Witoubou Newmai
The preponderance of COVID-19 pandemic ‘discourse’ and a great deal of anxiety it brings in collective mind have taken our society a distance away, at least for now, from the usual veritable fissures of quasi war----local conflicts, intercommunity strife and bellicose ism.
When we talk about the ‘distance away’ from the usual pandemonium, we are also talking about the respite from strife.
But the concern is also about our society’s most likelihood of coming back from where it left when ‘normalcy’ returns.
But still we may ask whether the absence of ruckuses kicked up by strife can give us some clearer views about our relational hiatus.
As the gravity of COVID-19 pandemic has altered every single usual pose of humanity or thrown all of us radically off-balance, thereby diverting every soul from the ‘usual’, we wonder whether we are willing to intervene and mediate the situation into our advantage.
As every day brings us some new material to contemplate, thanks to the prevailing pandemic, our society should be able to see more into the unfurling scenario in order to say and do more for us. It is about managing and capitalizing the situation to cut out more details for us. There is so much about the prevailing situation.
But are we ready to see more into it in order to say and do more for us?
If this is not a relevant question for us to ask then what is it? The question, perhaps, should be considered as an overture to the unfurling details to ask a plethora of questions, again for us.
It is time to discard our usual discourse that often drowns in fatuity. We have had enough of thrust-and-parry games, so much so that we are decimating all available scopes of progress at any rate rather than enlarging them.
It is also time for us to get prepared, when we get familiar with the new normal, to see familiarity with a new and progressive spirit. Coming to this point of discussion has also brought us back to remind ourselves the kind of lens we have been viewing through.
Since our response to situation depends on the kind of lens we see through, the nature of lens will indirectly determine our situation in turn. This is what exactly has been our case for so long.
We need to admit that our society’s lethargy to rectify our lens has created the kind of atmosphere we have today, which in turn is changing us to "something we are not".
With this, our society needs to remind itself also that a progressive society lies somewhere between the willingness to be in progress and the corresponding action. We need also to remind ourselves that our society will continue to suffer as long as it denies vision.
Cutting short to conclude: The prevailing respite from strife has taken us a bit away from the usual situation, and, which we suppose that respite gives us a better front view now to re-describe our situation in order to rectify our lens.
