In the reflective mood that many of us find ourselves in during our COVID19-imposed house quarantine, inevitably the famous quote attributed to Spanish writer and philosopher George Santayana comes to mind: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” So today, with the number of victims and the death toll rising at alarming rates, humanity is being condemned to repeat the horrific impacts of the coronavirus, just like pandemics over past centuries, like the bubonic plague, measles, smallpox, various mutated strains of influenza and, most recently, ebola. The question we should be asking is why we have not learned from history to be better prepared and better equipped to fight a contagion that knows no geographic or political boundaries.
Admittedly, the rapid spread of the virus from Wuhan, China, where it all began late last year, may have caught governments off-guard, not just Third World countries but industrialized nations like Italy, Britain and the United States. Was it the conviction that the disease could not reach their own back yard, or simply over-confidence in their ability to deal with the consequences? All countries affected, no matter their level of socio-economic development, are now having to face the same devastating outcome. Yet, time and again, following the pandemics and epidemics of the past, there have been reminders by health experts of the need for governments to establish the right protocols, particularly in communicating with their people.
In this day of often negative and ill-informed messaging social media, this is more important than ever. Indeed, the storm of misinformation is complicating the work of the authorities in tackling the impact of the disease. Hospitals and health centers should also have been better equipped with the basic do’s and don’ts on how to deal with a crisis of this scale, at least in its initial stages. Security agencies, for their part, should have had a plan in place to confront possible social unrest in a country prone to civil disturbances.
As it is, given the Indonesian government’s lack of direction and chaotic handling of the worsening pandemic, with a serious lack of coordination not only among the relevant the government ministries, but also with the regional and local administrations, is ample proof of the absence of any concrete plan of action. Yet that should be the foremost priority of any government vulnerable to all kinds of political, economic, natural and health disasters. We bore the brunt of the world’s worst tsunami this century, in December 2004, we have frequent volcanic eruptions and earthquakes that displace entire villages and, in a worse-case scenario, could devastate heavily-populated Java to the point of paralysis. We must prepare for such eventualities.
Beyond these obvious anticipatory policies that should have been in place – no matter how minimal – is the failure to address the welfare of the citizenry. Given the deep spirituality of most Indonesians, the problem of prioritizing secular emergency rules over religious needs can be a difficult to implement. There should be a well-thought out plan to ensure that religious leaders are able to persuade their followers to abide by emergency regulations that might seem to conflict with their religion. Despite strident calls for physical distancing and work-at-home campaigns, many of the faithful still insisted on attending communal prayers at mosques, churches and temples. Some devout women still gather for regular Qu’ran reading sessions and the authorities had to break up and quarantine a congregation of nearly 200 local and foreign Muslims after three of their number were tested positive for Covid-19.
If we are to mitigate this and future pandemics, there has to be a better understanding about our secular and spiritual needs, and how to conjoin the two for mutual benefit.
Yuli Ismartono
AsiaViews
