Waiting for a miracle?
For long, saner elements had been warning of an impending disaster which may strike the entire world
The writer is former Dean Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Karachi and can be reached at amoonis@hotmail.com
With almost a million infected and thousands dead due to Covid-19, one can only expect a miracle to save this world from colossal destruction. Despite the use of trillions of dollars and sophisticated medical science to curb the spread of the virus, there is no breakthrough as with each passing day the nightmare about the fate of human civilisation is approaching fast.
For centuries, particularly in the last 100 years, human beings misused power and resources to challenge nature by polluting the world’s environment, killing millions of innocent people in armed conflicts and wiping out forests in the name of development and modernisation. Now, nature has struck back with full vengeance. Despite excelling in science and technology, humans are so helpless before a virus which can inflict millions regardless of who is who.
US President Donald Trump recently said that “his country should go back to work” by Easter. Otherwise, if America remains locked down, people will lose their jobs and businesses cannot get back. Trump is highly unrealistic and unreasonable in his approach of dealing with a global crisis as can be seen by his wishful thinking of returning to normalcy.
While one should be optimistic about defeating the virus, it seems the lines have been drawn as the power which controls the Earth and the universe has the capability to annihilate the virus and put the world back to normal. But it seems that God is very angry with us humans for destroying the resources and the environment and inflicting misery on the weak. And God has His own way of doing things as humans remain helpless despite having defeated previous diseases.
Never in recorded history has humankind faced such a situation in which every person is vulnerable and terrified of a virus which does not discriminate. Even if China has been able to control it, there is no surety that it will not strike again.
Coming back to the miracle that is needed to prevent further deaths, it may be a pipedream. Miracles used to happen when God was not disappointed with humans, but that does not seem to be the case anymore. This could be because, firstly, God blessed humans with intelligence and capability to perform miracles like landing on the moon and discovering other planets in the universe. Scientific inventions in the last 200 years caused miracles which were previously inconceivable, such as the invention of planes, telephone, computer, wireless technology and other modes of connectivity which changed people’s lives. God in fact helped people make use of their skills and intelligence for modernisation and development but when humankind started crossing limits by inventing atomic weapons and other means of mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons that were capable of destroying the world several times, the die was cast and it was only a matter of time for the absolute power to strike back.
Covid-19 is nature’s and God’s revenge for the arrogance and cruelty of those who believed that they cannot be punished for plundering the Earth’s resources. With human causing miracles through science and technology, they started questioning the absolute power which is the custodian of this Earth and the universe.
Secondly, intoxicated with power and miracles, humans failed to realise the need to be humane, peaceful, just and compassionate. Brutalities, genocides, extrajudicial killings and ethnic cleansings became common with no realisation for accountability. During World War II, some 50 million people were killed while more than 100 million have been killed in armed conflicts since 1945. Images of people suffering from wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen and the criminal silence of the powerful countries that are responsible for fanning these conflicts questioned everyone’s conscience.
The lockdown in Occupied Kashmir since August 5, 2019 is a vivid example of unprecedented human suffering while the world remained silent over Indian brutalities against the Muslim population of Kashmir. The genocide of Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar is another account of how indifferent the custodians of world power had become vis-à-vis the plight of millions who were suffering. God had given human beings enough margin and space to desist acts which played with nature, oppressed the weak and gave the notion that they possess all the power to harm anyone and get away with it.
Now, the West, which in the last few centuries, accumulated so much of ill-gotten wealth through colonisation and exploitation of resources from the global south is unsafe from the virus and has become its epicentre. Europe and the US, which took pride in their accomplishments, are now helpless in front of a virus which continues to inflict physical and economic damage.
Thirdly, miracles will not happen to save humanity from such a deadly virus because science has its limits. Even if there is a cure for Covid-19, the virus will successfully cause enormous damage in the form of casualties and economic losses. Certainly, the world will not be the same as it was before the outbreak as one can see the transformation in human behaviour as far as social interaction is concerned. Yet, there is no surety that humans will learn a lesson from this and may even continue with their previous habits of playing with the nature and abusing their power.
The Covid-19 cannot be eliminated through tweets as is being done nowadays by people in power. It requires the leadership to be out in the field instead of sitting in its comfort zones while the vulnerable face the catastrophe.
For long, saner elements had been warning of an impending disaster which may strike the entire world. But arrogance, overconfidence and selfishness did not allow humans to be mindful of what was coming. Now that the virus has struck the industrialised countries, the cream of scientists and financial experts are unable to deal with the prevailing global crisis. If connectivity and globalisation is a casualty of Covid-19 then light at the end of the tunnel can only be found by reversing a lifestyle which comprised environmental pollution, wars, armed conflicts and the use of deadly weapons, including chemical and biological ones.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 3rd, 2020.
For centuries, particularly in the last 100 years, human beings misused power and resources to challenge nature by polluting the world’s environment, killing millions of innocent people in armed conflicts and wiping out forests in the name of development and modernisation. Now, nature has struck back with full vengeance. Despite excelling in science and technology, humans are so helpless before a virus which can inflict millions regardless of who is who.
US President Donald Trump recently said that “his country should go back to work” by Easter. Otherwise, if America remains locked down, people will lose their jobs and businesses cannot get back. Trump is highly unrealistic and unreasonable in his approach of dealing with a global crisis as can be seen by his wishful thinking of returning to normalcy.
While one should be optimistic about defeating the virus, it seems the lines have been drawn as the power which controls the Earth and the universe has the capability to annihilate the virus and put the world back to normal. But it seems that God is very angry with us humans for destroying the resources and the environment and inflicting misery on the weak. And God has His own way of doing things as humans remain helpless despite having defeated previous diseases.
Never in recorded history has humankind faced such a situation in which every person is vulnerable and terrified of a virus which does not discriminate. Even if China has been able to control it, there is no surety that it will not strike again.
Coming back to the miracle that is needed to prevent further deaths, it may be a pipedream. Miracles used to happen when God was not disappointed with humans, but that does not seem to be the case anymore. This could be because, firstly, God blessed humans with intelligence and capability to perform miracles like landing on the moon and discovering other planets in the universe. Scientific inventions in the last 200 years caused miracles which were previously inconceivable, such as the invention of planes, telephone, computer, wireless technology and other modes of connectivity which changed people’s lives. God in fact helped people make use of their skills and intelligence for modernisation and development but when humankind started crossing limits by inventing atomic weapons and other means of mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons that were capable of destroying the world several times, the die was cast and it was only a matter of time for the absolute power to strike back.
Covid-19 is nature’s and God’s revenge for the arrogance and cruelty of those who believed that they cannot be punished for plundering the Earth’s resources. With human causing miracles through science and technology, they started questioning the absolute power which is the custodian of this Earth and the universe.
Secondly, intoxicated with power and miracles, humans failed to realise the need to be humane, peaceful, just and compassionate. Brutalities, genocides, extrajudicial killings and ethnic cleansings became common with no realisation for accountability. During World War II, some 50 million people were killed while more than 100 million have been killed in armed conflicts since 1945. Images of people suffering from wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen and the criminal silence of the powerful countries that are responsible for fanning these conflicts questioned everyone’s conscience.
The lockdown in Occupied Kashmir since August 5, 2019 is a vivid example of unprecedented human suffering while the world remained silent over Indian brutalities against the Muslim population of Kashmir. The genocide of Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar is another account of how indifferent the custodians of world power had become vis-à-vis the plight of millions who were suffering. God had given human beings enough margin and space to desist acts which played with nature, oppressed the weak and gave the notion that they possess all the power to harm anyone and get away with it.
Now, the West, which in the last few centuries, accumulated so much of ill-gotten wealth through colonisation and exploitation of resources from the global south is unsafe from the virus and has become its epicentre. Europe and the US, which took pride in their accomplishments, are now helpless in front of a virus which continues to inflict physical and economic damage.
Thirdly, miracles will not happen to save humanity from such a deadly virus because science has its limits. Even if there is a cure for Covid-19, the virus will successfully cause enormous damage in the form of casualties and economic losses. Certainly, the world will not be the same as it was before the outbreak as one can see the transformation in human behaviour as far as social interaction is concerned. Yet, there is no surety that humans will learn a lesson from this and may even continue with their previous habits of playing with the nature and abusing their power.
The Covid-19 cannot be eliminated through tweets as is being done nowadays by people in power. It requires the leadership to be out in the field instead of sitting in its comfort zones while the vulnerable face the catastrophe.
For long, saner elements had been warning of an impending disaster which may strike the entire world. But arrogance, overconfidence and selfishness did not allow humans to be mindful of what was coming. Now that the virus has struck the industrialised countries, the cream of scientists and financial experts are unable to deal with the prevailing global crisis. If connectivity and globalisation is a casualty of Covid-19 then light at the end of the tunnel can only be found by reversing a lifestyle which comprised environmental pollution, wars, armed conflicts and the use of deadly weapons, including chemical and biological ones.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 3rd, 2020.