BY
First published in Pakistan by Paras Academy, Ali Raza Abad, Lahore, 2016
Copyrights
ISBN 696-783-008-1
LIST OF CONTENT
FOREWORD
BOSNIA, AN ALBION
18
A WORD OF ADVICE
35
18
4
The purpose of the scene staged by Lear is twofold. Firstly, he wanted all
the newly appointed rulers to take a public oath that in terms of their
absolute commitments, towards what he stood for during his long reign,
they would be the essence of continuity. This is how I directed the play in
2013 and again in 2016, replacing the images of love speech with the
oath
taking ceremony. It is not the love trial scene; I rename it as oath of
legion scene. If maps depended on the speeches they would have not
been designed before the play. The purpose of the speeches was not
personal but political. These were for the ears of the people Lear ruled
over for almost half a century. He was a symbol of political stability,
continuity and, as a result, prosperity for his people. In that chaotic
Europe of 6th or 7th century where the average political life span of a king
was less than five years this great diplomat served his nation perhaps for
over four decades This symbol of stability and prosperity was about to
disappear when the play starts and Lear decided to address the concerns
of his people by exhibiting that in terms of his policies nothing changes in
political office but the face. Secondly, through this scene the visionary
king went beyond all the normal routine procedures to make sure the
future kingdom is lead by the one who deserves it. Laws of inheritance,
divine rights, and traditionalism nothing could stop him from taking the
decision which would mark the end of the patriarchal system in his
kingdom.
Cordelia, the ideal woman who marks the beginning of the matriarchal
system, is that new blood, new vision, younger strength, Lear speaks of
at the very beginning of the play. Lear loved her the most and wanted
to set the rest on her kind nursery because she is the one groomed by
him
through so many layers of favours to establish a system of those virtues
20
that never let a peaceful land become the gored state, a chaotic society.
Cordelias character is womanhood personified. It is an embodiment of
truthfulness in youth (so young and true, my lord), honesty, chastity and
fairness (no vicious blot, murder, or foulness, no unchaste action, or
dishonour'd step'), elegance and sophistication, (her voice was ever soft,
gentle and low, an excellent thing in women) motherhood (kind and
dear princess). By the end she returns to a play which was set into
motion by her choice of proclaiming nothing but wherein she hardly had
a role to play. Shakespeare often uses this device of concealing the
character of central thematic significance (among many are Fortinbras
and Malcolm) from the public eye to portray lives which have a very few
happenings but uncountable states. These states are the stations of
wisdom where evolutionary processes are nothing but illuminationary
process. Cordelia is the most evolved of all Shakespearean female
heroes besides Rosalind; she is the voice of justice and balance in a
society where patriarchal values, adopted by women as well, lead to
direst
forms of cruelty. It is important to note that women like Goneril and
Regan are those pathetic imitations of men who, in Lady Macbeths
words unsex themselves. If these women lead the society, the change in
the formative features can never occur as these women in gender are
barely women in character. Lear had deep understanding of his elder
daughters deformities of the mental states designed after the male role
models of the exhausted patriarchal system. These women then and now
remain representatives of that obsolete political, ethical, economic
system
which Lear wanted to discard, replacing by the one where justice and
balance prevail and statehood becomes motherhood. The ruler and the
land establish a system not of political but of filial nature. Systems of
21
politics can be named by any set of ideology they represent. Any term can
be used to define a particular system but all are the systems of evil if they
deny justice to the weak. The concept of nationhood primarily exists for
those who cannot live and cannot be accepted anywhere else but the land
wherein they are born; the land which they call mother. The rich and the
socially strong live beyond the essential need of a mother land as they
dont find themselves dependent on it for survival. In other words
countries exist to protect the rights and lives of their deprived people. If a
state fails to perform this fundamental function, it becomes hard to find
justification for its existence. The simple rule of good governance,
otherwise a mystery for many heads of the states, is the principle of
accountability and justice for all the members of a society. Patriarchal
system, based on the corruption of competition and the horrid ideology of
the survival of the fittest, protects the powerful and hunts down the weak.
Inflicting its injustice for millenniums, this unjust system has caused
failure to every single social, economic, religious philosophy introduced
for the benefit of the deprived. Lear uniquely choosing to divest from
both of rule, interest of territory stands as a remarkable example in all
Shakespeare of being a king whom exterior causes could not dethrone. It
is a highly symbolic gesture by the man who stood as the head of the
patriarchal system for almost half a century with sway over the minds and
hearts of all (in my opinion it was mainly to magnify Lears patriarchal
absoluteness that his queen and her possible influences on her daughters
were excluded from the structural pattern of the play). In Lear we see an
absolute monarch who happens to be a man of vision with inexorable
courage. Depriving himself of authority and possessions, that future
strife may be prevented now, he changed the entire value system of his
22
23
24
A matriarchal system in the last part of the play is fully functional with a
head of the state who is willing to sacrifice all for the sake of her people
towrds whom her first duty is to 'mean best'.
This system is the only hope for the future of the world. But keeping in
mind that our entire past life, the horrific tale of the patriarchal system, is
in the present, makes its introduction the most unlikely possibility.
Secondly, we must be certain that the women of our age might have more
in common with Goneril than with Cordelia as men without character and
vision remain the role models of success in social, economic, political,
cultural, religious spheres. Women understand, define themselves either
through the system that men have created over the ages or at best they
live
all their lives reacting to it, coining naive slogans, we can do it. This
early twentieth century feminist mark of recognition is actually a
confirmation of mens great contributions to the world that women
would also like to match with and imitate. As a result, the contribution of
the feminist movement in creating an independent character and mind of
the female population of the world, distinguishable from that of the men
as a social, political, cultural, industrial being will always be questioned.
Women at best are extension of male ideals of politics (no new
philosophy or system of political ideal appeared), culture (no new art
forms or sports particular to women ever appeared), religion (male
hierarchy in all religions goes unchallenged), commerce, trade and
banking (women only further consolidated the corruption inherent within
these unfair systems, no reforms within fundamental structures were ever
suggested). These are only a few areas of life to mention, the list is
unending; women as such are more and more absorbed by the ancient
patriarchal system in the name of modernity. This is the greatest tragedy
25
for the mankind. More wars and more concentrations camps, more crimes
against children and women, more countries dissolved into oblivion, more
fertile grounds for extremist ideals to breed, more reckless abuse of
natural resources and growing pollution, more political injustice and
economic crises all are the commonly known forecast for the next two
decades. This globe, Lears Albion, is in need of a Cordelia.
It seems there is no other way for the matriarchal system to rise but
through the accidental death of the patriarchal system. In Bosnia, it
seems,
the period of ultimate exhaustion of the patriarchal system has been
reached. It is a country where male-female ratio is 0.95; with female
literacy rate over 95 percent and already a large number of families in
major cities dependent on female jobs, Bosnia is well set for a shift in its
social and political structures. Out of necessity this country will be in the
hands of its female population within a decade. Without getting into the
heated debate about the calibre of its current male population in handling
of the state affairs, commerce and industry, imaginative arts, professions,
etc., we can simply count on the constantly, gradually reduced role of it in
the course of the next decade. This is the high time for the sensible and
farsighted members of the male population to start seeing the situation in
the manner of a Lear. The shift has already taken place, patriarchal
system
in this country has crashed, is heading downwards, we are only waiting
for the impact. People of vision in this country must encourage young
girls to think independently to create for themselves a personality of such
grace and depth which their mothers and aunties living in a strong
patriarchal system could possibly not perceive. We should launch a
detailed work plan to introduce methods to the young girls to think
27
be) grown fopish with their manners apish. When priests are (not) more
in word than matter; when nobles are (not any more) their tailors'
tutors; when usurers (cannot dare to) tell their gold in the field; and
whores do (not) churches build. When truth must (not be) to kennel and
Lady the brach may (not be allowed to) stand by the fire to stink. Then
the realm of Albion comes (not) to great confusion.
King Lear's Albion is the story of all those nations who have learned to
obey 'dogs' in office. A system of political life where the values of
sacrifice, wisdom, truth, humility, simplicity are mocked at and every
single role model of human virtue from Socrates to the prophets and all
the way down to the followers of their path is erased from social life
being misfit, is doomed to have dogs in high offices. Four centuries later
we wonder, is it an 'Albion' where we live? If lead by the mad men whose
'vision' has brought the world to incurable economic injustice, horrific
climatic forecast, academic sterility, spiritual hollowness, 'death, dearth,
dissolutions; divisions in state, menaces and maledictions against
nobles; we are in our Albion. If inspired by religious elite whose weekly
sermons are never put into action through personal examples, we are in
our Albion. If our model of social success moves around the 'whore' who
knows best the art to white wash whatever is black, we are in our Albion.
Every land on this earth is an Albion where the 'effects' Shakespeare
'wrote unhappily succeed'. 'Unnaturalness between the child and the
parent; death, dearth, dissolutions of ancient amities; divisions in state,
menaces and maledictions against nobles; needless diffidences,
banishment of friends, dissipation of cohorts, nuptial breaches, and I
know not what.'
31
32
33
34