Covid 19 coronavirus: World government's need to pool resources and get pandemic under control

Anzac Day Dawn Commemoration, 2021, Dannevirke. Photo / Christopher Cape

Comment:

Lest we forget. It was 5.15am when I crawled out of bed and donned shoes, clothes and camera bag and made my way in the Anzac Day predawn calm to Dannevirke's war memorial. The sky was clear. It was warm for an autumn morning and dry. I was slightly late as I made my way through the floodlit, amber-tinged memorial ground. The atmosphere was hushed. There must have been at least 200 present, silent and watchful as commemorations proceeded, the Ode of Remembrance recited and the Flowers of the Field piped by the lone piper in the shadow of the cenotaph. The notes of The Last Post hung poignant in the growing dawn.

The solemnity of the occasion was obvious. Even the hymn-singing was subdued. As the crowd dispersed I was perched on a stone wall taking a few last photos. A returned serviceman engaged me in brief conversation and told me that he was conscripted in 1952. "All this," he said, "and we're still at war." I knew what he meant. I also knew there was more to it. We are indeed still at war. It has been said before of course. Power merchants and strongmen at arms are flexing their politics and military might.

Governments in Israel, Palestine, China, Myanmar, Ethiopia and Belarus are killing, maiming and incarcerating those that stand in their way. Since the pandemic began ravaging the planet it seems to me that the genie has escaped the bottle and destruction is rampant. Why, I ask, is the world not on a multinational war footing? It should be. It seems to me that the world forces should be mobilising in full swing and the enemy should be Covid-19, not each other. It seems incredible that the world's governments procrastinate about this. They cannot or will not agree to focus their resources and get this pandemic under control. Possibly that may happen if the G7 Leaders Conference has any influence, but politicians practise posturing well and they speak their own lingo.

The Covid-19 report co-authored by Helen Clark claimed that the World Health Organisation was under-resourced and disempowered. "Make this the last pandemic" was the slogan the report touted. I doubt that will happen.

There seems to be a serious rising of global authoritarianism and right-wing law and order, political control. Narendra Modi avoids national circuit-breaker lockdowns and India reaps the whirlwind of Covid victims, as does Jair Bolsonaro's Brazil. In Myanmar, the military junta rides roughshod over the general population and guerilla armies rise to the defence of the civilian population. Israel chains the Palestinian tiger then provokes it with a stick and screams outrage when it lashes out. New Zealand avoids strong convicting language when talking to China about their treatment of the Uighurs.

It seems to me that the United Nations is no more than an expensive talkfest junket, a paper tiger with as much clout as a wet bus ticket. The Security Council is hobbled. Russia and China veto action against Myanmar's junta and the US vetoes action against Israel. The one time I recall hearing that the UN showed any real calibre was when it sent an armed military strike force into the Democratic Republic of Congo with a mandate to use force to eliminate bands of militant fighters who were murdering and pillaging villages. The UN succeeded.

Any talk of an active, armed UN-sanctioned law or protocol enforcement will, probably, be met by cries of "tyranny" and "A One World Government". Fundamentalist Christians and others will prepare for the end of the world and the return of Jesus Christ, or the rise of the Islamic Caliphate but that end game may not necessarily happen.

If Covid 19 wasn't an invisible microscopic virus but was instead a race of slime wart encrusted yellow-eyed reptilian lizards with opposing thumbs, halitosis, six left feet and a computer-enhanced telepathic intelligence sweeping into Earth's orbit, threatening every continent, maybe then humanity would recognise the threat to existence, and value the planet.

Instead, we have a pandemic that has shown up weaknesses and failings in the fabric of humanity. It has put unbearable strain on relationships, environments and supply lines and exposed the pride and prejudice that powerbrokers thrive on. It is that pride in power, that lust for control that will cause the downfall of civilisation as we know it. That is the real enemy. It is only at the edge of the precipice that change happens. For how long can you live on that edge? If you live there long enough will you forget what it is to live away from the chasm? To remember, lest we forget. It is only when the edge of the precipice is reached that change will happen. How close do we have to get before change happens?

Perhaps that is why Anzac Day commemorations this year were well-attended. It is not just world wars past we recognise, but the ones we are immersed in now.