For some decades now we have been exposed to the “grand narrative “of globalisation. There are pros and cons. It seems what is missing in the whole rhetoric is the perception of the unity of humankind, rather metaphorically as one body.
The much-vaunted economic and cultural globalisation has been criticised as having created inequalities and hierarchies that subtly tear apart this deeply instinctive knowledge of our human oneness. It is also known to have suppressed, often in a highly sophisticated manner, the authentically diverse identities and self-esteem of many a people on earth in favour of the power wielders.
It may not be unfair to say that it is now when the Corona virus in its various incarnations has penetrated every nook and corner of the globe that we have become global. It is bitterly ironic that the virulence of the virus that respects no social, political or racial borders has united our world by frightening surprise.
A closely allied buzzword word is “corporate”. The global and the corporate go hand in hand in our present-day understanding. We know the word "corporate" comes from the Latin “corpus” which means “body”. The verb “corporare” means “to form into a body”. Again the metaphor of the body underlies most of our global business terms though we seem to have completely ignored it. Instead of “ in- corporating” or making all humans part of the living body, we have fragmented the one body in view of higher profit, pitted nation against nation, humans against nature, making weapons, war and desolation.
The pandemonium unleashed by the pandemic Covid- 19 has suddenly awakened us, however rudely, to the primordial truth that we, all humanity, are one body. The global therapeutic response to this pandemic, therefore, must necessarily include the whole human race as one body in its compassionate solidarity, mutuality, sharing of resources and the common vision of a sustainable future.
We are all familiar with the quote from Aristotle that human being is a social animal. The primordial herd instinct is implied here. We know that the Herd Instinct is a powerful driving force in the life of animals, birds and fish. The human species is also endowed with this gift . Notwithstanding the many theories in social anthropology, evolutionary biology and business psychology that seek to explain it in terms of self-protection and profit, one may also assume in a simple manner that the herd instinct is a left-over from the primal biological experience of one body.
Attached is a recent lockdown painting titled “The Fish- Body”, (acrylic 4’x3’) that seeks to represent a large school of fish streaming into the shape of one single fish rising from the depths and moving to the source of light and air. From a distance it is one single fish, but as you zoom in, it contains innumerable individuals who constitute the one body.
As tens of thousands of our sisters and brothers gasp for breath we need to rise as one body beyond religion, region and race, and share our resources and protect each other in a one-body act of “in-corporating” and rising together to the source of air, light and life.
∎
