Covid-19 has claimed nearly 350,000 lives in Brazil, vaccinations are infuriatingly sluggish, and thousands of casualties are added to the tally each day. In the meantime, European countries have access to vaccines, and their daily tallies are in the lower triple digits. Yet, the tragedy unfolding in Brazil gets little to no media attention while the struggle in Europe, which, by the way, could have been even more successful if it weren’t for bureaucratic incompetence, is getting the full spotlight. Are Brazilian lives worth less?
Judging by the media coverage, the answer is clear. However, in truth, the answer is even worse than “Yes, they are worth less.” The uneven attention that the tragedy unfolding in Brazil, and in a few other countries in South America, demonstrates the level of self-absorption we have reached. It is now at a point where it is impossible to answer the question of the value of life simply because no one gives it a single thought. Life, it seems, is not worth discussing, but only rating and coverage.
This is not news, of course, but when it becomes so patent, it’s still worth mentioning, even if only to remind ourselves of the nature of our being. Humans, we are seeing once again, are selfish to the core.
Let’s ask ourselves a question: If, for the sake of argument, we could do whatever we want, whenever we wanted, and no one, absolutely no one, would know about it, point the finger at us, punish us, or reproach us in any way, what would our world be like? How would we behave if that were the case? As I’m sure you can imagine, we have much more to learn about our nature than has been revealed. Perhaps it would be wise to imagine what we’d do if we could rather than wait for it to manifest, since we see that gradually, what we do not imagine, materializes in reality.
If I could give humanity the best present, I’d make everyone see the real human nature as quickly and as harmlessly as possible. This would make us search sincerely for a correction of our nature rather than apply makeshift fixes that let the fester swell up even worse until it painfully explodes.
Still, the pandemic won’t let up. As I have stated countless times, we’re in a different time now, when the interconnections between us impose an all-encompassing solution. We will not be healed from the virus, in one mutation or another, until we heal our egoism. Until then, any reprieve from its whip will be short-lived, and every blow that will follow will be more painful than the former.
[Workers carry coffins to load a funeral car at a coffin factory, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Nova Iguacu city, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil April 9, 2021. REUTERS/Pilar Olivares]