It would, one expects, not have been lost on the leaders of this nation and on the nation as a whole that the absence of an officially declared outcome to the March 2 general elections up to this time and the onset of the coronavirus are the two priority concerns and that the well-being of the country in all of its various respects is dependent on the satisfactory handling and the outcomes of both issues.
What we have learnt about the nature of segments of public behaviour in our country, however, is that there can, at times, be no limit to the lengths of fancifulness and mischief to which sections of public opinion can go. That is why it would be quite pretentious of those of us who respond with entirely feigned surprise to suggestions that somehow, a lethal virus that is cutting a swathe through the world at this time is somehow being manipulated to obfuscate the issue of resolving the general elections impasse.
Suggestions of this kind however far-fetched they may seem, can gather currency and it is a good thing there have appeared, publicly, responses to such suggestions, coming from different sections of public opinion admonishing those who are sufficiently twisted in their thinking to make such a suggestion. Not only is the coronavirus very real and arguably quite threatening to the future of our country, but it also must be patently clear that the magnitude of the response that is required necessitates a collective response, a national response that will have to involve inputs from all sides of the socio-political spectrum. That, the prevailing political impasse notwithstanding, should not be an insurmountable task even though there may be some who may have us believe otherwise. Indeed, it is in times like these that we get a clearer picture as to whether the loyalties of those who lead us and those who seek to do so, lie purely with the desire for power, per se, or whether their commitment is to the good of the nation as a whole.
What is quite obvious is that the magnitude of the coronavirus threat and the nature of its behaviour means that different groups and organisations including government, political parties, business organisations and social groups each, on account of the different ‘audiences’ that have their attention, can, in their respective ways, contribute to a cumulative response that can help us push back what may well be a threat to our short to medium term and even our long-term future as a country. To suggest, therefore, that we can somehow ‘spin’ the virus to distract attention from the importance of settling the political issue that is, as well, a matter of unquestioned national relevance, is to indulge in a kind of cynicism that is not just cynical but dangerous. Indeed the wide-ranging recommended responses that have been coming from the various UN organisations are likely to become eminently more implementable if there were to be a pooling of effort amongst the various political, social, religious, business and other groupings.
There is, however, an important lesson to be learnt from the convergence of all of these circumstances and it is this. What our now familiar election-time partisan ‘flare-ups’ have taught us is that while, intermittently, we continue to talk the talk of social cohesion and a universal recognition of our ethnic reality, we have not done very much in terms of walking the walk, and that is notwithstanding the institutions that have been created and the academic and intellectual probes that have been undertaken, over time. The truth of the matter is that the empty symbolism that is reflected in the institutions, the slogans and the fora, cannot possibly replace the practical work that we need to do at the grass root level to help all of us understand the essence of coexistence.
As the saying goes, “the noise in the market is not the sale.” Contextually, there may, perhaps, be a particular significance in the manner in which the coronavirus has thrown us together. Neither of the two imperatives (that of addressing the general elections impasse and that of fending off the coronavirus) can be subsumed, one beneath the other. But perhaps the real point here is that neither of the two issues can be tackled with any degree of effectiveness unless we put our country, as a whole, first.
