My wish for 2021

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Every new year many of us post a bold and brazen picture, bravely challenging the New Year with vim and gusto. Yes, it was with vim and gusto we proclaimed “Bring it on!” I did too. I designed a poster depicting a man standing with hands outstretched with 2019 emblazoned on the sky. Well, that was the first day of 2019, when we have not yet experienced 2019 and 2020.

Here we are, the first day of 2021, a year that could be as severe, if not more, than the one that just passed. So, what would be my dare and wish? It is certainly not with bravado. It is a rather wimpish “my wish for 2021 is that life would imitate art”.

“Life imitates art” refers to the notion where an event in the real world is inspired by creative work. Yes, possibly there are cases that it did occur. And today I fervently pray it will be one of the occasions this year. So, I am imploring to Heaven – “Please, let it be. Let our life, the life of the earth imitates art”. Never mind if the art I am referring is one of the Hollywood films.

The film I have in mind is “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, a 2008 science-fiction thriller starring Keanu Reeves as Klaatu, which, I presume supposed to be an alien-sounding name. In the movie, he was an alien sent by his mother planet to try to save the earth. Please note that the operative word here is “earth”. In his short sojourn, Klaatu found out that earth was slowly and surely being destroyed by a virus. The logical conclusion would be to exterminate this virus and the earth will be saved.

Guess what that virus was? Humans! Yes, humans — you and I. We were the virus that was destroying the earth. Klaatu’s mission was to save the earth and so he hoped that he could persuade man to change his ways thereby arrest the destruction of this blue planet.

However, during his short sojourn, Klaatu witnessed the greediness, the selfishness and the frailty of man. Where was the kindness and humanity of this assigned custodians of the planet? Klaatu’s fear was confirmed by a Mr. Wu, His predecessor who had been living on Earth for 70 years. Wu told Klaatu that he found the human race to be destructive, stubborn and unwilling to change which matches Klaatu’s experiences.

To cut a long story short. It appeared that man’s fate was sealed. Klaatu was about to let loose the man destroying insect-like nano-machines. Then he witnessed a touching moment of compassion which convinced him that there is indeed spark of goodness in man. So, the world was saved.

Okay, so much for the fiction, the Hollywood art. Now, to real life. This Covid-19, what is it? It is certainly novel. Never has a blight afflicted the world on such scale and thorough universality. Those of us who are of more a religious bend are inclined to say that it a punishment by the Divine for our transgressions. Others, less fatalistic in outlook, believe that it is a lesson and a test. A lesson in that this collective experience traumatic might teach us to accept that we are indeed “our brothers’ keepers”, and that we can rise above this challenge with greater fortitude and begin to accept our responsibility as the custodians of this fragile planet.

The writing has been on the wall of our negligence: the deforestation; the destruction of biodiversity; the increased extinction of fauna; the global warming; etc. Some people believe that the melting of the polar ice-cap could have released ancient virus of which coronavirus is one. This last idea is particularly scary, for it portends that other equally deadly viruses might be waiting in the wings.

The notion that the earth is not in the pink of health has been around for quite some time. The environmentalists have been shouting themselves hoarse for decades, but to no avail. Then a few years ago, a firebrand in the form of a teen environmental activist, Greta Thunberg, delivered an emotional and scathing speech at the United Nations.

“I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back at school on the other side of the ocean,” the 16-year-old from Sweden told the United Nations Climate Action Summit. “Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.”

We took note for a while, then it is back to our old complacent selves — placing convenience over responsibility. Then down came the hammer of a reminder — a reminder that no one can ignore. If Covid-19 is a test, then it is a very severe test. It brings out the best and the worst of the man. For each there are too many to enumerate, suffice to say there were acts of heroism that exemplified the virtue of “others before self”; like the 45,000 doctors and nurses who converge to Wuhan to help during its darkest hours; like the 90-year-old woman in Belgium has died after she refused being put on a ventilator, telling doctors to save it for younger patients. Suzanne Hoylaerts reportedly told doctors: “I don’t want to use artificial respiration. Save it for younger patients. I already had a good life.”

That was the good, what about the bad? Governments that try to weaponise the whole issue, to use it as ammunition in their geopolitical war. The avaricious businesses that try to make a killing (pardon the pun) of a profit during this desperate time. The utterly selfish individuals who armed themselves with battle-grade weapons to resist control procedure to combat the pandemic.

My hope and wish for 2021 is that the Divine will see accept (like Klaatu) that we are capable of working together and be our brothers and sisters keepers and that humankind deserves a reprieve. It is my New Year’s wish and hopes that our real-life story will be like Hollywood fiction. Let “life imitates art”. I look forward to a big party on 31 December 2021.