Remnants of Illusion: The US-Iranian War... and the Theater of Absurdity
Theatre of the Absurd, or Theatre of the Absurd, emerged at the beginning of the last century. Among its most famous literary figures are the writers Albert Camus and Samuel Beckett, author of the renowned play “Waiting for Godot,” which he wrote in 1953 and for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969. The play begins with two impoverished, marginalized, and isolated characters standing by the roadside, engaging in trivial conversations whose beginnings, endings, purposes, or reasons are unknown. They repeatedly discuss a third character named “Godot,” who never appears in the play, wondering: Who is Godot? Will he come? When will he come? And if he does come, what will he do for them and what will he offer them? But Godot never arrives.
This play honestly and tediously reflects the condition of people in the post-World War II era, and the psychological and mental void that the world suffered during that period. However, it seems that this nausea and psychological and mental emptiness continue to this day, but in the form of the war waged by the United States and Israel against the Islamic Republic of Iran six months ago.
We in the Gulf do not know the “real” objectives of this war. Was it to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program? Was it actually eliminated? Was it to eliminate Iran’s military capability? Was this goal fully achieved? Why does the United States remain silent regarding Iran’s continuous attacks on the civilian interests of Gulf Arab states? Was the Strait of Hormuz on the agenda of the war leaders? Did they consider the consequences of this war? Did they consider the interests of the world’s countries? Did they take into account the security and stability of the Gulf Arab states?
After 1919, Europeans did not feel any positive outcomes from World War I, which claimed the lives of millions and destroyed the infrastructure of many European countries. Despair and frustration prevailed among them due to the absurdity of manipulating people’s destinies. All they reaped from these absurd wars was devastation, destruction, fragmentation, and distrust of other Europeans, creating exhausted, frustrated, and despairing psychologies regarding an insecure future.
Gulfis today experience this same condition more than other peoples of the world. Just as the late writer Samuel Beckett deliberately presented a new model of plays that rebelled against known theatrical patterns—such as introduction, plot, and ending—and reflected the deterioration of conditions in European society by presenting a lack of clarity in the general idea, the absence of a traditional plot, and an ambiguous ending without resolution, thereby proving to the audience that the acts of the play, and even in real life, are all absurd and purposeless, as if they begin and end without benefit, this is the absurdity we see before our eyes in the fate of the region’s countries in the form of war.
Godot did not arrive, and the audience did not learn any characteristics of the play’s characters, leaving this play behind with much controversy and discussion not only about what the conditions of Europeans should have been after two devastating wars, but also about the sterile discussion between two trivial figures from which the audience gained nothing. Moreover, the audience did not learn their social, political, or economic status, nor the reasons for their presence in that place, which is what we see today in the Arabian Gulf.
