A world of old suspicions and rare normalcy

THE onslaught of COVID-19 and the tensions surrounding whether this virus was manmade with intent, and complicity in some cases, to destroy populations has left suspicions that too often arise in conversations. These conversations are often intrusive and overpowering, with arguments that can only be alit because too many suspicions and not clarified notions still exist.

It’s a dilemma that can only be subdued by creating a balanced discourse within the enveloped spaces of reasoning, from country to country, that can permit soothing comprehension. A lethal pandemic with severe fatal and social casualties has created a veritable no-man’s-land, where the preservation of populations and groups has become incensed towards continued survival provoked by suspicion.

No seer, popular voice, politician, religious or political leader can individually propose a comforting mood without first understanding what COVID-19 has resurrected in the survival consciousness of peoples encompassed in plural societies across the planet. Plurality in this case is not only restricted to ethnicities alone, but diverse economic, religious, cultural and philosophical groundings.

At the height of the ‘COVID’ reality came the discourses of the elimination of specific human populations. Vaccines were launched from diverse origins, and many people did die from ‘COVID’ and vaccines. I lost four friends as a consequence, one of whom I stood behind in a line at the Bank we both used and did not even recognise him. His muscle tone had so disappeared, that his arms looked like a pair of hanging tubes. He didn’t last a week thereafter.

Accusations were thrown from one world power to the other, insinuating a mode of chemical and biological warfare with intent towards economic destabilisation (this has a long factual history). However, the economics of our world today has changed, here and everywhere.

A musician recently told me that his community is not as eager as before to do too many late-night gigs. Our historic memory over the last 300 years, whether we are aware of the process or not, is fraught with ingrained references of mass repression, horrific exterminations, and marginalisation of peoples across the human world, and with dual heritage.

DISTORTED DREAMS
The experience of the ‘COVID’ crisis has reversed our optimism, whether we recognise its impact or not. For those of us who were ill and survived without being hospitalised, it has changed our dreams and replaced them with distortions. One former serviceman told me there was a constant scent he experienced that he likened to the smell of death long after he had become well again.

I doubt that there is a public document on interviews with pandemic survivors available anywhere, as the authorities may conclude that people need to find resolve towards current existence through self-healing. What are the insecurities regarding trust in systems, the names associated with conspiracies of population reduction, and what sections are names known? War produces traumas, but effective, convincing conspiracy projections are in a category all by themselves. The term ‘What if?’ does not easily dissolve, and can be easily metamorphosed into diverse situations.

What is the significant reality is that ‘COVID’ did arouse our cultural relevance to the things of hygiene our elders had taught us decades ago. Even today, there is a lack of the protocols of the ‘hygiene code’ applied through that some citizens still wearing their masks.

I usually walk with an extra mask that was put there by my wife in case the one I’m wearing has to be discarded. Recently, I once was on a bus when a lady started coughing in the seating section before mine. The young lady immediately behind her and next to me, reached into her bag but unfortunately got lost in the maze in the process. I assumed the cause of the coughing was uncontrollable, so, without asking, I took out the new mask and offered it to the young lady next to me. She nodded her head in acceptance, and quickly put it on. The cough may not have been as a result of some infectious disease, but the awareness and men were alive. I’m sure that young woman will always carry a mask in her bag after that.

‘COVID’ and the cycle of distrust that has affected us remain. We in Guyana always assume that things will fall into place; that we don’t need to interfere, as some magic will fix it. But it doesn’t. Everything needs a conversation, through subtle, subliminal, or open means. We hold the magic wand, because the sorcerer was never there.