DAILY SUN: 26 February, 2020
Human beings are very much vulnerable physically and mentally. In case of excessive cold and hit wave they have to take extra protection to survive. Sometimes they cannot tolerate any big hurt from their near and dear ones and that hurt leads to severe heart attack or to death. Not only that, every human being is also very much lonely and helpless. Though he or she is a social and rational being, every individual has separate entity, responsibility, accountability and consequence in this worldly life and beyond. Everyone wants to survive him/herself at any cost. In a life threatening condition even a father or mother forget about his or her own children and become busy to safe their own life.
Now an unprecedented situation the world has ever witnessed has been created due to outbreak of newly appeared Novel Coronavirus at Hubei province of central China where more than 1600 people have already died and thousands of others have been infected. The World Health Organization (WHO) has already declared it as world health emergency. The busiest streets and avenues of many thriving cities in China have become apparently deserted and panic seized them severely. China, which is also called the ‘world factory’ has been bound to shut down many big manufacturing industries, supply chain, big shopping malls and markets due to this epidemic.
If we look into the history of last 2000 or more years, we would find that many infectious diseases like- plague, small pox, cholera, malaria, various flues caused millions of people’s death. In 430 B.C., smallpox killed more than 30,000 people in Athens, Greece, reducing the city’s population by at least 20%. The Plague of Justinian, which began in 541 and continued on and off for nearly 200 years, killed 50 million people in the Middle East, Asia and the Mediterranean basin, according to some estimates.
From the beginning of 21st century we are observing many new diseases are appearing day by day. At the same time many old diseases like, polio, various flues, dengue with an inevitable shape where vaccines are not working effectively and claiming huge life mainly in Africa. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, better known as SARS, was first identified in 2003 in China, though the first case is believed to have occurred in November 2002. By July more than 8,000 cases and 774 deaths had been reported. The global H1N1 flu pandemic may have killed as many as 575,000 people, though only 18,500 deaths were confirmed. The H1N1 virus is a type of swine flu, which is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by the type A influenza virus.
Now this has been proven that human beings are critically helpless to this microscopic virus where millions of deadly weapons, fighter jets with the latest technology, drones and missiles are in the stock by which the whole world could be destroyed several times. But ironically we are unable to do anything for combating this microscopic virus.
Human knowledge is very much limited. They are completely ignorant about any future event which is going to happen even after a few seconds. Moreover we cannot recall hundreds of events that took place before our eyes during a few days or hours back. Sir Isaac Newton said, “I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me”. Similarly, Albert Einstein realized, “Two things are infinite: The universe and the human stupidity”.
As the knowledge of a human being is very much limited -it is, therefore, absolutely unwise to remain free from tension about more deadly, unpreventable diseases and flash natural calamities that might appear in the coming days. Scientific achievement of today’s world is substantially bigger than that of 100 years back. Many theories and hypothesis of 100 years back have now become obsolete and irrelevant. Similarly no guarantee can be given that same thing might not be happened 100 years later when even many theories might be absolutely unacceptable.
Medial science still has not been able to invent any effective vaccine against HIV-AIDS and various cancers which are the two biggest killers in the present world. In 1984, scientists identified the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, as the cause of AIDS. That same year the deadly disease killed more than 5,500 people in the United States. Today more than 35 million people around the world are living with an HIV infection. More than 25 million people have died of AIDS since the first cases were reported.
Imagine, if this global health emergency continues for several months, if it is spread many countries, if thousands of people are infected and die every day then what could be the actual scenario in this globe. Most of the factories will shut down, production line and supply chain will be cut off, world trade and commerce will be stranded, millions of people will come under the shortage of food, fuel. The whole world then would become a hell as it has been in the Hubei province in China.
So why are the egotism, arrogance in human mind and forgetfulness about the unknown future? If we analyze some historical events of last 100 years, we could predict that our planet is going to face many unprecedented and severe epidemics, natural calamities and atomic war where this hi-tech civilization might come to an end.
Reckless uses of natural resources, rapid urbanization, industrialization, deforestation and subsequent severe environmental pollution have made this green a planet pretty much unfavourable for living creatures. Bio diversity has been damaging and the eco-system has been broken down substantially. Therefore, natural remedy of many diseases has been disappeared.
At the same time morality and ethics of relationship is reducing day by day. Sexual morality is also disappearing and causing many unknown diseases that can be termed as abstract reason behind may new diseases rather than material causes. It has been proven that AIDS has been infected through homosexuality. So we cannot deny the necessity of sexual morality by any excuse. Because this is against the nature, and therefore, nature must give punishment as a backlash.
But what might be the remedy? This has already been too much of our recklessness and unethical lifestyle of running after maximization of capital, inhumane food habit and multidimensional consumerism. Unethical experiment on human genome and many other genetic engineering is also a big threat. Many GM foods are proved as harmful for human consumption and might be responsible for many diseases, like cancer.
Soil, water and atmosphere are being polluted and contaminated severely. Our oceans are becoming a plastic jungle. Rivers are being polluted severely. Our green planet is becoming brown day by day. All of those factors are also causing many new and unidentifiable diseases.
Money, arms power, technological advancement, luxury and various other physical comforts have brought human beings of today’s world to a state of complete forgetfulness about their vulnerability and helplessness. Human beings are still very much vulnerable even in this 4th industrial revolution period as they were in the pre-historic age in terms of combating natural disaster and deadly infectious diseases. So all of us should uplift morality and check moral degradation in our whole life. We should also be moderate and rational in consuming natural resources, leading luxurious lifestyle. Otherwise we are going to encounter some more unprecedented disasters waiting for this civilization in the coming years that could lead this globe to an ultimate devastation where many thriving, towering cities would become abandoned as almost all people could die of various unknown, unpreventable infectious diseases and flash natural calamities.
© Copyright: All rights reserved by the writer, Noore Alam Siddiqui
