Shikasta

Doctor Hebert is being transferred to another hospital. He says I can go with him. I shall go with him. I want to stay in hospital. They say I could leave and manage, but I am too badly deteriorated and I shall stick to that. I could live in that commune place but I'd have to behave all the time. Lick lick lick. I shall leave here next week to go with Doctor Hebert. One hospital is like another. Doctor Hebert says he wants to go on working with me.

Since Doctor Hebert, I have been sometimes just for short moments like I was when I was a girl. Before they grabbed me and forced me into the hospitals. The voices when I was a child were friendly. It was a friend talking to me. They would say: Yes Lynda, it is all right, do that. Or this. Or, Have you thought about doing that, because you can if you try. Lynda, Lynda, don't be sad. Don't be unhappy. And once when I was crying and crying because my parents quarrelled all the time, the voice said right through all that fuss I was making, What is the matter, Lynda? Meaning, what a fuss about nothing. All these years I have remembered the friendliness, and wondered where it had gone to. Since the doctors all I heard was voices saying I was wicked, horrible, cruel. But now it is coming back. That is because Doctor Hebert is a kind man. I mean kind in himself, not just his words. Words are nothing. The thing that is there, the friendly thing in a person or place is sweet. It is a sort of sweetness and closeness. I keep telling Doctor Hebert, the voices that torment poor loons, saying you are horrible and all that, I will punish you, could just as well be saying, I am your friend, trust me.

ILLUSTRATIONS: The Shikastan Situation

This took place in a part of Shikasta controlled by an obscurantist religion that spread its bigotry and ignorance over all aspects of life, and that held, as an absolute truth, that "God" had created humanity on a certain date about four thousand years before. To believe anything else was to court reprisals that included social ostracism, the loss of opportunities to earn a living, the reputation of "ungodliness" and general wickedness. The reaction against the narrowness and dogmatism seldom equalled even on Shikasta manifested itself in certain intellectuals who worked in the fields of human history, biology, evolution, offering as an alternative belief that the peoples of the planet had evolved, slowly, through many mille

These few individuals fought back with courage and spirit, opposing "superstitution" with "rationalism" and "free thought" and "science." In one way or another, each had to suffer for his stand.

I offer here the history of one, "a small soldier in the cause of free enquiry" - his description of himself. He was not from a wealthy family, but was poor, and a teacher of the best sort, whose passion had always been - and remained - to inspire the young into useful lives free from the tyra

He was in a small town, where public opinion was in total subjection to religion. He began to teach the children under his care the new "knowledge" - that all of humanity had descended from animals - and after reprimands, lost his job. The girl he had hoped to marry said she would stand by him, but succumbed to pressures from her family. He was sustained by his conscience, and taught himself carpentry, and with great difficulty - for most of the people of the town shu

This stand by him and a few other brave spirits who were open to the mental currents and discoveries of the time, some of them true and valuable, but generally sloganised by a derisive populace as "If you want to be a monkey no one is stopping you!" was in fact the begi

This man, in his old age, going to the shops, or sitting on a bench in the sun, would be harassed by children, and sometimes adults, shouting, "Monkey! Monkey! Monkey!" And he would smile at them, his back held very straight, his head up, fearless, sustained by Truth.

JOHOR: Agent 20, asked for a report, contributed this.

I am in a large city in the Isolated Northern Continent, with extremes of rich and poor. This is a living area, where tall buildings house i

An interesting aspect is that stories of idealised family life are continually shown on the various propaganda media, but these are from past epochs, and are hard to relate to the present day, yet they are very popular. The contrast between the warmth and responsibility shown by adults in these tales, and what can be observed every day, adds to the cynicism and alienation of the young.

It is of little use to approach these gangs of children - who of course very soon become young adults - as an individual. As an individual, my scope is limited.

To approach the adults, particularly the mothers, has better results, but it is often too late.

Sometimes I have wondered if among the many thousands of families crammed into these towering buildings, there is one with the moral energy or even the conviction to bring up their young as well as an animal would.

And I am not talking of the cruelty that is hidden here, physical and mental, inflicted even on infants, but of an indifference, a lack of interest.

I live in a room in an old house in a street adjacent to the acres of bare asphalt where the tall buildings are crowded. Rare indeed to find a garden, or trees, but my room, on the ground floor, overlooks a little patch of earth where some flowers grow. There are two trees, one smallish and one well grown.

The woman who has the room across the hall tends the flowers and keeps cats. Like many women she makes a great deal of pleasure and interest for herself out of very little.