Nero's Guests

I was watching a documentary earlier this evening, titled Nero's Guests by veteran journalist P. Sainath (link provided below), who also happens to be a personal hero of mine. He’s known for highlighting the plight of the farmers of central and southern India who are facing the onslaught of corporatization of agriculture the world over that is causing a flood of suffering in poorer countries. These countries just don’t have the means to subsidize their own farmers compared to the massive subsidies handed out by the US and EU to theirs OR have an oligarchic elite that isn’t willing or is unable to see the strife of their own farmers. The documentary is aimed at this second group, who lives in an isolated bubble of their own crafting that seeks to separate them from the ‘undesired’ result of their neoliberal economic reforms. They simply seek to elevate themselves upon the crushed dreams of the millions of poor who are forgotten in the sifting wake of ossified moral compasses.

Why is it titled Nero's Guests?

Nero was an ancient Roman emperor who was known for his eccentricities and unusual acts that give hint of his mental health issues and massive retreats from sanity. He was prone to conduct some of the biggest parties ancient Rome had ever seen and often had spectacles that bordered and sometimes crashed through the limits of debauchery, voyeurism and decadent opulence. During one such party, so that his guests could view the wondrous magnificence of his gardens, Nero brought several slaves and fugitives and prisoners at night and burnt them alive for illumination, as human torches for dispelling the darkness. Tacitus, one of the most dispassionate historians of the time, wrote:

‘’(they) were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle.’’

What shocked Sainath wasn’t Nero’s cruelty. There have been several contenders throughout history who have contested for the crown of cruelty and humans are capable of inflicting much suffering upon their own, let alone other species. What bothered Sainath the most was the identity of Nero’s guests; what sort of sensibility did it require to pop another fig into your mouth as one more human being went up in flames nearby to serve as ‘a nightly illumination?’ These people were none other than the artistic, political and economic elite of Roman society. They were painters, sculptors, writers, senators, praetors, tribunes, merchants, plantation owners, and more… and all they did was to let the party to go on, singing and dancing, as the spectacle unfolded…

Are we any different? We, who live our lives with the same apathy and indifference about all the suffering that exists all around us and continue on without giving a thought to the countless millions who at this very minute are either starving or thirsty or about to end their lives for want of end of an eternal and loosing battle with the odds. Most of us, either due to evolutionary constraints or very simply because of social indifference, cannot extend our compassion and empathy beyond our line of sight. We are very limited beings, who live tempered lives on the edge of mortality making us short-sighted and conceited.

But silence is not the answer. It never is. Or else we’re condemned to the same histories as that of Nero’s guests who never raised a single protest, but laughed and sampled unrestricted desires whilst a fellow human being burned for want of illumination of their dark worlds.