Oh how I long for those happy days when all of Europe and most of the world was talking about nothing else but the UK leaving the EU, otherwise known as BREXIT.

Here in the UK, Brexit by far was the No. One topic of just about every conversation at work, home, in bars, street corners, or anywhere where people talked.  It divided families, broke up long-term friendships, cited in court cases as reason for divorce; it completely polarized the entire nation.

Brexit was not an unavoidable disaster such as a tsunami or earthquake.  Nor was it an accumulation of many decades of abuse and neglect of mother earth by the entire human race.  No, Brexit was a political movement by a relatively small group of activists who never believed in the European Project and their chance to create havoc when a referendum was declared by the prime minister David Cameron in 2016 who thought he could win the intellectual argument and get the nation to shut those activists up once and for all.  Instead, the referendum returned a ‘leave EU’ vote, thus shocking the entire world, especially the anti-European activists who did not think they would win.  Having created this mess, David Cameron resigned like a child who spills the milk and runs out of the kitchen before he is found out.

When we exhausted ourselves talking about Brexit, we had Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish student who delighted in admonishing world leaders for not doing anything to save the earth and we delighted in her ability to speak on our behalf, and sometimes shouted at us adults for doing little or nothing.  Soon, we all went pious and worthy, declaring ourselves to be with Greta helping to save the earth by wearing T shirts with slogans, flying less, planting trees, eating less red meat and holding our breath for as long as we could in order to minimize the amount of carbon dioxide we expelled from our lungs.  But, we needed to do more, much more and the result of our hard work was not going to be felt by us or even our children; we hoped our grandchildren and their off-springs would benefit from our collective efforts.

Other parts of the world had their own pre-occupations.  Australia had the bush fires that destroyed property, wiped out entire species, and sadly claimed many people’s lives; Hong Kong rioters demands were relatively easy to grant and every time they won a concession, they asked for more because rioting became a way of life for them;  the USA was gearing up for its every four-year circus to elect a president which now appears to be a choice between 3 white men in their late seventies; the tragedies of war in Syria and Yemen continued to kill thousands of civilians and spewed out refugees all over the world; India unnecessarily introduced a new law which could not have been designed better to guarantee rioting as it enshrined the right of any non-Muslim individual to seek refuge from neighboring countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Fixing the environment was going to be long and hard work and not nearly as much fun as talking about Brexit or the bush fires or rioting so, we always returned to the ‘B’ word for a nice circular and futile argument.  So much so, we did not notice something small and deadly was slowly creeping behind us that would prove to be a game changer.

Slowly but surely, almost one by one, all over the world, we became aware of this new deadly virus, boringly named COVID-19, that began its journey around the world, choosing to start in the region of Wuhan, China where local officials ignored early signs, in case they drew unwanted attention from Beijing.  Sadly, those local officials performed the most disastrous miscalculation imaginable by not taking the matter seriously and sent threatening letters to the vigilant doctor who was the most vocal about the on-coming tragedy.

Someone decided COVID-19 was not marketable enough so, we were introduced to the more catchy but less accurate name of ‘Coronavirus’ which describes a number of viruses such as SARS and COVID-19.

China was too far away, and its landmass is huge; we had faith in their strict and draconian methods to control and contain Coronavirus.  We tried to return to our local issues of Brexit, bush fires and riots but the increase in number of cases in China grew exponentially and the Chinese let us down by allowing this annoying little virus to jump on planes and cruise ships to spread slowly in the Far East.  Since the Far East was further than China to us, we ignored COVID-19, excuse me, Coronavirus.  This was not helped by the assertions of our leaders telling us we were safe, and our systems would easily cope with irritating little viruses without much trouble.

And the more we ignored it, the closer it got to us!  So, apart from limiting flights from China, we closed our eyes, stuffed our fingers in our ears and began chanting ‘la, la, la’, hoping it would fly over our heads and continue on to other places so we can return to our pet local subjects.

We are now in mid-March and we are wide awake, alert and truly scared witless.  Everyone now is an expert on hand washing, sanitizer fluid, and self-isolation.  Only days ago, we wanted to speak to everyone else to disagree / agree with them about Brexit, environment and all the other hot topics which are now decidedly cold, very cold subjects.  In fact, not only did we lose interest in these other subjects to bash each other on the head with, we no longer want to see anyone or speak to them in case they are Coronavirus carriers in disguise waiting to cough in our faces, kiss us on the cheek, or wipe their dirty, filthy virally-infected hands all over our surfaces.  School officials want to close their schools, offices want their staff to work from home, family members called each other and pre-defined rules of future contact like no kissing, no hand shaking, no hugging and don’t you dare cough within a country mile of my private space.  In fact, better still, let’s avoid seeing each other for the next few months and in the meantime, I hope you have a safe baby delivery, your heart bypass is successful, your wedding, with no guests and two rough sleepers hired for 20 minutes to witness the marriage, is a happy one.  But, since we love each other, let’s facetime soon!  If I don’t answer, try again because I am queueing up at the local store buying more toilet paper.  Deep down in our collective psyche, we prefer to die with clean backsides.

In the meantime, China’s ‘draconian methods’ did not stop the Coronavirus from spreading outside of China but, they have now brought the disease under control within their borders.  China learnt enough to be alert and do not intend to ease up on their state of preparedness to deal with the virus, which can mutate and return in a different disguise.  I am reliably informed that a virus’ survival strategy is to survive for the longest time (look at the common cold and influenza), by insinuating itself into our lives without killing too many of us in case we really react and attempt to eradicate it.  In other words, Coronavirus is here to stay.  I never thought I would ever say or write the following words: may be some draconian methods are not such a bad idea after all.

So, now the World Health Organisation (WHO) recently declared Coronavirus a pandemic (we are good at naming things like Brexit, Hurricane Desmond, Coronavirus pandemic, etc.). This pandemic is now in charge of our lives, making all of our previous fears seem like a walk in the park on a warm and sunny spring day.  The world economy is in a race to the bottom of the ocean.  More importantly, real innocent people are dying by the hundreds every day of the week.  And the irony of all ironies: Coronavirus has affected air travel, shipping movement, factory production to such an extent, the earth has experienced a reversal of fortune in terms of a significant reduction of carbon emission.

What fiction writer could come up with a more unrealistic and unbelievable plot?  No publisher or film maker would buy the rights to such a strange reversal of fortunes.

One of the saddest and unfortunate features of this pandemic is that it is a truly common enemy for the entire world but, we still choose to fight it and bring in measures without synchronizing with our allies and traditional enemies. In relative terms, on a 24-hour clock representing the fight against this virus, we are still in the early hours of the morning and we have 20 hours or more of fighting before we can bring this monstrous enemy under control.  We know what it looks like, the damage it can cause and the pattern it would take in gripping a nation but, we are yet to agree on an international unified approach.

In conclusion, environmental issues, civil wars, Hong Kong relations with mainland China and Brexit were all divisive on an intellectual level and we were still seeking to talk to one another if not to resolve our differences, then to make sure we win the argument.  Coronavirus has come along and made us wish to live in isolation from the rest of the world, even from our nearest and dearest.

As the Titanic slowly sank, the music band played on to lift the morale of passengers who were more certain than not about to drown.  Welcome to Dystopia, twinned with Hell City.

Come Back Brexit, old friend, we forgive you everything.

 

Thank you Claire for giving me the original idea for this post.