What 'new normal'?

“Love spending time with my children. Definitely going to manage my time better after this.”

“Kinda love staying home. Quite peaceful.”

This Covid-19 pandemic has brought many realisations for many of us. After spending years in auto mode, the universe finally pulled the brakes, forcing us to pause and take a look at ourselves and the lives we live.

The result? Empowerment.

We feel empowered to do things better. We feel empowered knowing that we are capable of so much more than what we give ourselves credit for. We feel empowered to realise that we don’t need a lot of things in life to be happy.

Those who never stepped out of the house without painting their faces in an inch of foundation and makeup are now proudly taking selfies showing off their naked pores. Work-related calls and video conferences are now a bit more personal, everyone’s interested to know how others are coping within their private spaces. Old friends and relatives whom we haven’t heard from in a long time are suddenly getting in touch.

Yeah, for a moment, this pandemic seems like a wakeup call. A blessing really.

But the big question begging to be answered is this – how long will this last?

Isn’t difficult to predict human behaviours.

My neighbour, a carpenter, who has more than a dozen family members under his roof, had to temporarily shut down his business due to the movement control order (MCO). In the second week of MCO, he began receiving carloads of visitors to his home – almost every day. From my observations, he had no qualms about it. In fact, he and his family gleefully receive their visitors with open arms.

Another neighbour of mine, a nasi lemak seller, spent his early MCO days around his house, gardening and cleaning. But since Ramadan, he began to disappear from his home with his family. All four of them leave before the sunset and only return late at night. I guess they go for berbuka puasa elsewhere and perform their tarawih prayers there as well.

The neighbour living behind my house is no different. First two weeks of MCO seem pretty quiet. By the third week, my neighbour’s children began to visit her every day with their own set of children.

Living in a kampong where houses are nearby, it isn’t difficult to observe what takes place in a neighbour’s space. I suppose being cooped up within their four walls to appreciate some family time could be something pleasant in the beginning, but not for too long. And so, everyone begins to break free – even during the MCO itself.

While some of us refrain from going out unnecessarily during MCO, even making sure we only go out for a maximum of two to three trips per week to get essentials, others are not even bothered with the MCO regulations, what more the Covid-19 pandemic scare.

These incidents are not restricted to my neighbourhood. We have been reading about similar incidents on the news and social media – people leaving their homes to jog, buy shampoo, to play football, to present a boyfriend with a birthday cake, sending the cat to the girlfriend, visiting friends, getting their favourite nasi kandar and even to get fresh vegetables some 40 kilometres away.

Keep in mind, those are the incidents we hear. I assure you, there are many incidents not reported by the media, which went under everyone’s radar simply because it is impossible for the authorities to keep a close eye on everyone.

And so I ask you, if people cannot even follow the rules and regulations during the duration of MCO, what makes us think they would follow the rules and regulations of the conditional MCO or even after that?

What ‘new normal’?

On the first day of the conditional MCO itself, crowds were seen in wet markets - no one bothered about the one-metre distance nonsense. In Brickfields, a friend called in as he reported about groups of young people lounging around while having tea – no crowd controlling there. Malls were open and people were queuing up – Hari Raya shopping cannot wait any longer, even though technically we are not allowed to visit anyone.

This is exactly why, when people tell me that we have to get used to the "new normal", I ask them: "What new normal?"

Come on lah, let us not kid ourselves. People might have called this pandemic a blessing in the beginning, but the truth is, right now, most people are just like a herd of cows on the eve of Hari Raya Aidil Adha – waiting to escape from our homes.

There will be no new normal for Malaysians – things will always be the way they were. Yes, of course, there will be standard operating procedures (SOPs) introduced to get people to follow the new normal. But to do that, you got to get them to follow the SOPs.

With enforcers around, forcing people to adhere to SOPs might not be difficult - but bear in mind, the moment the enforcement stops (and it will stop at some point), most people would not be bothered about rules and regulations anymore.

Since everything is more relaxed - you get to have cold beers in pubs, shop at Sogo and dine at your favourite restaurants, now there are even discussions why temples and mosques are not allowed to operate.

Mark my words, in no time, everything will return to normal. Not the new normal but the old normal. The kind of normal we Malaysians are used to.

That is how we Malaysians are anyway, right? We don't prefer new ways of doing things. We might travel to the end of the world, but we will still crave for nasi putih and sambal belacan.

Even at this moment, as I am typing away, I hear about my cousins going to shop for tudung in Penang Street; one of my nieces is going to spend a week at her friend’s house because she just fought with her mother; a few friends are recommending the mini Ramadan bazaar they had discovered, and a friend just took a public bus congested with people and was perfectly fine about it.

New normal? Yeah right.

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FA ABDUL is a passionate storyteller, a media trainer, an aspiring playwright, a director, a struggling producer, a photographer, an expert Facebooker, a lazy blogger, a part-time queen and a full-time vainpot. - Mkini