2:41 PM
Gurmeet Sethi
COMPETITION OR COLLABORATION AND CORONAVIRUS
By
GURMEET SETHI
www.meetsethi.com
(Trustee: WORLD PEACE MISSION
Trust)
I do write. I do not
write often! I need to be up to the brim to pent up my thoughts. I come from a
generation that shall soon turn septuagenarians. We are the old school. We were
brought up to fight for our survival. Schools were mainly about topping the
class, worrying about who scored better than you. It was all about who raised
their hands first, when the teacher asked a question. Peer to peer learning or
help was considered cheating. Our confidence was built upon such facets. At
home, it was drilled into the minds that we need to get marks, come what may,
because it meant moving up the social ladder, even if it meant pulling down the
peers. Cracking the Competitive tests in the Seventies for the Government jobs
meant stability in life!
This has gone into
our DNA. Although few will admit it, it’s been years of indoctrination. We
learnt that most organizations have a pyramid cal structure, with room for just
one person at the top. So, one must beat the hell out of the rest. We learnt
the hypocritical social skills on our way, not to make it too obvious while
shoving the other person out of the way. Our hopes, aspirations, dreams and desires
revolved around this. We celebrated success each time we pulled somebody down.
Collaboration was talked about but in reality never practiced. One-upmanship
was rewarded.
In politics , we have
seen parties in opposition stalling processes, for the sake of opposing. The
Government proceedings scuttled at a heavy cost to the exchequer. The same
bills with a new name pushed through by the very opponents, when voted to
power. Could this have made any better idiotic sense during our times! Had one
collaborated, it would have been called political treason and hara-kiri.
Competition amongst
Nations has led to Price wars, refusal to cooperate on Global warming,
Environmental issues, Armaments, Terrorism, Nuclear proliferation, Eradication
of poverty, hunger and disease.
The Cornavirus
pandemic is a case in study. Do we call it a fall out of the price wars between
US and China? The Chinese desire to push OBOR, fortify its supply chain to
build upon its manufacturing supremacy, that would make it economically No 1.Was
the plan to dominate by crippling the competition through spread of Cornavirus,
as is being talked about.
This clearly reflects upon our inability to
cooperate with each other. Protectionism has been the new mantra. Does the Mother
earth not belong to everyone? Are we not answerable to the coming generations?
Does all this not reek of our primitive learning at schools and thereafter? Do
we not need a change somewhere down the line to have brought the world to its
knees? Stock markets have crashed, Jobs lost, thousands have died. A Global
Emergency, for which we have no solution in sight. All this to satisfy our urge
to be No1, and that too by stabbing others behind their back. Our worldly pacts
and meetings, UNOs and WHOs, SCOs and G20s, OBORs are mere facades. We talk Cooperation,
but practice dirty Competition. We have mastered the cloak and dagger
technique. After all have we not learnt it all this while?
Emergency! The word
itself means Emergence of a new order! if we as mankind have to survive. The
other meaning/alternative also exits. That is to move towards danger, disaster and
holocaust to perish. The time is now for all these Septuagenarian world leaders
like Donald Trump, Xi Jin Ping, Narendra Modi, and the likes to take a call
towards extending Cooperation to one and all for the sake of humanity, future
generations and mother earth, without malice or revenge. As the death toll
rises, the priority is to collaborate and share knowledge, research.
Information and resources, There is no doubt in my mind that the noise to fix
responsibility for spread of this man made virus is going to get shriller by
every loss of life and lively hood
.Our gift to the next
generation could be Cooperation over Competition!
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Gurmeet Sethi
www.meetsethi.com
Posts
3 comments:
The blog has raised issues which warrant consideration at the decision making levels.However, competion is essence of life which brings out the best in humanbeings.
Competition and cooperation has to go along hand to hand for wellbeing and growth of the society .
If anything, this pandemic has reinforced that human beings are capable of cooperation on a global scale. We can radically change overnight to adapt to any crisis. All that is needed is willingness to do so. This period, if taken as a blessing in disguise, can lead to a paradigm shift in how our societies (co)operate.
Well, time will only tell where we are heading to. Ideally, what Gurmeet says is the desirable quality the humankind needs to adopt and practise. But I doubt that it is going to be practised at the universal level. All the countries suffering from the virus attack are likely to cooperate and help each other now, but once this bad period is over, the situation and the environment is likely to go back to the old ways of the Kalyug in which greed and ambitions take priority over everything else at any cost. Wish we and our children who are in the driving seats these days can change the world for the better.
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