Literature
Seeing
CevvelaLiterature
Seeing
José Saramago · Kırmızı Kedi Yayınevi · 2004
8
Cevvela Score
8.1 (3.955 oy)
Reader Score
Summary
In a city that has survived the catastrophe of Blindness, 83 percent of the people cast blank ballots on election day — without any organization, entirely spontaneously. The story of this civil disobedience and of the paranoid terror the state unleashes in response.
Quotes from Cevvela
“Casting a blank ballot is the most forceful way of ignoring the system.”
“Power can destroy its opponents, but it can never defeat silence.”
“A frightened state becomes the greatest monster.”
“Those who reject the rules of the game are the worst nightmare of those who made it.”
“No darkness can silence a people that has begun to see.”
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Reader Score: 8.1 / 10(3.955 votes)
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This time Saramago writes about an act of “seeing” that is political rather than physical. Without using any violence — simply by rejecting the system and casting blank ballots — the people throw the state into such a panic that power declares war on its own citizens. Cevvela’s distance from an order that normalizes injustice lies in this silent resistance. People regain their real power when they refuse to choose between false options. You realize how the votes you cast as “the lesser evil” in fact legitimize the system. What power fears most is a people that wakes up and refuses to play the game.