Of cultures, character and disruptions

As the pandemic sweeps across the globe

There is a quote ascribed to Warren Buffet which is making the rounds: “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” Buffet, a very successful investor and a fund manager, may not have said something profound, as profound as famous quotes are meant to be, but he illustrates the truth. For you never know who all are without clothes in a steamy Turkish bath till the steam switches off. Well, for planet Earth the steam has been switched off and the tide has drawn away. Turns out too many have been riding the tide without much on them.

When the most powerful in the world — say the US, the UK and those who lead Europe — thought they were in a different league, nature just unleashed a tiny microbe and brought them to their knees. I speak of the effect though the causal debate can go on forever from biological to physical to the metaphysical. And I place myself quite in the middle of these to ingest whatever comes from each of them, not discounting one or the other, for there is too much wrong in how humanity has evolved over time. Put in another way the cause may be any, the effect tests man’s ability in the domain of the cogent and the rational. The solution will offer itself only after the cause is known and the remedy is in place; which in itself should be transformational. For the moment though all that is on the table is precautionary. That perhaps tells you how helpless is man and how fickle his power.

Watch Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York talk to the press every evening, and through the press to the people of his state. He has turned into a story-teller from being the chief executive. Covid-19 reduces you to it. His tone is resigned as he sees his state reeling under the havoc unleashed by the tiny microbe. Half the afflicted and the dead in the US now count in New York. The state has run out of space in hospitals, ICU beds and ventilators. A ventilator becomes available only when a corona patient dies vacating both the bed and the ventilator. That’s what they are telling the incoming flux of those needing assistance: ‘only when a bed becomes available’. The Governor merely rattles the number of dead and the afflicted which continue to add in record numbers underwriting his abject helplessness. He encourages his people by informing them that they are only seven days away from the peak and then the numbers will begin to go down. When will they cease dying and falling sick to this murderous assault? He cannot tell.

The Chinese are now telling the people of Wuhan to collect the cremated ashes of their dear departed and bury them in an allotted time of twenty minutes. No time for grieving or a loose emotion. The process is filmed for record. There is a schedule for collecting and burying the ashes. Earlier they were too overwhelmed to be distracted by mundane human disposal. Trump has stopped being his assured self and is increasingly more combative as he watches with equal helplessness the US being reduced from the lone superpower to the ignominy of the most afflicted and, soon to surpass all others, with the most dead.

As Trump orders removal of the Indian ban to export hydroxycholoroquine — and Narendra Modi nicely complies — he dangles before his people a false hope. A furor went around when Trump prescribed this nation-wide cure against the advice of his health experts leading to, reportedly, a near-brawl in the White House situation room. To steer away from further trouble, Trump decided to invade Venezuela — no inconsequential country. If the great US will not overcome a tiny virus, it will do with overpowering a country big enough on world’s oil map. If anyone ever had any illusions of the ‘first world’ learning from the corona experience to mend its ways, shun the thought. Old habits die hard; harder yet when one is desperate against a microbe. Coronavirus has so overwhelmed responses of most cultural, economic and military superpowers of the world.

Back home, the head of the visiting Chinese team, Dr Ma Minghui, thinks the virus is spreading far faster in Pakistan than it was in China. He says every one-in-ten persons in Pakistan carries the virus while in Xinjiang where he belongs only one-in-hundred was affected. That is a ten times larger spread. And we are only testing infinitesimally. A potential eruption awaits. There is an interesting theory to low testing: ‘majority may never know they are sick or will recover of their own accord; only those that get serious will need medical assistance sparing the frugal medical infrastructure’.

There is another interesting innovation in the works called a ‘soft’ lockdown. And it is a risky road. The Prime Minister has already indicated restarting the construction sector and that is bold enough. But to let the majority of workforce come out and resume even limited normalcy may be bolder but laden with the risk of increasing the number of carriers risking the vulnerable young and old at home. We may end up accruing the same grief as for other societies and overwhelming our fragile health system. Paradoxically, the results may still be the same with the original lockdown because sixty per cent of the population still exempts itself to keep out of the fold of such restrictive living.

It will need some doing at the level of the decision-makers to come to grips with the challenge. The prime minister needs to be absolutely focused only on one thing — to deal with the catastrophe as it builds, and then with the aftermath. It is loudly proclaimed that his action against those involved with manipulating the flour and sugar crises may have pushed him to a political precipice and that some political — and non-political — entities may be scheming to bring him down exploiting this vulnerability. His livid shout-back at those coalescing against him is testimony to the danger that he senses. In the midst of the looming dangers petty politicking and convenience scheming knows no bounds.

It is time for those opposing him to step back and let him lead the fight against the corona challenge. We need all to join this fight. There is a plan in play; it is time to give it a chance. Frivolous game-playing will only cede time to the virus. Imran Khan is a disruptor and that goes against the grain of status quo — old-world politicians and the establishment that finds comfort in known order. His politics is challenging both. That unnerves the establishment and endangers traditional politics. But just the unease with a changing order is no reasons to dispense with a newer approach. Who knows these disruptions — IK’s brand of politics and the fight against corona — may just introduce us to newer pathways. These are transformational times. Let the man run his government and follow his plan.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 12^th, 2020.

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