Commentary by Swallow Xu*
The COVID-19 outbreak is putting much of the world in lockdown and people in social distancing.
On Monday morning I had a WhatsApp conversation with a French friend in Saint Martin, a small, beautiful island in the Caribbean, where strict stay-home measures have been implemented following its motherland, mainland France. Being a beach-loving islander, a single working mother of three shut at home away from the rest of the world (flights cancelled, cruises suspended), she was stressed.
“We can’t go to the beach,” she repeated, “China messed up the virus…”
As she parroted what she had heard, I comforted her with disagreement: before the science and fact-based truth will be revealed, wisdom and analytical skills are needed; and we should not trust tales from the media and some politicians’ biased rhetoric.
“Cla, it’s not a China virus. It’s a world virus, human virus. I never thought it would spread far to your island. You’re doing what we’ve been doing. Follow anti-virus guidelines, stay home, in a few months, it will be OK…”
‘Collective karma’
My faraway friend finally settled down. There are so many versions of the novel coronavirus ‘source stories’, some with a political agenda. But I only believe in one: it’s a human virus, derived from mankind’s collective karma.
Indeed, it’s a virus threatening this highly globalised world, transporting most people into a factual or looming new mode of life.
“Humanity as never before shares a common destiny, whether it be in terms of the resources of the planet, the global environment, economic integration, or the movement of people.... humankind is a Community of Shared Destiny”, as advocated by the Chinese government. I share this vision. Plus, don’t forget that all creatures are also kin by virtue of their common origin and shared destiny.
As per CNN on March 20, Bats are a possible source of the coronavirus. Yet they are not to blame for the transfer of the disease - humans are, due to changes in human behaviour - the destruction of natural habitats, coupled with the huge number of fast-moving people now on Earth - have enabled diseases that were once locked away in nature to cross into people fast.
So true! Decades ago, villagers around the world lived so close to bats, snakes – all the other animals that you can name - and Nature, and there were no such things as SARS or the novel coronavirus. If humans would be less greedy, ate/consumed less, wouldn’t over-exploit, kept green mountains and thick forests, grasslands and paddy fields … without invading other creatures’ kingdoms, we would not have ended up in today’s situation!
The (over-)development mode has led to one disaster after another. In September 2018, when still lamenting Macau’s losses from Typhoon Mangkhut, suddenly I saw how Hurricane Irma struck my home on a Caribbean island on the other side of our Earth. The 2019 Amazon rainforest wildfires even blackened my emerald blue sky over the bay of Saint Martin for a few months. As a member on this planet called Earth, how can any of us escape from these natural or manmade disasters? Predictions say that disasters would become a norm. How could I tell this to younger generations, to children worldwide now staying home and schoolless? How could I tell them ‘hey, kids, don’t think you are relaxing at home; but you’re part of this disastrous movie, witnessing a vital chapter of history. So sorry for you small guys… ”
Sounding the alarm
The COVID-19 outbreak has caused death, suffering, economic and social turmoil, but positively it sounds the alarm on the human-animal and human-nature relationship. After Chinese New Year I was happy to see posters appearing in Zhuhai promoting ‘Don’t eat wild animals’. And some WeChat users proposed a ritual of eating vegetarian food for 14 days. And yet both Chinese and American netizens showed their cheerful amazement at a much less polluted environment resulting from the lockdown. Yes, in sunny days the sky over the Pearl River Delta does look bluer, cities in many parts of the world must be greener than ever. Now many people have realised nothing matters more than health, and a healthy planet.
So, while some governments and civil societies are struggling to fight against the virus and others are trying to tackle the economic slowdown, mankind as a whole should get the message from the animal world and Mother Nature, which deserve our better if not equal treatment. Let’s resort to Daoism and other Chinese philosophies holding that human beings are just a small part of the natural world or universe. Be in harmony with Nature, follow its principles, striving for the optimal state of “Tian Ren He Yi” (the human world and the external universe are united into one).
Lastly, walking along a cobble-stone lane down by St Paul’s Ruins in a soooo quiet Macau city centre evokes some ancient atmosphere, where harmony between humanity and Nature was much better. I wish that this pandemic could really prompt in mankind a new mode of living with consciousness, which could help create a harmonious virus-free world.- The author is a Macau-based translator, commentator and travel writer
