COVID and the Artilleryman
Can we Build Back Better taking inspiration from the iconic War of the Worlds character?
At the beginning of the pandemic, one of the books that went right back to the top of the bestseller list was War of the Worlds by HG Wells. Its descriptions of the end of the British Empire, with the then unthinkable devastation that British soldiers had meted out on other cultures and foreign cities being dealt on the familiar streets and suburbs of London. This apocalyptic vision was just one of those antediluvian dystopias that people seemingly needed to refer to in order to process what was happening.
As the ‘normal’ processes of life have been overturned for millions, the demand that we do not return to the status quo has grown in popularity. The slogan Build Back Better or variations of it has been adopted by groups across the political spectrum. But just as with the character of the Artilleryman in War of the Worlds, what we face is not the construction of a new utopian society. These hopes are as doomed to failure as his pathetic trench into the distant sewers. In our war, the Martians, the ruling elite, the 1%, in the UK actual nobility, have not and will not be defeated or replaced. The world that will be rebuilt will be in the model of the first, but it seems already that many of the freedoms that we took for granted will never be restored. The war machines of disaster…
