Civilization under siege….do the right thing today

Mar 17, 2020 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,

I follow the cascading coverage of news report after news report. The stories are the same, with a numbing, draining quality about them. Those great gatherings of civilization are under siege, increasingly desperate siege.
First, there was sports. Then, there were schools, and now bars and restaurants and some stores. The vice tightens inexorably. Now religious services have reluctantly yielded before the plague that is here. But there is something different about this virus. It attacks the very cores of our existence, with the bulwarks and bonds of civilization subject to increasing assaults.
For it drives a poisoned dagger into, the biggest of trucks through, the heart of what holds us together. That togetherness is now compelled to march – indeed, race – in the opposite direction: segregate and fumigate, relegate and isolate.
I am sorry to say this, but it reminds me of the reaction to the presence of dreaded leprosy in ancient times. It is only that this COVID-19 is worse: not visible, not sensed or detected until very late and after potentially much damage is done to others, which only expands the circle and extends the chain reaction. This coronavirus is an avalanche, a hurricane without a single whisper of sound, any thread of a timely and recognizable symptom.
The reactions – not kneejerk reflex, not without the greatest of deliberations and hesitations – have been limitations and full out lockdown: communities, cities, whole countries. It is a bad time and flies in the face of individual convictions and cultural traditions. That is, to stand and put up a fight at the personal level; and to resist collectively through unflappable combat with arms inseparably interlinked.
Both have been forced by the dictates of urgent and unparalleled circumstances to succumb and to go the other way, by approaching and addressing in an unheard-of manner. Alone. Out of range. By one’s self. Fearful and lonely and grasping at straws, while gasping for air. It is the monster of nightmares. This is lived beside with eyes open.
Now we should be able to identify with the psychological pressures and horrors of prisoners subjected to the extreme lockdown of isolation. Lengthy isolation. Man, more so modern man, is not accustomed to this severest of dislocations; for he is a community animal, a creature of family. Both could be gone.
This is utterly alien to him and weighs down with inestimable burdens. From whom did I contract this wretched existential threat? To whom did I possibly spread it? And, as always, from here to where? Meaning, when all is said and done, will I outlast this scourge?
The main things are not to panic, not to allow oneself to become prone to, and powerless in the face of, paranoia. We have heard that we have to be careful and disciplined enough to not overreact. To be so strong as to recognize limitations and what makes for sheer commonsense wisdom, which is to take the precaution of initiating those practical steps of staying out of harm’s way. This is nonnegotiable.
Having said all of this, it is not in me at this most uneasy of times to criticize anyone. It is counterproductive and not helpful to anyone or anything. Still, I would be remiss if I do not say that it would be most encouraging to observe a more centralized command and control arrangement; something that resembles the nationally coordinated.
I applaud those public service entities that have initiated contingencies for this unanticipated contingency. Nonetheless, I would be pleased – and the rest of Guyana should be, too – to see the CDC, the leaders at the MoPH, and other authoritative agencies come out with a joint response. That can only comfort.
Now, I will venture into the field of the heretical: political leaders should deescalate from the senseless heights (it is so to me) relative to matters of elections. Suspend the counts. Declare a state of emergency. Call a halt to the destructive backbiting and backstabbing and backing to the brink repeatedly.
Editor, pardon me for anticipating the deafest ears and the stoniest of faces. I say this because there is something worse than the traumas of overreaction. It is that of no reaction. None that is timely. None that is wise. None that is healthy and life-giving. We need to breathe in this country. It has to be of a different air, at a different temperature, with a different purity.
Elections throttled oil out of the national consciousness, almost out of existence. I think that this coronavirus, this COVID-19 presence, rises to the immediacy of jettisoning elections in the same manner. Things threaten to fall apart and at a most vulnerable time. Let us do the right thing today.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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