What is Coronavirus (COVID-19) teaching?
Guest Blog by Parwana Amiri
Coronavirus is teaching spiritual and moral lessons that have long been forgotten. It is teaching equality, that all humans are equal regardless of their lifestyle, culture, religion, wealth, skin colour, and geographical location.
Coronavirus is teaching that a border can simply be the door of your room, when you are not allowed to go out, even if you need to. Crossing that door’s frontier is banned.
Coronavirus is teaching that borders can now be crossed without passports. Those documents, which, for years, separated us, excluded us, have little value now. A virus can cross the borders without any identification papers.
Coronavirus is teaching how foolish humans have been by taking for granted the most important necessities of life: food, water, and medicine, while millions around them were deprived of them, living in fear of deprivation, every day of their lives. Today, everyone faces these threats.
Coronavirus is teaching that, no matter how hard humans are working, the important thing is what one does and how what one does can benefit others.
Coronavirus is teaching shame to those full of greed, selfishness, and arrogance. It is teaching that the only way to survive is to help, to share, to give, look after others, and protect them from the virus.
Coronavirus is teaching how the meaning of life changes when you do not have any solution for your problems and you are just waiting to see what others are deciding for your life.
Coronavirus is teaching that all humans are vulnerable.
Coronavirus is teaching patience instead of panic. Many lived in this panic for years and had to choose patience, instead, knowing that panic would cause more harm than good.
Coronavirus is teaching that everyone might become like all those who, for years, had their lives at the mercy of others, without knowing what their fate would be.
Coronavirus is teaching that life can lose its meaning when you are forced to live without any purpose or expectation. Or like in a prison, just staying alive, the prison becoming your home.
Coronavirus is teaching the world that without the freedom of communication, humans become prisoners.
Coronavirus is teaching how painful it is to wait for the fate that others decided for you.
Coronavirus is teaching that nothing can be the exclusive property of anyone. It has to be communicated and shared with others, even if it is your physical body.
Coronavirus is teaching that my disease is also your disease as it may affect you tomorrow. That’s why we have to be responsible for ourselves and for each other.
Coronavirus is teaching the world the life of refugees: what it means to be vulnerable, ignored, alive but hidden, free but in prison, with thousands of words, with thousands of thoughts, but forced to silence.
Coronavirus is giving the same lesson for all.
Yes, Coronavirus is teaching what it means to be a refugee condemned to just stay alive, without a promise of a “real life” across borders. Today, everyone is learning the meaning of life-killing borders, since one’s body, one’s room, and one’s house become impenetrable borders
Coronavirus has a specific form of understanding, it puts you in the shoes of refugees.
If you lost your usual life, know that we have been living in unusual conditions for a very long time. If the schools of your children are closed now, know that our children had no schools, nor expectations for the future. Their schools have been closed and destroyed for decades.
Today you think you are far from the world of refugees. Know that you, too, are now similarly forced to be simply alive, ignored, and in need of an asylum. So far, we, refugees, fought spiritually with the unusual conditions of our life, but this illness asks more from us. How can we fight this new enemy physically? How can we lock ourselves at home while we do not have any home?
The order we hear is: “observe hygiene!” These words are meaningless in the conditions that we are living in. We do not have water to drink. How can we, then, wash our hands often? The first victims of the disease will be our children (not “refugee” children, not “immigrant children”, simply “children”). Our children pass their lives in the midst of garbage, sewage water, and polluted surroundings. We could never observe the recommended distance among ourselves, as our numbers are getting higher and higher. We are like locked chains for each other. Finally, Coronavirus is teaching us that, in spite of everything, one room is enough to feel safe. Give shelter to another and let one more person feel the meaning of life!
Whereas many see the Coronavirus (COVID-19) as a great disease, if we think deeply, we will recognize it as a great experience lesson.
