Waiting for a fatwa to fight the coronavirus?

Use logic. Use common sense. Use the science of blitzkrieg decision-making. Every minute counts! This is a new war!

A fatwa to decide on what to do with activities in the houses of worship. This is what I read in the news today concerning what the new Malaysian religious authorities are doing regarding the curbing of religious gatherings involving Muslims.

For the last few days, the Sri Petaling mosque has been reported to be the centre of the spread of the deadly virus as the almost 15,000-strong members of the Jemaah Tabligh had their gathering. Then there was also a gathering of 30,000-strong Hindus in Penang for a festival, and one of “silat masters” (Malay martial arts gurus) in Sarawak. There is also an upcoming Tourism convention that is not yet cancelled.

Close all mosques for now, like what the churches are doing with their house of worships. Schools, learning institutions, and places of mass social gatherings need to be closed for now. For public safety. For deep sanitation purpose. For the control of community infection.

'Tak apa lah'

The prime minister can make his executive decision, taking the opinion of medical experts from within and outside of the country. Learn fast from other countries. Why are Malaysians so pathetic in dealing with an issue as pathological and lethal as this? The “tak apa lah” (nevermind) attitude, that sickening view of making decisions have been plaguing the Malay culture since perhaps antiquity. Of fatalism. Of not tying your camel and just relying on prayers.

The recent statement by a deputy minister, that we are all going to die anyway and not worry about the coronavirus, is symptomatic of thinking gone deeply troubling and worse, if translated into public policy, destructive. That governmental administrator does not deserve to be holding the post any longer. Take the person out of that place, we don’t need such a person to further destroy our country, especially when we are dealing a plague, a pandemic, a pathological situation that requires sane thinking and sound decision-making, at a time when change happens every minute, every second, involving lives.

I am writing under house quarantine now, in the US. The decision for academics to teach online and to cybernate education was made last week and for the entire month, I will be lecturing and communicating with students through video-conferencing, teaching Psychology, Economics, Politics, and World History. Universities, public schools, houses of worship – including the growing thousands of mosques/masjids in the USA – are closed. Yes, people are now allowed to gather, there is a minimum number allowed, perhaps 50, 100 and nothing more depending on the occasion. Social distancing is enforced.

A new form of 'terrorism'

As we have been reading, many countries are losing the battles of this great war of man versus coronavirus. It is a global war. It is a new form of “terrorism”.

Back to Malaysia.

Just close the mosques until all is under control. Besides a gathering of people that can spread the deadly virus as the biggest concern, the masjids and the suraus are not the cleanest places. Growing up and growing older and being in many all my life, the carpets where one rests one’s forehead, are the dirtiest and smelliest and perhaps, have been not power-washed with the proper detergent for years. When I was a child, I hated the smell of filth and people’s stinky feet every time my head lands on the ground beneath my feet. Smells like hell and not paradise most of the time.

Imagine at the time of the coronavirus what this means?

Islam, like all religions, promotes cleanliness. But the ideal and reality are not in sync. Especially in the case of handling the post-Tabligh-Coronavirus-spreading fear. Already Malaysia, as reported, is having the most cases amongst Southeast Asian countries.

Get serious. Get real. With managing this crisis of deadly proportion. You can’t be wasting time with fatwas, mass sembahyang hajat (mass prayers), setting up task forces, and doing things as if we are all on a holiday on a cruise ship. No, we must think of public health first and foremost. Not ideological-religious considerations that will delay efforts to save lives – by the hundreds, thousands. This is wartime. We want to see a “wartime prime minister” in action.

As you and I know, this pandemic is taking the lives of the elderly mainly. In Malaysia, the elderly are those, as I observe, frequenting the masjids and other houses of worship. They are the most vulnerable. Look at what is happening to the way the old is treated in Italy, as to how choices of treatment preference are made.

Whether this virus came from the US via the military, developed in a Wuhan virology lab, used to destroy China’s, Iran’s, Italy’s and North Korea’s economy via germ warfare, or simply whether it came from bats and the consumption of that exotic food, and whether in this new genre of global war, a new style of terrorism wherein targeted countries will get the worse, and the rest of the world will be subjected to collateral damage – like the innocents in Yemen bombed away daily – we are in it. In a war.

We can theorise while the virus continues to turn us into a zombie apocalypse world, of a global village called "darul contagion". We can do all these, but my fatwa will be this - act fast with the World Health Organisation's advice. Get help from China. For Malaysia, stop your “jalan-jalan-makan-makan-lepak-lepak” (walk, eat, relax) attitude towards decision making. We can’t be super lackadaisical.

We are at war.

Man versus coronavirus.

Let us not tabligh the virus.

Or turn our dakwah deadly.

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AZLY RAHMAN is an academician, international columnist and author of seven books available here. He holds a doctorate in international education development and Master’s degrees in six areas: education, international affairs, peace studies, communication, fiction and non-fiction writing. He is a member of the Kappa Delta Pi International Honor Society in Education. Twitter @azlyrahman. More writings here. - Mkini