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“There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise”. You may read this and think the obvious comparison would be the events of the Covid-19 pandemic. This is certainly the obvious answer, but I think the philosophy from Camus’ ‘The Plague’(1947) can teach us about something far more current. That being how we perceive/treat the threat of deteriorating foreign policy. Which as the quote highlighted, is that we live in a state of complete denial and delusion.
In case you haven’t read the book here is a quick summary, beware it does contain spoilers. ‘The Plague’ is set in an ordinary town called Oran, in French Algeria. It follows the town’s descent as it is put into confinement from the outside world due to a bubonic plague consuming its citizens. The point stressed by Camus, is that this is a mundane and regular town, and the same goes for its residents. It is this mundaneness that obscures their eyes from the reality of their impending situation. That is, when rats mysteriously begin appearing dead on the streets in piles and piles, it brings much gossip but is largely dealt with as a slight nuisance rather than a potential pest. This blissful ignorance continues even after the protagonist’s, Rieux the doctor, patients begin dying from an unknown infection. They remain believing that nothing like the plague that had hit Europe in the past could ever affect their modern and insignificant town. Camus’ further account of the devastation of Oran by this insidious plague and the helplessness of its citizens is sobering. It is this uncomfortable feeling that the reader gets, that this article wishes to project to our contemporary status. Our plague is the impending security threat emerging for the West.
As Camus’ characters, we often treat World Wars and Plagues on our soil as something left in history or a plot line for a Hollywood movie. Camus wrote ‘The Plague’ (1947), with the benefit of hindsight of WW2 and it is said that ‘The Plague’ is a metaphor for the misguided attitude of the French towards the threat of Nazi invasion. Camus’ aim. in a way, was to guide us back to the absurd reality of our vulnerabilities to all that has existed before us. Whilst this may be an unsettling concept, it is undeniably a reflection of our time. ‘The Global Liberal Order’ is as vulnerable as Camus’ town of Oran.
Despite Wars happening in distant places, US unipolarity has been a given for many generations providing a security blanket that has kept us warm. However, Camus’s Plague has been creeping up on us. And no, we do not mean Covid-19. Our Plague is rather a transition to multipolarity, potentially not a peaceful transition. The rise of China, its potential invasion of Taiwan and Trump’s new cabinet of notorious ‘China Hawks’ threatens to tear apart the order that we saw as indestructible. Similarly to Camus’ plague, our threats attack out of nowhere, with no face. Misinformation and disinformation from foreign adversaries’ pokes and tugs at the fragility of democracy.
Camus alarms the reader by his characters’ persistent denialism to what is in front of them (infected rats). ‘Our rats’ are in front of us too. Trump’s announced isolationism, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, and the advancements of technological attacks on the fabric of our political system, demands us not to remain in denial like Camus’ characters.
Camus described his characters believing that “the plague would come to an end, because it was unthinkable” which led to the plague ravaging their town.
Will we maintain this wilfully blind attitude to the security dilemma of our day?
Edited by Freya Holland
Photo – A. Camus, https://www.flickr.com/photos/mitmensch0812/2513316191
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