By Mataeliga Pio Sioa
As we wait to officially confirm if the coronavirus test on our returning seafarer/sailor is TRUE or FALSE positive – as they say in health terms – we have to admit to that little warning whisper that is always around.
“Our turn will come”.
We will know soon enough if what we turned a deaf ear to all this time has had the last say.
For now we will just have to wait.
If the tests show it is FALSE POSITIVE then we can all breath in thankful relief.
We can live with the nagging whisper … ‘our turn will come.’
If it is TRUE POSITIVE then it is a reality we have been preparing ourselves to accept for a long time.
We went into emergency lockdown and stayed for the last nine (9) months since last March for our own health security.
Indeed we had to put up with the frustrations of all the restrictions but it was for our own protection.
What we went through and still are is a new way of life the coronavirus has created. In a global context it has become accepted as ‘the new norm.’
Close to a year of building our tolerance levels we can deservedly claim that we have conditioned ourselves well to adapt to ‘ the new norm’.
Our hopes of a return to ‘the normal’ we missed dearly rests with the success of a vaccine.
The Prime Minister rightfully raised that hope in his attempts to keep the country calm with his assuring leadership.
Tragically we cannot say the same about the political agitators who latched like hungry flies onto reports of a confirmed COVID-19 case during the week.
The tragedy is the blind ambition to politicize a serious life-threating situation by inciting the masses.
The manipulation of public opinion for political gains by condemning the health security effort that has kept us safe and continues to do so is a disgrace.
The political agenda is namely to win votes for the 2021 general elections in a few months time.
The coronavirus pandemic is a deadly disease that has killed more than a million people and left millions more around the world to endure the loss of loved ones.
We would do the same if that happened to us. Thankfully we are spared the grief.
The latest count shows more than 57 million people infected around the world with 1.4 million dead.
Our population in Samoa is around 200 thousand so the number of people who have died from the pandemic works out to 7 times the number of every living person in Samoa.
Even if we add our Samoan diaspora all over the world we will still be nowhere close to the count of those who have passed on.
Should all that tragedy be trivialized by political posturing for political advantage to win a general election when it comes around?
How brutally heartless. What a sad display of disregard for the tragedy suffered by a world of people seven (7) times the number of all living Samoans in Samoa.
Should we trust our future and those of our loved ones, to a brand of political leadership with ambitions only for a political agenda and no shred of care for humanity?
If we do confirm that we indeed have a case of coronavirus it should be a time to come together and stand united rather than sow differences and hostilities amongst us.
Any political campaigner whose only intention is to stir the masses with misleading information to win political mileage is doing so for personal gains.
This is the ‘me first’ kind of person.
We as people are humans. Simple, ordinary living beings. Our faith in the divine has taught us that God created us.
We are also told that we were created in His image. No where in our religious education does it say that we have the powers of God.
If we have then we live in a perfect world until eternity.
Believe it or not there are people who are conniving, deceitful and daring enough to make you believe they have godly powers.
They will nit pick on the faults of Government to demonstrate they can make life better for you if you trust them with the power of your vote.
Our religious teachings warned of these kinds of people in Matthew 7:15 … “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.”
There is another more worldly description for this heathen character.
“Beware the person with a sweet tongue but a bitter heart. He will use the best words you want to hear but his intent is far from good.”
We have a deadly disease we have no choice but to face front on.
What we need is hard, honest toil not ‘sweet tongues’ bleating the ‘best words you want to hear’ while ‘inwardly they are ravening wolves’ with hungry ambitions to be gods of men.
Lord the innocent and the gullible amongst us will need some help here. Will you look into this after You are rested for the day?