“Truth” or “fact” in science is an evidence-based statement, not just a “subjective” feeling or an impression, and therefore people at risk, be it from a pandemic, epidemic or even a threat from a foreign enemy need to hear what they are up against.
by Dr. Ruwantissa Abeyratne in Montreal
“Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.” ― Spencer Johnson
At the end of each year, we look back and try to make sense of what it brought us. There is no such need this year, as we all know what we went through. The difference this year was that all of us in the world went through the same thing, and hopefully realized the same fundamental truths about ourselves. I list below my take.
01. Tell the truth to those who rely on you to look after them
The Washington Post reported that when the first indications of a potentially infectious brand of pneumonia was detected in Wuhan, health officials covered up the scientific discovery: “The punishment meted out to Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist, and others who shared information about local transmission had a chilling effect on doctors. Ai Fen, a physician who shared the “SARS-like” lab results with Li, was head of emergency care at Wuhan Central Hospital. Based on the cases she saw in late December; she concluded the disease was probably human-to-human contagious and alerted the hospital authority. But the hospital’s Supervision Department admonished her for “spreading rumors and causing trouble … and causing social panic”. A Report published in August 2020 in The New York Times by Edward Wong, Julian E. Barnes and Zolan Kanno-Youngs concluded that “.officials in the city of Wuhan and in Hubei Province, where the outbreak began late last year, tried to hide information from China’s central leadership”.
This is a disturbing fact that percolates from the pandemic of 1918 where it is recorded that the then President of the United States never included the word “pandemic” in his messages and public statements but focused solely on the war that was going on at that time. Thousands were dying at the time from what was seen to be an uncontrollably transmissible influenza.
“Truth” or “fact” in science is an evidence-based statement, not just a “subjective” feeling or an impression, and therefore people at risk, be it from a pandemic, epidemic or even a threat from a foreign enemy need to hear what they are up against. As President Theodore Roosevelt said: “Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.”
Geoffrey P. Dobson of the Heart, Trauma and Sepsis Research Laboratory, College of Medicine and Dentistry, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD, Australia in an article titled Science and the War on Truth and Coronavirus says: “Since February 2020 I have never heard the word “science” mentioned so many times in my 30 years as a scientist, or have I witnessed its credibility being blindly attacked for political gain. We live in a dangerous world and we are outnumbered; 20 million viruses can fit on the head of pin. We need to embrace these new realities, listen to the experts, and not be swayed by the uninformed or naysayers”.
Essential truth embraces the reality of the moment which an effective leadership is required to divulge to the people under the social contract theory upon which the leader is elected by the people. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines the social contract theory as a theory that is nearly as old as philosophy itself, which establishes the principle that that persons’ moral and/or political obligations are dependent upon a contract or agreement among them to form the society in which they live. This means that truth is an integral element of the social contract theory where leadership promises transparency to the people with a view to ensuring their safety and security as well as giving them the necessary impetus to protect themselves.
02. Show Leadership
Truth and effective leadership are ineluctably interwoven. David M. Rubenstein, in his book How to Lead begins by saying: “ I have always been fascinated with leadership – specifically what individual leaders can accomplish by the power of their intellect, level of their unique skill, force of their personality, or effectiveness of their ability to persuade”. Of course, it goes without saying that, in order to show these qualities and conduct a leader must have intellect. Intellect and intelligence are different: even mutually exclusive where the former is based on acquired knowledge through memory whereas the latter is nothing but consciousness or awareness. It is incontrovertible that the primary duty and function of a leader – be it national or global – is to improve the lives of people.
In the current context of the pandemic, the seminal consideration of true and effective leadership should be adherence to global cooperation. One could expand this principle to every aspect of national or international crisis that befalls humankind. The absence of global cooperation and leadership and the promotion of nationalistic policies is what Nobel Laureate Geoffrey Sachs calls “pure politics top to bottom which has nothing to do with anything meritorious other than the idea of temporary advantage in some geopolitical contests and contexts.” Global cooperation during the current crisis has been conspicuously absent. In the words of Yuval Noah Harari “what we are seeing around the world now is not an inevitable natural disaster. It is a human failure. Irresponsible governments neglected their health care systems, failed to react on time, and are at present still failing to cooperate effectively on a global level. We have the power to stop this, but so far we lack the necessary wisdom”.
It is evident that nations have acted in their own individual interests in a global crisis. To alleviate this problem, it might be a good idea for today’s leaders to have two main teams in their governments: one dealing with the current situation; and the other dealing with future scenarios.
03. Be United in Humanity
In no other year in recent times than the current one when the world has come together where people have united to help those in distress: from health care workers who put their lives on the line to treat COVID-19 patients, to social workers who distributed essential items to the destitute and the desperate. In addition to these categories there are others. Refugees International records that “As the pandemic spreads, the coronavirus will disproportionately impact the world’s most vulnerable, among them refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced people (IDPs). The scale and speed of the pandemic underscore how deeply interconnected the world’s populations have become. A virus does not respect borders. Nor does it discriminate. A truly effective response, not to mention a morally correct one, also must not discriminate”.
The Holy Prophet Mohamed is quoted as having said: “The faithful, in their love for one another and in their having mercy for one another and in their kindness toward one another, are like one body; when a member of it ails, all (the parts of) the body call one another (to share the pain) through sleeplessness and fever.” Abd al-Rahman Azzam his article “Social Responsibility in Islam” says: “The difference between Islam and most other religions is that it did not content itself with merely establishing acts of worship and abandon the needs of society to a Caesar or any form of temporal governing body. Rather, Islam established ways of conduct, relationships, and rights and obligations for the individual vis-à-vis members of his family and the nation and for the nation vis-à-vis other nations”.
In Luke 10:29-37 a lawyer asks Jesus “and who is my neighbour” in response to Jesus’ teaching: “love thy neighbour as thyself”. Jesus then teaches the Parable of the Good Samaritan with the ultimate truth that one who has mercy on another is one’s neighbour.
Hinduism posits that each person has a moral compass to guide one's life by cultivating family and social values to fulfil the social responsibilities towards the weak and the needy.
These philosophical views could give us an insight into what our rights and duties are in this hour of crisis. My own take is that we owe a duty to our community, strangers though they might be, to see the world as they see it, understand their vulnerabilities and concerns, and do something about it.
04. Be Antifragile
Finally, we must also realise the fragility and randomness of our own health and life and teach ourselves a collective humility. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling author of The Black Swan, in his book Antifragile introduces the reader to the interesting and well-reasoned concept called “Antifragile”. He states that any system which depends on predictability and presumption is fragile and that “some things benefit from shocks and they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder and stressors”. According to Taleb black swans (which as we all know are a rarity) are large-scale unpredictable and irregular events which can either devastate those that are fragile and dependent on a certain rigid stability or energize risk takers and flexible persons into action. This is the time to innovate and create, as we have done so admirably with the rapid production of vaccines. We must do more as we step into the future, through scenario planning and be ready for even greater health and natural disasters which have been predicted by the experts.
This is a time when we must also be careful of exploitation. Naomi Klein in her book The Shock Doctrine, The Rise of Disaster Capitalism bases her thesis on the premise that people who are devastated by a disaster look towards rebuilding what they lost whereas free market forces look for exactly the opposite – to start with a clean slate by exploiting the disaster to their advantage. COVID-19 is a multi-dimensional plague facing us. This must not happen as we tread with trepidation into 2021.
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