Human beings are nothing, really. We’re fearful, hateful, and faithless, thankless, and selfish. Human beings have nothing. We’ve no courage, no humanity, and no belief, no gratitude, and no altruism.
Every iota of doubt about those facts has been rubbished by a hyperpowerful, apathetic even if tiny, invisible something called COVID-19 -with the largely mocked baptismal name, coronavirus; which continues albeit wordlessly to call out humanity for who we truly are. We’re God’s people only ‘for mouth;’ we want to make heaven but don’t want to die. We’re too self centric, too foodie-ish, too critical yet not too smart to properly disguise these shameful traits. Nothing in history has showcased the nothingness or vincibility of mankind the way this Wuhan-China global export hangs it out there to dry.
Starting with handshake, sneezing and social unity: in at least one culture that I know, it was an insult for a handshake to reach the elbow. However, in the age of COVID-19, that same elbow is now where the handshake begins and ends. Just by the say-so of a mere virus, the elbow is now the epicentre of handshake while sneezing or coughing into cupped hands (which etiquette taught generations) has been outlawed. The new normal is to do so into the sleeves or bend of the elbow!
The elbow again. Who saw these coming? By the way, what is it between COVID-19 and the elbow? Has someone researched why the virus desperately seeks to demote the hand; is nature making an example of the hand for shedding too much blood?
Again, have you noticed how unpopular the awkward and time-consuming greeting we were to do with our feet has become? There’s no competition: the elbow is the new hand -according to coronavirus. Also, worldwide, as if to censure all the gains of globalisation and integration and allied -tions aimed at closing the hitherto widening gulf in the human race, COVID-19 insists on a number of anti-unity Do’s: social distancing, isolation, quarantine, name them. No one dares the virus and lives to tell the story!
Which brings me to something quite surreal. I think nature doesn’t want mankind to unite. Remember the Tower of Babel? Those seeking unity or one-world-religion can only succeed when nature is ready and approves.
Going forward, the good news about the pandemic is that its job is done. Yes, COVID-19 is all but over. It shall be history sooner than we all fear. Whether we shall preserve and benefit from its historicity is our only challenge now.
Because the post-coronavirus era is when I fear most for its real venom currently doing press up in some part of our brain. Society must brace up for an alarming upsurge in such troubling ailments as insanity, depression, hatefulness; such dangerous crimes as murder, robbery, kidnapping; and such separatist tendencies as divorce, break up, backsliding. It remains to be seen if survivors of the disease would glean any of its many lessons to lead better, cleaner, happier, worthier and usefuller lives. Thankfully, achieving that is not rocket science.
Here is the how-to. First things first, accept and internalise the stark reality that just as the suddenness, impact and what I call the paraphernalia of COVID-19 have had a devastating, even debilitating stranglehold on everything you, it is so or worse with everyone else; plus including those you think are stronger, richer, and superer than you. Yes, the majority may not have contracted the virus but its news and matters arising and management have combined to deal our mind, our belief system, our pockets, our relationships, our everything a blow that we may never recover from. The way to survive coronavirus, after coronavirus disappears, is to learn now how to forgive and forget some things to come!
When this virus retreats to the coven it came from, people shall become far more easily irritated: many shall walk away too easily; some we thought were models shall use words that horrify us; others we canonised alive shall do abominable evil -if they haven’t already. Thousands of those we believed were five and six with God shall leave church. Lose no sleep on that one though, because the Big Man who sits high up there shall do His will: bring back those He wants and per time replace the fleeing thousands with the waiting hundreds of thousands. Friends are going to unfriend, and connect with enemies and vice versa; the same way people are going to drop and die of the virus long after it had itself died.
Mark it down: well after COVID-19, leaders shall lose position and public trust, because of something they did or didn’t do when it mattered most. But you, be forewarned and therefore forearmed: understand that it’s all down to the coronavirus aftermath. Forgive and forget easily -so that your indiscretions too shall be forgiven and forgotten fast. Never forget that the virus or something about it has -in some fundamental ways- affected every human being (except perhaps those in the moon).
Furthermore, develop a more positive attitude towards everyone and everything. Be thankful for even an SMS of love you received let alone that cup of garri, half cup of rice or five hundred naira gift; realising nobody owed you a thing. Those who stood by you throughout the reign of the virus, appreciate them as angels. Those who abandoned you as well as those you think had enough and to spare but refused to help you for whatever reason(s), treat them as human beings like yourself.
(To be concluded next Monday)
The radicalisation of leadership
The world over, almost every facet of life has been radicalised. Right is now wrong, wrong right. We reward empty, violent containers because of their untold noise or nuissance value but ignore those with content because of their silly(?) peaceableness and quiet.
Militants and terrorists who visited mayhem and bloodshed on their fatherland have been compensated with scholarships and opportunities abroad. Those who opposed or refused to join them are still here stewing in our holy idiocy. Is the Bible addressing Nigerians when it talks about princes to-ing and froing on foot while slaves are on horseback?
Unfortunately, the migraine is worsening. Leaders (or rather, those in leadership positions) now talk like … (I’m restrained by the home training my illiterate(?) parents gave me). A home training I think our society is in dire need of now more than ever. Leaders must learn afresh how to speak -and above all what not and when not to!