I CAME across an interview in Al Jazeera with a World Health Organisation official on the Covid-19 crisis.
The WHO official advised governments around the world to reassess their globalisation ideology that has made human beings vulnerable to diseases that are deadly and has far reaching consequences to the economy and wellbeing of the people.
He said it seems that virus can be spread very easily from animals to humans through ecological proximity. The clearing of forest for economic reasons has resulted in animals moving away from their normal habitat and coming closer to human habtats resulting in speedy transmission of viruses.
The WHO official has raised an important point on the state and priorities of the current global economic ideology that we Malaysians have also adapted to a certain extent. Our current economic system is very much rooted in neo-liberal ideology originating from the Washington Consensus where concrete and effective environmental regulations are seen as an anti-thesis to economic progress.
There is disproportionate logging, hill top clearance to build luxury homes, reclamation of islands that has caused harm not only to species and animals, but also affected the livelihoods of indigenous people and coastal communities. This has triggered a chain of events making it easier for the spread of unknown diseases, cause floods, and to raise temperatures. We are witnessing all this today.
Therefore, the Covid-19 global pandemic should compel governments, economists, scientific communities and civil society to come together and chart a new economic destiny rooted in human security and environmental preservation, that protects the natural habitat vital for the survival of human civilisation. We have made ourselves vulnerable to a lifestyle that is materialistic with little concern for what truly matters. As Pope Francis put it well. when he said that the crisis is not about God’s judgment, but a sign to start living in a different way.
Ronald Benjamin
Secretary
Association for Community and Dialogue
