Dr Asangba Tzudir
In contemporary times, life is getting more risky without even knowing the impending risks and its source until one is confronted by it. Take the case of global climatic changes causing disaster and disrupting normal life. Any policy especially in matters of geo-politics has the potential to trigger a World War. A catastrophe associated with nuclear fission is always a clear and present risk. Terrorism has also taken varied forms especially post 9/11, and which has created a risk psychosis among the human communities worldwide.
On another level, the interconnectedness of the world today can get one affected even by smaller local events. This interconnectedness further connected by the World Wide Web has also not helped the cause thereby replicating worldwide events associated with violence at a local level, which were never heard or had hardly happened before. And currently the world is battling against COVID-19 which has really brought the global community to a standstill. Initially, during the outbreak of Corona Virus, none would have anticipated the danger associated with it that it would become a global pandemic. It is not simply a cause of concern but alarming due to the inadequacies in the health care delivery system and the rising cases of deaths.
Thus, looking at the kind of risks today, it has considerably altered and has expanded in terms of its scale and scope notwithstanding the mystifying element of uncertainties associated with it thereby making it more alarming wherein humans are further subjected to a life that is vulnerable and defenseless in the face of death.
In the face of risks, one can most assuredly say that in the modern condition, humans have become the agents and perpetrators of risk - as agents that manufacture risks, fear and uncertainties. Technological advancements has brought about untold comforts but on the other hand, it seems like such advancements do no longer create an impact on human progress, rather creates risks, fear, making life vulnerable. A greater risk also comes from the process of knowledge production whereby something contentious becomes labeled as a ‘fact’ which thereby becomes ‘knowledge’ irrespective of its ‘truth’ or ‘falsity’. Such process of knowledge production can only create further risks, fear, and uncertainties and even trigger violence.
As agents of risks, like in the present COVID-19 pandemic personal hygiene and social distancing are the preliminary requisites to mitigate the risks and avoid the worst things happening.
Today, to a large extent we have manufactured our own vulnerability, uncertainty and risks and in the ongoing production of risk and uncertainty, progress and development becomes sacrificed and human pursuits becomes reduced to goals that are no longer concerned about productive engagements or something that is directed to create positive results.
Sadly, in the struggle to prevent to worst, human resources are forced to come together in trying to avoid bad things happening rather than progress and development. The focus seems to have shifted from the attainment of the ‘good’ and the ‘right’ to the prevention of the worst things happening like containing a ‘sleeping giant’.
In times as such, when humans lie at the centre of manufacturing especially in the pursuit of political and economic power, so also as agents of risks endangering lives of the global community, let it also remind each individual of the meaning of life and the purpose of living and to engage in productive activities for the larger good of humanity.
(Dr Asangba Tzudir contributes a weekly guest editorial to The Morung Express. Comments can be mailed to asangtz@gmail.com.)
