
If you ride on a Ferris wheel and the motor breaks down, you neither serve your own needs or anyone else’s if you start trying to clamber back to the ground level. The only correct response is to stay where you are, wait it out and have some faith in the system. That said, we will still feel anxious until we are back on firm ground, but it’s still the best way.
As we seek to deal with extraordinary times and experiences, unlike anything before in our lifetimes, there are inevitably aspects that appear to be done automatically, but need to be questioned. My analogy above is a way of referencing the actions around the world as the coronavirus challenge has unfolded of ‘rushing back to my own country.’ Why? Who does it serve and who does it harm? And, please remember that I write this as someone who is outside his country of birth/ origin/ passport/ nationality or whatever.
Just yesterday the British government issued an instruction to British citizens outside the country to rush back there. The UAE issued a similar order to their citizens outside and the US did the same earlier. While I might understand it at an emotional level I struggle to understand it at a practical or ‘hazard’ level.
Apparently, focusing on the British, estimates are that there are about 1 million of us. Well, if even 25% acted on the instruction, that would require nearly 1,500 airplane flights. Considering almost every plane has now been taken out of the air in the last month or so, that doesn’t seem plausible. Worse, if the same happened with every country there would be millions of high risk people criss-crossing the planet over weeks.
Further, there’s a chance that some of the people getting on those planes could be infected with Covid-19 (and temperature screening before boarding isn’t enough to find them). If it’s not safe for non-nationals to fly in to a country, what makes it any safer for nationals to do so? In the close proximity of a flight, sharing recirculated air there’s a strong chance that more on the flights (including many who were safely isolating wherever they were) will be infected.
By way of example, I saw a report this morning suggesting that there are maybe 90 cases in Punjab, India – all resulting from people who flew back to the country from elsewhere. I just cannot see how that made sense even at the start of the pandemic, even less now. I continue to see reports in the media of this or that group pleading the case to their government to ‘rescue’ citizens of their country, to return them – all this is doing is moving at risk people around putting them and all they come in contact with at greater danger. It makes far more sense, to me, to ensure that they’re safe, secure and have access to their needs wherever they are.
I’ll be writing a separate article about the ‘nation(alistic) aspect of this mindset and how it may contribute to the sort of world we’ll emerge in to when this is all over. I, for one, have no intention of moving from where I am.
As an expat employee, we don’t go and live in a country to “do them a favour.” If our presence in a country is to mean anything, then we must see ourselves as assimilating in to the culture, the economy and the needs of that place – in bad times as well as good. Not simply fair weather friends. It’s why I didn’t think to leave Gujarat, India when a massive earthquake hit or when major rioting took place. It’s why I’ve never quibbled at the tax rates or system of any country in which I’ve lived. Simply, in my book, that’s what it means to be a global citizen.
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Filed under: Life | Tagged: best for all, coronavirus, covid-19, evacuations, flying home, logical thinking | 2 Comments »