Thuma Mina

The slow live intro for the hit song starts with the piano and a hint of a flute in the background for about ten seconds before Hugh’s saxophone joins in and this melody transports you for a good three minutes and thirty seconds as you sway, gently, fully immersed in to flow. Hugh Masekela is at work. The background harmonies start before Bra Hugh’s raspy voice belts out a cry, “I wanna be there when the people start to turn it around!” By the time the drum and bass kick in at four minutes twenty seven seconds, you are in church and ready to go to war against poverty and disease.

Well, humanity is well and truly at war against disease right now. Despite the efforts of some at branding this disease, it does not carry a passport, does not respect borders, continents, race or social class. It is shutting down societies, wealthy and poor, forcing man to genuflect before it. As the supremely talented Prince once sang about another pandemic, it is a disease with a small name, except this time it is one letter and two digits longer: COVID 19.

It sounds like a new release of a video game doesn’t it? Except, the time for taking life for granted is not now. COVID 19 is not playing and neither should we. From all over the world, balconies in Italy, Spain and India, there have been moving scenes of homebound residents applauding the work of medical personnel at 8pm every night. A very public gesture of solidarity from those whose job compels them to say “Thuma Mina – Send Me”, those who despite their fatigue and the dangers they face are soldiering on, saving lives, losing some, losing many, but in the face of the onslaught of COVID 19 remaining in the trenches on the battlefield. Because they can. Because we can.

On other balconies, it is the banging of pots in protest and disgust at a leadership that calls the COVID 19 crisis “a fantasy”, mad men who strip the earth of our forests, who do not believe in science but are driven and intoxicated by dangerous beliefs that would take society backwards. They are there, in the highest seats of power, demagogues from bygone eras who have returned to the foe in a public and shameless way. They are joined in their mind numbing beliefs by those who attribute the origin of the virus to “demons”, charlatans dressed in pastors’ clothing leading unsuspecting sheep astray. It is time the sheep woke up and said, “Thuma Mina- Send Me to preach the truth”, the truth that this little virus is not so little that it can’t fell an entire congregation. The sheep must turn against the wayward shepherd and pull away from the cliff’s edge before they are consumed by his insatiable greed and ego. As Bob Marley wailed years ago, “We’ve been taken for granted much too long…Rebel!” This virus thrives on ignorance and lack of information.

The world is looking for leadership at a global, regional, national, societal, social circle and family level. It is time for evidence based thinking to come to the fore, for prayer to shrink from congregation to personal prayer room. God will hear you whether you shout or whisper in prayer for the doctors, nurses, military, political and community leaders to exercise common sense leadership.  I live in a place where two streams meet, that country life in the city and yet, unfortunately, that idyllic picture is shattered on many a Sunday morning by a group that travels far to gather by the flowing waters (not of Babylon) to loudly beseech their God for all manner of things. Is it not written though, “When you pray, go in to your inner room and your father who is unseen and he will hear you?” That was a self-indulgent digression.

The point is, let science do its work in the hospitals, let prayer and meditation do its work in raising the spirits of the masses. Marley again, “some people have hopes and dreams, some people have ways and means”. Let the ways and means be your personal leadership as adherents and advocates of the Thuma Mina doctrine and for those that are religiously inclined, let truth, not the whims of a self-serving prophet, be your guiding principle. It is all-hands-on-deck time.

An article on CNN observes, “There’s something about pandemics that cause panicked people to empty their minds along with supermarket shelves”.  https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/22/world/doomsday-prophets-coronavirus-blake/index.html

Stand up and lead where you are. Do not add to the panic buying pandemic. Observe social distancing where you may go, and only because you have to go there. Do not spread fake news, but by all means educate those that need it. Just as there’s an equilibrium in nature, a yin yang that must be observed, there must be one in human society, capitalism or not. We panic at our peril. Despite your fears, encourage all to maintain the balance in supply of goods and services, buying only what you need for the month ahead, consuming only what you need and helping the supply side to cope. Easier said than done, but in doing so, you will be helping to light a candle, instead of cursing, nay bringing on the darkness of chaos.