-Brian Mendonça
In the wake of the corona virus, there have been
several ships which have passengers who have tested positive. When the passengers most need help, they find
friendly ports shrinking or non-existent.
A vessel on the high seas, in international waters,
expects succour from the nearest port of call. Just as aircraft return to the
airport or land at the nearest available airport to offload a passenger in need
of medical attention, so also, ships should be able to bank on the same help.
But ships travel far distances and are far away from friendly waters. Mired on
the Atlantic or the Pacific oceans, these hulks, with their critical cargo,
have nowhere to go.
The Greg Mortimer
is an Australian cruise vessel which does trips to the Antartica. Their
latest voyage ran into rough weather with 60% of the crew and passengers
testing positive for COVID -19 soon after they left Ushuaia, Argentina - the
Southern-most port in the world. Bound for the polar ice caps the Greg Mortimer, had to change course and
head for Montevideo, Uruguay. The ship
was denied entry and was stranded off Montevideo coast.
It took the Uruguayan navy to come and get the most severely affected passengers and move them to hospital.
It took the Uruguayan navy to come and get the most severely affected passengers and move them to hospital.
The pandemic recalls Foucault where he discusses the myth
of the ‘Ship of Fools.’ The myth was
mentioned in a poem by Sebastian Brandt in 1486. In earlier times those deemed
to be insane were evicted from a country and put on a ship which simply sailed aimlessly
on the sea. No port allowed it entry and in this way the mainland was spared of
the contagion they were believed to carry.
Ironically the Greg
Mortimer was retracing the voyage of the Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton who wanted to discover Antartica via the South
Pole. His ship Endurance ran aground
on the ice en route in 1915. All the 22 men of his crew survived the
ordeal under his heroic leadership.
In the Pacific, the USS Theodore Roosevelt -- the nuclear-powered
aircraft carrier of the US navy’s 7th fleet -- is stranded near Guam
with its sailors stricken with COVID-19.
The captain had appealed for help publicly and was sacked thereafter.
The acting navy secretary who ordered his dismissal was also asked to step
down. As heads roll, the lethal virus strikes on land as well as sea.
In the Eastern theatre the cruise ship Diamond Princess with 3,711 crew members
and guests is quarantined at Yokohama port, Japan. Seven hundred cases were found
to be positive while 8 died. ‘We're basically being treated like we're prisoners and criminals here;
that’s how we feel,’ said Alan Steele, one of the passengers. ‘From a virologist's perspective, a cruise
ship with a large number of persons on board is more an incubator for
viruses than a good place for quarantine,’ says Anne Gatignol, a
microbiologist.
--------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------
Michel Foucault, Madness
and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, 1961. Published in Gomantak Times Weekender, Panaji, Goa on Sunday, 19th April 2020. Updated 20th April 2020. Pic of detail from Hieronymus Bosch, Ship of Fools. Painted c. 1490-1500. Courtesy hieronymusbosch.net
Comments