False Positive

Our Cultural Traditions and Norms Could Kill Us

I am really worried that in SL our ‘island mentality’ and relaxed and convivial social norms means that a vast amount of the population do not understand how important it is to change their cultural habits of closeness and community gatherings (both family and religious) immediately. These traditions might kill them. And us.

The rest of the world is really of not much significance to people with an exclusively local mindset. Nationalism and patriotism which are good in themselves taken too far mean that most people feel that the rest of the world and its happenings do not and will not affect us. Interconnectedness and exponential numbers and pandemics and actions which must be taken to ‘flatten the curve’ are hard to conceptualise without the language to put it into words.

We are proud of our high level of literacy, but that is literacy in Sinhala, and this virus is international, universal and global. And most of the effective warnings and sound medical advice coming in from the countries who have first dealt with it are conveyed in English. These must be translated now, immediately, and the messages conveyed through visual images so everyone can understand them. Island wide, in every form of media.

To survive this pandemic with minimal losses, our beloved lifestyle of sun and sea and social vibrancy and inter-connectivity has to change. Principles of the laws of causality (cause and effect, how every action has a consequence) need to be understood. Social distancing, proven to be the most effective limit to the spread of this virus, is alien to our culture. People are tactile, and show support and affection through physical proximity. It is not going to be easy to change this mindset.

Everyone has to say: ‘I am sorry, but we have to not see each other in person, for a while.’ Children who were at school in their hundreds until a few days ago, with dozens of kids in large tuition classes, and adults in social gatherings and business summits and meetings, are likely to possibly have been in contact with people who unknowingly have carried this. I have been reading up on it daily, seeing what happens in other countries compared to SL. The culture here is very social, enmeshed and inter- generational, and it is impossible to stop people being in contact with each other just by advising them to do so. They do not as a whole understand the numbers, or the urgency.

We must think back two weeks from the first declared cases: Where were we? What were we doing? Who did we see? And they say that the incubation period may be longer than 2 weeks. More like 3.

We cannot take any risks now.

I saw on Twitter 2 days ago, the comment that: ‘Pettah is full of people. In supermarkets entire families are shopping accompanied by little ones and grandparents too. The TV showed some religious gatherings with many elderly people participating. Very few are practising social distancing by keeping a metre apart’.

I am happy to report that when I went grocery shopping yesterday at the local Food City, the shelves were well-stocked and all essentials were in good supply. No one was pushing or shoving, as we have seen people doing in other countries. The staff wore gloves and masks. But the security guards outside were not wearing the masks properly, some covering only their mouths but not their noses.

This kind of haphazardness of preventative implementation is completely eclipsed, however, by the criminal moral ignorance and unforgivable unconcern displayed by those who have attended large communal gatherings in the past two weeks, with information about the spread of this illness and its high level of contagion widely available to them.

Whether gathering for religious reasons at festivals to pray for their families and country, or to celebrate brotherhood and camaraderie and sentimental traditions at 3-day sporting matches, it is clear that the numbers of those infected explode after events like these. In the name of personal pleasure, and of spiritual sanctity, our fellow citizens and their compulsions are about to inflict unwanted damage on us.

Even this for me paled in comparison to the news that there were citizens returning from Italy last week, blatantly lying to immigration authorities about their place of departure, to avoid quarantine detainment, careless of the consequences to their families, friends and the doctors who they expect to look after them when they fall ill, and think they are having heart failure because they cannot breathe. Their highly developed sense of personal survival far outstrips their sense of collective responsibility.

The entire medical staff of a large hospital are now in quarantine instead of being able to assist, at this critical juncture. It is obvious that the medical staff need community support: not only in the form of understanding of citizens  of their own crucial personal role in limiting the spread of the virus, but also in terms of our collective awareness that this crisis will take some time to pass, and in the meantime doctors, nurses, and all other medical staff need equipment: especially respiratory equipment, and supplies of personal protective gear. Not only in the short term, but in the mid to long term. They are most at risk of getting ill, because they will be most exposed to those who are ill, and for prolonged periods of time. A community funded and supported supply chain would be a wonderful creation, with social service enterprise groups, online activist groups and philanthropic individuals all contributing.

On a social level, the medical staff in every hospital will be working round the clock, and they will need food and drink and sleep in order to be healthy enough to care for those who will fall ill. It is a slow-breaking and terrible tsunami they are facing, as the numbers of those who are infected rise and start to explode.

Community groups who are assisting the elderly, immuno-compromised and less able amongst us by shopping for groceries and essential medicines for them must be supported. It is time to be vigilant on behalf of those most vulnerable, and to serve and protect them. All the things we proudly celebrate in our culture: the importance of family, the love and concern for our children, our compassion for our fellow human beings, our pride in our nation, our concern for the suffering of those in trouble, have to be translated into direct action, now. Or the words will be empty and the hospitals (and cemeteries) will be full.

It is unfortunate and ironic that many of those celebrating so joyfully at sporting events are highly likely to be ardent patriots, sincerely devoted to their families, schools, and formative institutions, and all round good people, thronging temples and churches and kovils and mosques, and sporting stadiums and arenas, in numbers at every gathering of the faithful.

Not knowing is not as bad as not caring. But both levels of unawareness of the vital - and viral - connection between self and society may prove disastrous.

Our collective ignorance about these issues has - until now - been merely frustrating. From this week, it could be fatal.