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Covid-19: Global Destruction and Creation
Srisakra Vallibhotama
Translated by Pornnalat Phachyakorn
Overview
With the worldwide spread of Covid-19 (corona virus disease 2019) pandemic, Mother Nature has reminded us of our fragility as well as reflected on our arrogance and careless behaviour towards our planet. Over 30 million people have been infected with Covid-19 and nearly one million people around the world have died. This article will focus on analyzing different world views over the phenomenon of Covid-19 pandemic based on the cultural dimension.
In Western cultures, advanced science and technology are considered major tools that can be used to control and overcome nature. As a result, many developed countries, such as the United States, France and the United Kingdom, merely view the viruses that cause Covid-19 as tiny organisms that can be eradicated by science-based medicine. Moreover, under Western democratic capitalism, humans are seen as an economic resource that can become redundant when one turns useless or old. Such an arrogant world view has downplayed the seriousness of the incident and allowed people to be reckless, resulting in high infection and death rates in these regions.
On the other hand, people in Eastern cultures, including Thailand, are still relatively influenced by traditional beliefs in supernatural beings that cannot be defeated and need to be shown respect through practices of religious and occult rituals. Therefore, Eastern people see the infectious corona virus as a kind of death that has plagued and destroyed cities and communities in the past and have acted accordingly. At the start of the epidemic, there were fears that Thailand could be hard hit and might not survive. Surprisingly, Thailand has seen much lower rates of Covid-19 infections and fatalities when compared to many developed countries. It can be said that Thais’ modesty and humility towards the incident greatly contributed to the country’s success in the pandemic control.
Oddly enough, this pandemic has revived many long-lost cultures and beliefs in Thai society such as temples serving their original purpose in distributing food for local communities and the restored sense of community. There has been a great deal of public cooperation and participation as well as the implementation of highly effective measures by the government and related agencies in an attempt to control the outbreak. Such success is achieved despite the Western concept of democratic capitalism being dominant in the present Thai society. Social capitalist China also appears to manage the pandemic crisis more efficiently than the Western world.
Thus, the deadly Covid-19 outbreak has shown that democratic capitalism is not the right and only answer for all societies particularly in a time of crisis. It can be seen that Thailand could thrive better when we return to our traditional way of life under constitutional monarchy. Natural disasters are Mother Nature’s way of retaliating the human race. Those who are sinned are to be punished by supernatural powers while, at the same time, giving the virtuous ones a chance of a new beginning.
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