"The Virus is a Portal," by Arundhati Roy

Powerful, soulful, and cutting reflection by the renowned novelist and human rights and ecological movement activist, Arundhati Roy, in the Financial Times.  She addresses the current political and economic situation in India as they battle the Coronavirus.

We see a number of similarities to the U.S. This includes the slow response by government officials, fraught with misplaced priorities, focused on other things, like discriminating against Muslims; spending $7.8 billion on purchasing fighter jets from France; and hosting opulent meetings and receptions with forest-decimating, climate-denier, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, as well as the similarly evil, narcissistic Donald Trump who announced in late February 2020, with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his side, a new deal involving the purchase of $3 billion of military equipment from the U.S. 

A staggering $10.8 billion are implicated in these deals, and India, like every other country in the world, including the U.S., ironically finds finds itself wholly defenseless before the Coronavirus. 

Such is the dreadful price of hubris, as we collectively realize that we are not above, or independent from, nature, but rather a part of it. Even if we language it this way, nature is not "at war" with us at all. If anything, the opposite is true as we have been at war with her for a very long time. 

Upon the recommendation of a colleague, I learned from this 2013 publication authored by Stephen Harrod Buhner titled, Herbal Antivirals: Natural Remedies for Emerging and Resistant Viral Infections, that viruses, like bacterias, are intimately interwoven into the natural world, not only experiencing life on the planet for millions of years, but underpinning her very existence. Yet because of numerous factors, including ecosystem disturbance, climate change, the destruction of their habitats, nature is out of balance. 

Ironically, the bold, 20th century proclamations that we have largely eliminated the world of infectious diseases, while comforting, is delusional.  Why? Because it's based on a flawed, outmoded, Western, scientific paradigm that views humans as separate from, rather than as a part of, the natural world. 

Roy agonizingly notes that this crisis is of truly epic proportions for everyone, particularly so for her own beloved "poor-rich" India that is populous, ill-prepared, and morally adrift as the virus itself brings to light. 

Pivoting in a positive direction, however, she aptly notes how the virus "has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could." Even as a return to normalcy is desired, she then questions—against this backdrop of a flawed political and economic model, why the "normality" of the past is anything to desire. 

This is a question we must all ask ourselves, wherever we find ourselves in this very moment in the world.

Roy asks how we can make the world anew?  The answer is in the virus itself, if we will only allow it to be a portal to a better world. 

-Angela Valenzuela

"The Virus is a Portal" 

by Arundahti Roy

The novelist on how coronavirus threatens India—and what the country, and the world, should do next.

Click here to go to article.