparks are in the air. Writing in the aftermath of the great conflagration that engulfed Europe from 1914-18, Paul Valéry observed that, ‘we were aware that the visible earth is made of ashes, and that ashes signify something. …. And we see now that the abyss of history is deep enough to hold us all.’ Look to the ground, ashes. Look to the air, sparks.