The Country of the Blind

Thank you to our anonymous reader for forwarding this story!

Apparently it was Erasmus, a Dutch thinker, who first penned the phrase, 'In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king'.

The idea of course is that sight amongst the blind is a precious gift and one which would be lauded.

If only it were so.

In 1904 H.G. Wells wrote a short story called The Country of the Blind.

A lost climber Nunez falls and descends into an isolated and inaccessible valley whose people over many generations have grown to become sightless. With the realisation of his situation, Nunez at first believes that he will be feted as king of his new domain. He comes to learn differently.

The people do not feel deprived awaiting being released from their darkness. Indeed quite the opposite. Their beliefs, religion and rituals have all expunged any reference or recollection of sight to the extent that it has become little more than an echo buried within childish fairy stories.

Nunez's attempts to demonstrate the power of his fifth sense are to no avail. The enhancement of their senses of taste, touch, smell and hearing have replaced the need for sight, and his protestations to the contrary are seen as no more than the rantings of the feeble minded and insane. They no more miss or accept the value of a fifth sense, than do the sighted a sixth sense.

In time he is absorbed into the society, required to renounce his belief in sight. Indeed in order to be assimilated into the community by marriage, the village elders propose to cure his insanity by removal of the facial features he, in his insanity, insists on referring to as 'his eyes'.

As society speeds headlong, head-down and with little thought, it is perhaps more appropriate to say that

In the land of the blind, the world will beat a path to the door of a man who can teach them a few new words of Braille, but will have little time for the man who seeks to open their eyes.

Review by Steve Unwin

Sorry Mr. Hun Sen for your "Lack of Vision": Khmer farmers need farmlands to improve their living standards, not better phone networks

August 24, 2007
Cambodian PM: Better rural phone networks will improve farmers living standards

Prime Minister Hun Sen has claimed an improved mobile phone network would play an important role in bettering the living standards of rural citizens, local media said on Friday.

A more extensive mobile phone network would help farmers communicate with city businessmen on the price of products, he said on Thursday at the 7th Asean ministerial meeting on the telecommunications industry in Siem Reap province, reported Cambodian-language newspaper the Koh Santepheap.

"The number of telephone users in Cambodia is presently around 12 percent in total. However, this rate is up to 45 percent in the city, compared to one percent in rural areas," he continued.

Hun Sen used Bangladesh as an example, citing that revenues of Bangladeshi farmers have increased by 20 percent following the introduction of the mobile phone network to rural areas.

So Khun, Cambodian Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, said at the meeting that the telephone users at the present time amounts to over 1.5 million people, of which more than 90 percent are cell phone users.

"Our great wish is to turn the Kingdom of Cambodia into an information technology society (with the aim) to develop our society," he said.

Hun Sen added that Cambodia will be able to attain the goal through the commitment and support of its local and foreign partners.

Source: Xinhua