- God of wholesomeness as found in the Biblico-Christian tradition in the face of callousness of the pandemic
- Whose care to depend on (God’s care and Gota’s care)
- The diseased, the sick and the quarantined
- Wuhan to Europe – shift of epicentres of Covid 19 globally
- Closure of cities, curfews, no go areas and red zones
- Fierce continued battle for global trade between Beijing and Washington
- The rest of the world made to rest or arrested in a power gamble
The task for activists, academics, theologians, cultural critics, artists, scholars and those critical thinkers to reflect on the current health crisis in the light of their specific praxis and thinking. Some of us are able to actively engaged with the crisis at different levels while some others will be able to help all of us to make sense of the mess around us. It’s an act of faith, a social responsibility and a theological pursuit as we struggle through. Hope for people is fundamental.
What you can do with these seven areas (of course one can add to the above litany) is to share some of your thoughts, ideas, counterpoints through a system that you are most comfortable with. Hence, let this A4 be considered a working paper only, while your reflections be written and copied to others both in the light of the original list of names in the email and the network with which you are already working.
All I am suggesting is that we use this quarantine period usefully and perhaps at some point we can meet as an ad hoc group or the local EATWOT group to take up some areas of the local and the global significance of the crisis as lessons learned.
NB: If this can be translated into Sinhala and Tamil if its worth, please do so and link those who would like to do the same in the language they are comfortable with. If you do so, then go ahead and coordinate such a conversation.
Shanthikumar Hettiarachchi 20 March 2020