It Never Happened

Say it rained all night yesterday. Thunder growled, the wind wentberserk. Jagged streaks of lightning split open the skies. Raindropspelted the earth without stop, streams swelled, the ocean churned,rivers overflowed. A downpour as powerful as a waterfall. A wild beast of a storm, devouring everything on its way. Stomping across smalltowns and cities. In its wake, glinting towers of chrome and steel quaked. In villages, homes turned to rubble. Thatched roofs flew in the wind. Four-poster beds and pots and pans danced in the air, the wind jerking them around like puppets on a string. Deep in the woods,ancient trees uprooted. With a deafening thud, they crashed.
But when morning comes, I declare: "It never rained."I am sound of mind and body. All my faculties are intact. I can see,hear. I am sensitive to touch. Adequate supplies of oxygen areentering my lungs. I am not stretched out on a hospital bed in a coma.My brain, both left and right lobe, works.
But I stand up, spine erect, squint into the sunshine and declare: "It never rained last night."No, I am not insane.I am in denial.Denial is a many-splendored thing. It has a stunning range of uses.During his visit to New York this October, Iranian president MahmoudAhmadinejad stood before an audience and denied the existence of gaypeople in his country. All it took was a simple statement. The president stood up, spine erect, squinted at the flashbulbs andtelevision cameras and declared: "There are no homosexuals in Iran."
When gay people (who actually exist) in Iran heard about it, they aresaid to have been "shocked but not surprised."Homosexuals in the country are used to leading a secret existence.They camouflage their gay identity out of fear. They do not demandlegal rights or protection. Iran – in spite of the president's confidence in the absence of a gay population – has severe lawsagainst homosexuality. If a homosexual relationship between twopeople is proven, their punishments include lashings and even death.The president's denial sent out many messages at one go. Message togays: stay hidden or else…message to an interfering Western press:mind you own business. Message to human rights activists: yeah, gaypeople are human. But go tell that to countries where they exist.Message to gender rights activists: we don't have gays, so where's the question of rights?
A masterstroke in the annals of denial. Felling many birds with one stone.History is teeming with instances of denial. About 80 years ago, 1.5million Armenians were wiped out in eastern Turkey. They were not annihilated by floods or volcanoes or famine. A cold, calculated orgyof man-made violence snuffed their lives out. Blinded by its frenzy ofbuilding an exclusive Turkish identity, the state decided to murderthem in cold blood. But for years after the genocide, the country drifted in the twilight zone of denial. Text books never mentioned thegenocide. It was never discussed in universities or pubic forums.Children grew up hearing the tales of valour of the state, never itsbrutality. The dead Armenians did not exist in their collective memory.
History was written by people who agreed to perpetrate the crime of denial.When a Nazi sympathizer was sentenced recently by a European court, he was asked how he had lived with himself after aiding and abetting the holocaust. Day after day, month after agonizing month, didn't theghosts of Auschwitz haunt him? How did the mirror not shatter when hesaw his reflection in it every morning? How did he not smell the bloodon his hands?The man had found the perfect alibi in denial. "I had no choice. I had to do it."Denial is a million times more lethal than a lie. It coats monstrous decisions and their macabre consequences with the gloss of inevitability."My actions were inevitable. I had no choice."Closer home… in Bombay, Gujarat. When communal riots wrecked the livesof thousands, a compromised police force responded with the same.Inertia disguised as inevitability."We had no choice. Our hands were tied."
Denial is the luxury of believing that the easiest way out is the onlychoice you have. Without the crutch of denial, you are left with thetruth that you didn't behave differently because you simply chose not to. That's a terrible confession to make. That's a terrifying ghost towake.
Denial is used to score political points. To build empires. To justify invasions.If there is a master class on Imperialism, chapter one will definitely be devoted to the power of denial.Remember how Bush and the cowboy brigade justified the war on Iraq? By denying the existence of factual evidence. Denial of the reports byweapons inspectors who went to Iraq in search of the mysteriousweapons of mass destruction. They didn't find any because they weren't any to find. But one of the most brutal wars of our time is wiping out platoons of American soldiers and an entire generation of Iraqicitizens. Day after day.Because those who were baying for blood chose to live in denial.So Baghdad burns...
Is denial invincible? Do we have weapons sharp enough to penetrate its shield? Any missile that can shatter its fortified premises? The answer, mercifully, is yes.When the stench of denial poisons the air, art tries to give us cleanair to breathe. Films, about the Armenian genocide, the killingfields of the Khymer Rouge, the silenced voices of Auschwitz, Fascismand its silencing techniques. Novels which record the screams which were ignored. Poems and paintings which navigate us through the mazeof denials, bring us closer to the truth.Symphonies which immortalize those who were wiped out. Stanzas which celebrate those who were silenced. Bombard denial with stanza and verse. Bring on the metaphor and the apt simile. Illuminate the darkness with the glow of oil and canvas.Sing, speak out , drown the silence with full throated abandon.
In this lies our only hope.