Auschwitz. The name alone raises images of corpses by the thousands, strewn about in their less than ritualistic common grave, the odor of burnt flesh, and the screams of the tortured, starved, and those left to rot for simply being Jews.
This infamous Nazi concentration camp is located near the industrial town of Oświęcim in southern Poland, where part of it was annexed by Nazi Germany during the early days of World War II.
It is one of the biggest of all Nazi death camps and the most feared: more than 1.1 million Jews, at the very least, historians say, have been either massacred, gassed or burnt in Auschwitz’s ovens from 1940 to 1945. Some say even more.
The level of suffering and degradation of the human body and spirit were of such horrendous magnitude that it compelled the German philosopher, Theodor Adorno, to utter his famous words:
“To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.”
Let’s pause here for a while. I remember the early days of my stint in the Graphic as its former managing editor. It was December 2008, and our associate editor—Alma Anonas-Carpio—insisted that Inday Espina-Varona and I join Facebook.
As a hapless introvert, I turned her down flat. But Alma, being intransigent about the whole social media craze, pushed and pushed until I finally gave in.
Close to a year after my first online post, on November 2009, the Ampatuan massacre took the country by storm. In response to the gruesome murder of roughly 58 people, more than half of whom were journalists, I made an online call for 100 poems on the what was deemed the crime of the decade. I dubbed it, The Anthology of Rage.
In no time, I faced an online lynching the likes of which I will never forget. The more significant of which came by way of a fairly famous poet who explained to me how “insensitive” my call for poetry was. His reason? Theodor Adorno’s words: “To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.”
The argument was profound as it was simple: what possible justification do I have to write poetry, even call for others to do so, at a time when more than 58 people had been murdered, and their families, nay, the whole country, are grieving for their loss?
A crime of such alarming scale had been committed. What possible validation can the writing of poetry or any sort of literature may have amid such hate, grief and bloodshed? Surely, to write poetry is barbaric.
Roughly 10 years later, in the era of a lockdown due to Covid-19, I chanced upon a Facebook post by another famous writer who echoed the concerns of the first. To summarize: people are getting infected and some are dying due to the rapid spread of the pathogen, and in no way should writers think of writing at a time like this.
To quote his last line: “It comes across as insensitive”.
I know this writer personally. We’ve met a number of times and even sat as fellow jurors in one of Manila’s more prestigious literary awards. He’s a kind man of an equally generous disposition, a staunch advocate of literature, himself a prolific author of renown, towering above most whose idea of the writing life mainly involves self-glory.
His reason, by and large, is empathy. He was, I think, criticizing a recent project by a well-known literary group who called for submissions on the topic of coronavirus. The timing, to him, was off.
I can fully understand where he was coming from. For what grander or higher purpose can the writing of literature serve when, in a time of unspeakable crisis, it is more viable to veer away from our writing corners and help out a suffering populace?
In short, why delve into fiction and metaphor when the twin realities of grief and loss stare us in the face?
I don’t usually respond to his posts, not regularly at least. However, I felt strongly that I should. Not to criticize or argue, but to simply share my own thoughts about the matter. This writer is one of very few I highly respect, a stalwart in the community of letters. He, more than anyone, deserves a fair hearing and an honest response.
I wrote in two separate posts:
“I think to give up writing literature in a time of crisis is the one that’s insensitive, more so when there are real stories waiting on the sidelights to be told. Literature can provide enlightenment where other sources of stories have failed, either due to lying, cover-ups or self-interests. Adorno said something similar to what you’re saying, but later corrected himself by saying that even a tortured man has the right to scream. I think it is our empathy that urges us to continue writing, and the crisis we are facing right now should be more than enough reason to do so. But as you said, everyone is free to do as they please.
“I know you’re not curtailing anyone’s right to write even during crisis. You’ve been a strong and unwavering advocate of literature. I’m not here to debate or argue. Just sharing what I also feel. I guess we’re all caught off-guard by this virus, to say little of the lockdown. As for me, I personally feel that since there are stories to tell, and not too many are willing to take the cudgels for those who have suffered, especially this government, the least writers can do is tell the victims’ stories in the way we do best as writers. I think that’s our role in life–crisis or no crisis. Government demands that they be respected as the sole source of a narrative that is altogether flawed if not confusing. I think this is the best time for literature to shine, not for its own self-gratification or glory, but as a sympathizing voice, or better yet a clearer looking glass through which the truth can be seen and understood.”
On another note, there’s a personal reason why writers ought to always write—crisis or no crisis. Author Ray Bradbury explains: “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”
Writers are the storytellers of the world. If literature must mirror life, and writers can only write about life, then it goes without saying that all that life has to offer—the brightness of day and our darkest nights—must reverberate in all our writings.
Telling people’s stories is the least writers can do to condole with a grieving humanity.
See, Adorno’s ideas about literature in a time of suffering did not end in his claim of it being barbaric. Years later, Adorno admits his mistake, and went on to pen these words:
“Perennial suffering has as much right to expression as a tortured man has to scream. Hence it may have been wrong to say that after Auschwitz you could no longer write poems. But it is not wrong to raise the less cultural question whether after Auschwitz you can go on living—especially whether one who escaped by accident, one who by rights should have been killed, may go on living.”
Here, Adorno deduced that if suffering and death and loss are more than sufficient reasons for writers not to write, if writing is life to a writer, then maybe it should also be said that we should not go on living. For even before Auschwitz, crimes of the same horrendous nature had been done. Should literature now succumb to the grim realities on which its imagination is solely based?
Surviving in a country where suffering, grief, loss and death are but everyday realities, I have learned with novelist Albert Camus the division between servile and divine affections, an affection which seeks to uplift the other rather than stay grieving.
I have nothing against grieving and condoling with the travails of others. But as a writer, we can only spare a minute or two of that, for there is a loftier, more immediate job of uplifting those caught in painful silence.
There is also that question posited by author Susan Sontag: “What does it mean to protest suffering, as distinct to acknowledging it?”
Writers of some experience are aware that writing is a form of protest. And as a form of protest it must take on the cudgels for those who cannot fight their way out of suffering.
Writers can only achieve this by telling the stories of those who have suffered much by way of other people’s abuse, hate or incompetence, not merely acknowledging that such suffering exists, but that it cannot continue as such.
As of this writing, 12 people have died in the country due to the Covid-19 contagion, with 140 infected. There is fear, confusion, in some places, chaos. Panic buying hit the supermarkets and groceries, leaving many without ample medical supplies.
Government seems to be largely inept, clumsily learning their way as they go along. The militarization of our borders had commenced, forcing people to question the military solution to a medical crisis.
Thus, in no other time than today can writers best articulate what is happening. Surely, there is a time for grieving, a time for writing. Unfortunately for writers, we have no choice but to simultaneously do both.