Dr. Niroshana Wickramarathna, Ph.D., M.Sc., M.Ent., B.Sc.
Senior Lecturer Kandy, Sri Lanka

Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has already put our lives in jeopardy and exhibited potential to reshape the norms of our society. A mounting number of deaths being reported due to Covid-19 and pending economic recession have chilled us to the bone, social disruptions caused by locked-downs, indefinite curfews enforced, running out of food and essential supplies have triggered enormous anxiety in societies across the globe. On the other hand, the wild animals whose natural freedom suppressed by activities of human beings have been set free (not sure if this holds true for animals caged in zoos who have unfairly been imprisoned for the mere sake of human pleasure), the air polluted with greenhouse gases has suddenly become much cleaner, hustling and bustling cities characterized by unbearable noises have gone pinfall silence, and more importantly, in a slower pace of lives, innovative and out-of-the-box ideas have emerged. Simultaneously, we all impatiently wait for an end of lock-downs and curfews so that normality in all facets of our lives could be restored. Would that normality be again characterized by the free-market economy, political corruption or anarchism, rampant ecological destruction, relentless pursuit of profit and economic growth, ever-widening social inequalities (the world’s twenty-six richest people own as much wealth as half the entire world’s population) that were key detrimental features of neoliberalism?

In a year or two, the current situation would have eased out with a discovery of a proper vaccine or people becoming more immune to the virus. For some, it would mark the defeat of the pandemic and signal the light at the end of the tunnel. Because, we often cling on to identify an enemy of a given calamity instead of figuring out enmity within us, thus, we do not give a priority for deciphering the message encoded in the particular situation. In other words, we prefer to answer the effect instead of digging deep into the root causes which have resulted in this dire condition across the world. Yet, it is strongly believed that the scale of devastations has been so much that the world order would not fall back to the status quo prevailed in the pre-Covid era. If it does, that would really be a tremendous missed opportunity as Covid-19 has presented us with a harbinger of making a new world order which should mark a paradigm shift in our socio-economic landscapes.

At this juncture, two possible directions could be envisaged concerning the trajectory of our civilization, a) continuing with the globalized open economic approach that has already run havoc in many ways, b) making solid changes in our socio-economic system by transforming a globalized economic model to a localized economic approach, and by transforming an individualistic based society to a more of a community based (co-existing) living characterized by loving-kindness, compassion, empathy, equanimity (four sublime attitudes). Various developments that are currently underway, do not seem to furnish any conclusive shreds of evidence for the final trajectory along which the world would be heading during the post-Covid era. Although the aim of this article is to look at how Covid-19 pandemic may influence two of these possible trajectories that our civilization is likely to propel, at first, it is worth understanding western hegemony in socio-economic, political, and scientific landscapes.

End of the road to Western hegemony?

In the wake of Covid-19, powerful nations that have portrayed themselves as the world’s superpowers, who also stranglehold smaller nations and should largely be held accountable for instigating anthropogenic destructions to this world, have run like cockroaches in a flash of light. Covid-19 made them look very small. One of the world’s prestigious research centers, NASA, which usually engaged in initiating space travels to the moon, searching for lives in other planets, was forced to shut down, a Navy captain in one of the biggest nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in the US Navy who feared of its crew members over Covid-19 was sacked for raising health concerns. In a confrontation with an invisible virus, the might of ammunition power searched for hiding grounds. At some corners even in the West, leaders appeared to push for radical changes in the world order, for instance, Italian PM recently told a newspaper that “after the coronavirus, nothing will be as before, we will have to sit down and rewrite the rules of trade and the free market”. Developments being unfolded and voices of people battered by a thing of a few microns suggest that there must be a shift in the human civilization trajectory that has propelled along an axis of evil in pursuit of wealth. Changes should be unique for a given state, because, the world is currently stewing in its own juice as the dependency of socio-economic parameters on cultural diversity had been ignored for too long. Institutions established by coalitions in the post-war era played a major role in manipulating and normalizing cultures of smaller nations according to desires of veto powered nations. It is very clear throughout various eras in history, the objective has been to dominate smaller nations, though the controlling mechanism had been different. In the colonial era, cheating natives with treaties and forceful persuasion were adapted, whereas institutions under United Nations established the control mechanism in the post-war era, and in the most recent decades in neo-liberal era, a globalized free-market economy and human rights have been instrumental in achieving their control over poorer states. This western hegemony is well summed up in one of the native American poems.

The whites were always trying to make Indians give up their life and
live like white men—go to farming, work hard, and do as they did—and
the Indians did not know how to do that and did not want to.
If the Indians had tried to make the whites live like them,
the whites would have resisted.

Changes that might be introduced, should depend on the cultural basis of a given state and decouple any mechanisms that foster western hegemony to prosper. According to one of the prominent figures of western scientific philosophy, Paul Feyerabend (author of Against Method), new theories came to be accepted not because of their accord with the scientific method, but because their supporters made use of any trick – rational, rhetorical or ribald – in order to advance their cause. He also came up with a famous phrase, “anything goes”, which underlines that any knowledge carried forward traditionally could not be ruled out as superstitious or non-scientific. As this challenged Karl Popper’s theory of falsification that was meant to demarcate other systems of knowledge (according to the West, non-scientific) from western scientific knowledge, Feyerabend is widely regarded as science’s worst enemy. Thus, it is appropriate to use native methods that have been bequeathed upon us by our ancestors and proven successful for thousands of years rather than attempting to find a western scientific basis/pieces of evidence in support of our methods. In other words, we do not have to validate our methods by using Western sciences because our methods have historically been proven correct and they do not need the support of western sciences to prop up as they can withstand on their own.

Keep the ball rolling

Many leaders in former superpowers before Covid-19 have already expressed their urgency to prematurely open locked-down countries or states for business. These countries or leaders may step up the industrial production in an endeavour to compensate for the losses during locked-downs and to beef up their economies. As a result of increased consumerism, enhanced inequality, intensified pollution, loss of justice, democracy, and privacy, the exacerbation of the status of the earth prevailed in the pre-Covid era will surely expedite.

For instance, US EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) took measures to suspend enforcement of its laws so that industry can pollute the environment without limits as long as it can be proved that their business is somehow connected to the pandemic. Following the same approach, China expects to beef up its production by relaxing its environmental laws. In observing other recent developments, it has already given signs that in the post-Covid era, justice and democratic values could be at stake, for instance, the Hungarian parliament passed a bill that allows its PM to govern by decree, furthermore, anyone could receive a five-year jail term if s/he is proven to be responsible for disseminating false information. The Department of Justice in the US filed a request to craft legislation allowing chief judges to indefinitely hold people without trial and suspend other constitutionally protected rights during the coronavirus. Israeli’s PM has managed to partially shut down the country’s courts. Following China, Taiwan, and South Korea, Israel has passed an emergency decree to use cellphone data to retrace the movements of individuals who test positive for the virus.

Covid-19 has also pushed constitutions of certain countries to their limits, particularly in the West, thus, the political bubble they have been entrenched in to is about to rupture. In the US, the president argued that the power of lifting the lock-down lies with him while governors and legal experts of certain states claimed that the president does not have the authority according to the federal constitution. In addition, the fear of uncertain future and mistrust has engulfed many places such as in the US, people purchased record-breaking numbers of guns amid coronavirus. Even the dormant racism in the West has resurfaced as two French doctors suggested a potential vaccine for coronavirus should first be tested on people in Africa.

Blow away the cobwebs

Covid-19 should not, however, send a signal to be introverted as nations but to localize. The word, glocalization may be perceived as a process that integrates local concerns with the global needs or adaptation of global trends to match the local concerns. Since the colonial period, Sri Lanka as a country has failed to make this transformation. Also, with the embankment of neo-liberalism in the country, lifestyles rapidly veered towards self-centered compartmentalization from a co-existing environment in which human beings were considered to be a part of the entire ecosystem. So, we will soon have to make a reverse transformation from individualism to co-existence. Some drastic changes in our perceptions and practices are required to instigate in our socio-economic system, some of which are discussed in the following.

Native knowledge. Whether it be the history (local or global), sciences, medicine, or anything else, we have been taught to rely on western sciences and norms, and often disregard our own knowledge as myths. In other words, western sciences have become more of a religion than its original motive. Many recent disclosures have fueled the claim that scientific facts are suspect and that science is in crisis. Scientists appear to engage in facing interests instead of revealing interesting facts. It was ridiculous to observe that the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) in Sri Lanka, could not adopt recommendations by the World Health Organization (WHO) to match local requirements. When WHO initially declared that the severity of the pandemic did not reach a level where the face masks could be used, GMOA requested the public to abstain from using face masks. But, countries like the Czech Republic did not heed to WHO’s recommendations, and they became one of few countries in Europe that well managed the spread of the disease. When WHO soon changed its position and recommended to use face masks, GMOA also switched its position. The point is that the West has had no clue of this disease, even if their physical sciences can at least provide some workable solutions, much of their medical technology largely relied on conclusions made by medical researchers is reported to be misleading, exaggerated, or flat-out wrong. And, even though the publication of medical research considers to be the cornerstone for the propagation and dissemination of medical knowledge, instances of individuals and institutions subverting the ethos of honesty and integrity have become significant. At the moment, some people in the West have significantly rejected to entrench in delusions of medical technology, thus, in countries like Germany, almost 40% of people use complementary and alternative medicine.

We need to urgently enhance the trust of our own methods that have survived more stringer testing times in history. In the historic tragedy of the island of Ceylon, written by a Portuguese Captain, Joa Ribeiro in 1685, wrote that “they are great herbalists, and in case of wounds, tumors, broken arms/legs, they affect a cure in a few days with great ease. As for cancer, which is a loathsome and incurable disease among us, they can cure it in eight days, and I have seen a large number of soldiers and Captains cured during my residence in the country, and ease with which this was done was marvelous”. The author further describes Portuguese being responsible for spreading sexually transmitted diseases such as Syphilis among natives, and how natives dealt with common fever to smallpox. Not only the knowledge on medical science and technology, but we have also had a system of knowledge on various fields (metallurgy, irrigation, farming), which are uniquely sustainable and lead to enhance co-existence than conquering one another. Where has this system of knowledge gone? It is worth reviving our knowledge if it has already been buried in time.

Value based-education. The institutionalized education that has been taught does not produce individuals with values. Let alone the values, they are not yet good enough to compete with global challenges even though the entire education system aims at producing a globalized citizen. It is easier to imitate but it is almost impossible to emulate someone else’s trade. Perhaps, it is nothing to do with capabilities but they certainly lack the confidence to win challenges locally. Starting from primary schools, pupils are bombarded with various curriculum, it is very rare that they are being demonstrated of any behavioral habits. Thus, the approach to education requires a major overhaul that transforms a vision with a mere global orientation to a mission that satisfies local requirements.

Unfortunately, we have failed to evolve a value-based education system, a significant portion of the global crises could be attributed to our failure in evolving a value-oriented education system. The intellectual movement dawned in Europe (characterized by the values of reasoning, creativity, and entrepreneurship) transformed dark-aged medieval Europe into a civilized, the scientifically sound, commercially progressive union called, the West.- that assumed the global leadership and dictated the entire course of the human history for the past five centuries. The Western civilization was nurtured by the unwholesome elements of greed, hatred, and perverse understanding corrosive to the humanitarian values and environmental degradation. These elements induced lustful Colonial motives, thus the scientific and technological education directed to promote totalitarianism, imperialism, genocides, and now heralding the anthropogenic era announcing the extinction of the human & animal lives from the planet. In Eleven years in Ceylon, Major Forbes wrote a detailed account on elephant shooting for recreation, he quoted an incident published in a newspaper, “we had excellent sport, having “bagged” one hundred and six elephants among four of us in three days.” Even though having conducted such barbaric acts through imperialism and supremacy, western civilization has been biasedly described in the euro-centric world view as rational, educated, and civilized.

Values and ethics had been the bedrock of civilization in the East. For instance, the Chinese had invented the steam engine before James Watt and made voyages around the world by the manufacturing of ships. However, the Chinese did not want to conquer and colonize other nations, because their education would have linked with Confucianism or Taoism that put more emphasis on benevolent inner values. In contrast to the shape of western civilization, and education should evoke wholesome values in a journey for wisdom. For this, the current institutionalized education needs to be replaced by the Buddha’s Arya scientific inquiry underlying the value-oriented vision for education.

Governance. The country desperately needs to restructure the present governing system. During the locked-down period of Covid-19, a lot of aspects in political administration went relatively smoothly and swiftly in comparison to having 225 individuals calling the shots in the parliament. Of course, there may have been mishaps occurred at such an unprecedented time but it was surely better than 225 people who could not prevent the Easter attack even after receiving contact details of the attackers. The handling of Covid-19 proved that country can move forward with a much smaller team as political administrators. This should be in line with Raja-Andu-Kramaya (refer to the West debunked Raja-Andu-Kramaya would have easily surpassed democratic myth). More liberal and democratic states (as the West & its slaves prefer to claim) have unfortunately got more losses of lives due to Covid-19 than countries run by authoritarians or dictators (as labeled by the West). It is pathetic how the head of the world’s superpower reacted to the pandemic, he wanted to keep the country open for business when the lives of millions of people were at risk. It took hundreds and thousands of lives before he changed his position. Is this the democracy (profits over lives) that our educated pundits have been boasting that has prevailed in the West?

As a starting point, it is high time that we push for abolishing at least one from a chain of hierarchical governing bodies such as urban, district, provincial, and parliament. The most appropriate initiative would be to abolish the 13th amendment of our constitution which was forcefully imposed on us. As racist politicians in northern and eastern Sri Lanka longing for separatism, granting land, police, and judiciary powers to each province and at the same time removing executive powers of the president could easily pave the way for the balkanization of the country. Covid-19 also questions the appropriateness of the 19th amendment of our constitution, it was extremely lucky that the corrupted parliament had already dissolved by the time Covid-19 affected the country. 19th amendment must also be abolished as the executive president elected by the majority of people in the country should possess the power to dissolve a parliament before a period of 4.5 years, if it is deemed that it is detrimental to the country in some ways (national security, economy, etc.).

Glocalized development model. During the Cold War, the US and its European allies were recognized as the first world, the former USSR, China, and their allies were named as the second world, and the countries which remained non-aligned neither with these two blocks were defined as the third world. The political and economic states were instrumental in making these divisions. After the collapse of the former USSR, the word third world has been replaced by developing countries. So, the development of a state is determined by its political alignment and economic prosperity measured by certain norms that were defined by so-called the first world.

Throughout our civilization, people in this country had interlinked with nature, farming and agriculture have been the profession of many. After the profit maniac neo-liberalism and globalization came into the scene, agricultural trade clandestinely turned to commercial business. People started to think of global markets and make profits in foreign currencies instead of pursuing a trade that caters to the demand of the local community. An individual gained material wealth, a country with a high Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and satisfying some other parameters were led to label as a rich individual and a developed nation respectively.

A capitalist society is inevitably linked with a higher degree of consumerism, and the production needs to beef up in order to soothe the enhanced demand for consumption. With limited resource availability for production, it is not possible to keep entertaining our sensual faculties that understand no limits in consumption. We will have to revisit and redefine the term development whether it is something to do with acquiring material wealth and consumption. As a holistic approach to development, instead of GDP, Gross National Happiness (GNP), has been used in a few countries, which values collective happiness as the goal of governance by emphasizing harmony with nature and traditional values. Thus, the government should come up with a development model that ensures the well-being and happiness of the population. The pursuit of material wealth derived by ignorance and driven by greed, hatred could not guarantee any of these. Features such as simplicity instead of wealth, happiness instead of pleasure, and charm instead of gaudiness, may be borne with wisdom and be driven by getting rid of unwholesome thoughts, could assure a state of well-being not only in the society but also in the total environment.

Co-existence through enhanced values. Neo-liberalism originated with individualism as the foundation, thus, an individual was decoupled from the total environment as well as from other individuals in the society. A former British PM, Margret Thatcher once mentioned that there is no such thing as a society, there are only men and women, and families. Such opinions have made detrimental effects to a co-existing society in which human beings are only a part of the environment. The origin of this individualistic perspective could be perceived as a culmination of the scientific revolution, as Francis Bacon stated that the man should be above nature (i.e. a nature in which man is not a part of), and even went on to an extent of describing torturing nature to reveal her secrets”. In general, the basis of the ever-progressive scientific world view encourages meddling with the virgin nature for the benefit of humans or in other words, conquering nature. The further context into this can be found in “From immoral conquest of nature to moral coexistence taught in Buddhism: A timely transformation.”

Neo-liberalism went a step further by separating individuals or families from society. Hence, we would need to go two steps back, thinking as communities instead of individuals, considering human beings/communities as a part of our ecological environment instead of conquering and dominating nature for mere human benefits. Thus, if we want to get out of this failed trajectory, we will have to make choices of our social or economic aspects in such a way that human values are enhanced and kept intact. The communities around the world attempt to help those in need almost surpassing the speed of pandemic outbreak, which signals that the world has suddenly become a place with loving-kindness and compassion.

In brief, Covid-19 proved that interconnectedness created by a globalized free-market economy has come to a sticky end, the supremacy of the West through industrial and scientific revolutions, dissemination of knowledge and culture has been pegged back (“knowledge is power” may not be valid anymore), rampant consumerism by catering to ever replenishing desires of our sensual faculties has been interrogated. So, through Covid-19, once again nature decided to severely chastise wrong-doers and showed big brothers of the earth the way forward. Let us hope that it will not be like flogging a dead horse.