Sunday Times 2
Return to normality: But what is the norm?
After a respite afforded by lockdowns and quarantines, people impatiently look forward to a ‘return to normality’. I even wondered how forgetful, irrational and insane people could be. Even mainstream media seemed not to have grasped the lessons so obvious.
Right along, I had a hitch in my mind over ‘return to normality’. It is reassuring however that I was not alone in my thinking. I benefited from sharing views with wiser thinkers whose words of wisdom inspired me.
As pointed out by me in an earlier article, it is man’s craving for materialism that has led to unsustainable exploitation of natural resources and pollution of the environment with fossil fuels. It was also pointed out how all around the world, Mother Nature has communicated with us. She has risen in revolution via the coronavirus leading to Covid-19 and death.
What we should strive is to enter a renewed world order where we protect the environment, if we are to avoid a repetition of the coronavirus and Covid-19. This is simple common sense.
Award-winning author Arundhati Roy of India has put it very succinctly in a communication that I had the privilege to receive: “Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is not different. It is a portal, a gateway, between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers, and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”
Yet, there is another aspect to ponder over: Materialism also leads to power considerations. Superpowers not only want to be more powerful, but the most powerful. In the quest for that power, sordid methods are resorted to in order to conquer or subjugate other nations. It is the leaders of superpowers who design all this. The people are not consulted or heard. In the race for supremacy people are treated as disposable sacrifices.
Now there is speculation that the coronavirus is man-made. That speculation is not without fair grounds. It might be that such sordid exploitations have led to the morbidity that we are witnessing. We now have a natural phenomenon and a man-made device to contend with.
Be that as it may, let us get back to the ‘normality’ that everyone is looking forward to. The question is, what or whence is the normality that we are seeking. Undoubtedly it is a norm that everyone would very much desire. For this norm, it is the people who must be consulted. If not, a people’s revolution is the answer.
(The writer is a Retired Senior Superintendent of Police. He can be
contacted on
seneviratnetz@gmail.com)