The return to normalcy must not be a return of the old ways

ADUN SPEAKS | Imagine if you couldn’t leave the house for the foreseeable future. What little work you were able to do before is no longer available as an option. Your daily sustenance is in total reliance of help by charitable parties, which may end at any given moment.

Your spouse was hit by a stroke in the third week of the movement control order (MCO), and now needs expert treatment by healthcare professionals thrice a week. You have to take care of your bedridden spouse, which is actually way beyond your physical and financial means. You have no family nor friends you can rely on.

Imagine if you are a single, daily waged hotel kitchen cleaner who takes care of your elderly mother whose health recently deteriorated. She became wheelchair-bound and incontinent during MCO in your zinc roofed house. You have no savings to speak of.

You are not able to work during the MCO, neither do you see the prospects of work because your employer's company has just folded. Your income which barely met your needs before MCO when you had work, gives a picture of the future that is unthinkable.

Imagine if you are a 70-year-old mother to a mentally disabled son in his forties. You survived by collecting and sorting waste and selling cardboard and tins, or whatever you may find for one meal a day. Another meal comes from a charitable organisation who delivers a meal 5 days a week.

Your landlord, who allows you to stay rent-free at their termite ridden part of their house is unable to fix the damage sustained during the freak storm that occurred during the MCO. The gaping hole over your bedroom ceiling is only going to get worse. Meanwhile, you can't even go out to earn the piecemeal income you had before.

To these Malaysians, a return to normalcy will be a return to what got them into their now irreversible torture in the first place. As one lady whose plight is one of those described above said, "MCO or not makes no difference, I will just let the days pass by; my life will be much easier if it didn't continue." 

The pandemic as a mirror of society's ills

Whenever the question of "when will we return to any degree of normalcy" arises, I shudder at the thought that some of us are still of the presumption that we still have that as an option.

Let's be clear: What is happening right now, is nothing short of an imposed revolution by nature itself. We are now moving into a new economic world order, form and substance of which no one is able to model or predict. When the economy changes, society changes and vice versa.

The social, economic and even mental health impact on people all over the world resulted by the measures taken to fight Covid-19 is nothing short of devastating. Literally countless jobs and livelihoods have been and will be lost with little to no prospects of restoration. Consequently, many are on the brink of meltdown in every sense of the word.

The virus may affect the physical health of only those infected, but the pandemic will affect the social, economic, and mental health of every single soul of our world. The most vulnerable will be hit the hardest.

The consensus on Covid-19's pathological effects is, the more underlying conditions one has to start with if infected, the more likely complication leading to fatality will occur. The social and economic effect brought on by the pandemic will be the same. Meaning, the poorer you were to start with before Covid-19, the greater your suffering will be during and after the MCO.

All that macro impact is already the mainstream discourse among the social and political elites. However, whilst we can speak of digitalisation, fast-tracking the transition towards a post-fourth industrial revolution economy, there is a significant segment of society who are facing existential threats. These are fellow Malaysians that live in the borders of our society away from plain sight and they need help more so than ever before.

The cracks, strains and stresses of our civilisation that have long been swept under the carpet, or drowned out by aspirational narratives of success have come to the fore. Only now, the plight of the same victims is exacerbated by many folds over by the collateral damage of the pandemic.

The diagnosis

It is easy to blame the system, but now is a better time than ever before to dismantle at the very least the rotten parts of the system and replace it with what is needed, fitting and humane.

Governments and politicians have a huge role to play and the power and resources to affect change. But that power and resources are seemingly used to preserve the unsustainable ways and systems, to return to normalcy as we knew it.

The voices of the vast majority of our society who are struggling and will continue to struggle harder, are as always drowned out by the privileged and lucky minority who have the capacity to move on under the previous norms.

In my constituency Pasir Pinji during this MCO, my office with a group of inspirational volunteers have shown me that the best of human nature and society is still intact if there is a right mix of leadership and volunteers. The spirit of solidarity in helping those most in need regardless of nationality, race, religion, politics, really have been the reason for me to remain hopeful despite all I've written and seen.

Apart from a relatively insignificant financial aid announced at the start of the MCO, which depleted within two weeks, there has been no government help, be it food rations, facemask, sanitiser, or freshly cooked meals. The welfare department has been lumbered with work that is outside of their remit, and some of their essential services like homeless resettlement have had to be temporarily put on hold.

Nonetheless, we have managed to deliver basic kitchen items, fresh vegetables, facemasks, and even deliver disaster relief, recovery, repairs and rebuilding after a freak storm with minimal government involvement. There were, of course, some civil service personnel who did help with expediting certain matters, and we thank them immensely.

But the entire aid and relief delivery system, at least here in Pasir Pinji and surrounding area was entirely led, driven by NGO, CSO, the DAP, my office, not to mention funded 85 percent by non-government sources.

During these turbulent times of extreme uncertainties, and a government that is posturing to return to normalcy despite a significant part of society's need for a new order. We need to take a different approach.

The pressure to abandon this quest of returning to the previous normalcy unchanged and unimproved must and will be exerted upon the government. But I am more confident than ever, whilst we work for a new and different post Covid-19 world to materialise, individuals, NGOs, civil societies and human nature will triumph in ushering in a next norm.

The prognosis

What is that next norm some may ask? That's the exciting part, we can mould it together as a people. For me, it should be one that those whose plight I have described above, have an alternative that they can look towards and forward to.

The government needs to rethink and revamp the entire thinking behind our nation’s welfare policy. We have phenomenally fantastic people who work in our public welfare services from the ministry level through to the district operations. 

It’s time that they are given the right amount credit, funding, support, human resources and, most importantly, policies to really deliver what our society and our citizens need. The next norm, needs to be one where help, aid and relief seek out the needy, rather than the needy having to seek high and low for help at a time of need and emergency.

Poverty is caused by inequality of access to opportunities, resources and services; and exacerbated by exploitation of the poorer by the richer. When the virus is denied the conditions that aid transmissibility and access to a host, it will die out. 

Similarly, when inequality of access to decent healthcare, quality education, dignified and affordable housing are minimised; and exploitation of the marginalised by those with power and money, poverty will be suffocated to the point of eradication. 

Learning from the world’s efforts in breaking the chain of infection for Covid-19, the next norm must have conditions that break the shackles of poverty and marginalisation for the most vulnerable segment of society.

Finally, and most important ingredient of the next norm must be the spirit of solidarity, compassion and neighbourhood. During this MCO, the single most humbling observation I made was how neighbours redefined their role among themselves at a time of need.

How four neighbouring households took turns in providing a second meal to the elderly lady who was thrust with the new responsibility of caring for her bedbound, incontinent, bedsore ridden and totally paralysed husband. 

How more comfortable households volunteered to send ready packed meals to the lesser abled and more vulnerable neighbours on their street daily. How well-to-do communities proactively self-organised to engage caterers, and fresh produce suppliers to ensure cooked meals are delivered to the homeless and downtrodden.

These are characteristics that must be preserved and be culturalised in the next norm. And this, no policy or government can compel. It has to come from the individual. It can and should be from every single one of us.

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HOWARD LEE is the state assemblyperson for Pasir Pinji. He is also the DAP Youth national chief.  - Mkini