A bug in humanity’s system

It’s about China. The world witnessed year after year, the phenomenal rise of China, with mixed feelings of awe and envy. The world’s most populous nation also became its biggest manufacturer. You need it – China can make it, as cheap as you want.

Modi wanted to emulate China and came up with his ‘Make in India’ banner. Trump wanted to curb China and slapped tariffs. China was hurting but coping with the US challenge. Then, something extraordinary arrived: a vicious bug hit Hubei province of China. And China is no longer the same country.

China moved swiftly to contain the epidemic. It was observed that China is the only country that can successfully fight the challenge posed by a virulent new strain of the coronavirus. However, China could not stop the bug being carried to other countries, causing hundreds of death, leading to unprecedented measures of quarantine. Eventually, the virus will be controlled but it may take time before the immense damage suffered by the Chinese and in turn the global economy can be repaired.

It was not long ago that the powerful of the world brought in globalization of the trading system and outsourcing of production. That period also witnessed the further speeding up of news dissemination across the globe with the help of digital technology. A new bug has sent the systems into a spin. The epidemic caused by it may not be so deadly but it is very scary.

The scare shows the extreme vulnerability of the human race to spasms of psychosis. In the information age, wisdom has taken a back seat, and we are left with a downward spin of the global economy. China may be the principal casualty but other large economies too are reeling from the meltdown. In turn, every country is likely to suffer from a slower world economy.

The virus will be controlled in months if not weeks and will recede as the top story. The global media will move on to another story as the corona scare becomes another episode in human history. If there are lessons to be learnt to meet a similar threat in the future, those too would be swept under the rug. The readers of this piece must be aware of how the digital age is testing the limits of human memory. There is such a lot to digest and retain every hour of the day.

How many of us recall that barely two months back Australia was hit by its worst ever forest fires? Or that Iran and the US were at the brink of a war after an American drone killed Qassem Suleimani, the head of Iran’s revolutionary guards? Earlier, there was an attack on Saudi facilities causing considerable damage to its oil industry. Does all of this prove that not only is information travelling much faster but events may actually be happening at a greater speed, to be forgotten as quickly?

Over the centuries, the human race has been afflicted by great epidemics causing millions of deaths. Corona too will pass – and quickly, given the advanced means to contain and eliminate the threat.

Is humankind prepared to minimize deaths from everyday phenomena the way it rises to meet new threats? It takes a death on the road more stoically than one in a building collapse, a plane crash or an earthquake. Something must be wrong with our genetic makeup to accept some fatalities as more matter of fact than others. Just like human rights suppression in some countries is ignored but not in others.

Social scientists may be able to tell if the digital age will bring out the worst in mankind. Patience is in short supply as humanity is increasingly in quest of information and sensations at the cost of patience and wisdom. ‘Me first’ has inevitably led to ‘my country first’. We don’t hear of a shared future any more as the practitioners of zero sum games take charge. Win-win solutions are pushed aside as diplomacy is sent on forced leave.

The year 2020 has witnessed a lot in its first quarter. A lot has yet to happen, with a succession saga opening in Saudi Arabia. The world is sadly used by now to the carnage in parts of the Middle East that has caused the greatest exodus of people after Afghanistan. The Afghan tragedy has assumed the status of banal with the exception of antics of various players to con the others.

And the world’s second most populous nation is going through a self-inflicted identity crisis just when it was being viewed as the next economic superpower. India has emerged instead as a colonizer of its own ‘integral part’. This is the first case of a government taking its ‘own’ people hostage.

Please note that the premier of India tells whoever cares to listen that the Kashmir lockdown and Citizens Amendment Act, and the stigmatizing of 200 million people is just the beginning of his plan of action. Could the culmination of that approach be the elimination of those people? Imran Khan is straining his wits to call the world’s attention but not having the desired effect.

Is humanity dying in India and large parts of the world? It took mass killings of Bosnian Muslims to shake the conscience of the big champions of human rights and act. It will take many years to bring the ringleaders before the International Criminal Court. Humanity’s conscience is painfully slow if not dying.

Email: saeed.saeedk@gmail.com