Until the 21st century, the story of humans has not been far from the conquest of the earth. Starting from simple efforts such as making a hand axe (chopper) discovered by Von Koenigswald (1935) in Pacitan, to nuclear weapons that began when physicist Albert Einstein wrote to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt that an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction had great potential to become a weapon of mass murder.
Efforts to conquer the earth with everything in it have also been seen in human thought processes since they took shelter from the challenges of nature in a 40,000-year-old karst cave in Maros, to the optimization of space as well as evidence of the height of human civilization that can be seen majestically from the 828-meter (2,171-foot) skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa, in Dubai. Not to forget, expeditions and "space colonization" into outer space are also part of it.
From Barrow Street, Greenwich Village neighborhood in Manhattan New York, Dutch-American historian-cum-journalist, Hendrik Willem van Loon wrote a book entitled The Story of Mankind. In 1920 at that time. In chapter 41, "great discoveries", Van Loon tells about the still low level of human knowledge in the Middle Ages.
He said that Magellan's voyage to the east - looking for "the spice islands", Maluku - brought 20 to 50 people who lived in dirty rooms; consuming undercooked food because the kitchen was very bad, plus there was no fire lit every time bad weather arrived. At that time, they only knew how to make pickled fish and dried fish, but there was no knowledge of making canned food - which could last longer.
The water they brought from Portugal was put in small barrels. Over time the water was damaged, cloudy, and many germs grew. The absence of knowledge about germs at that time, made the crew just drink the water. The impact was bad. Many got typhus. "The death on ships on the earliest navigation voyages was terrible," wrote Van Loon.
On the 1519 voyage that departed from Seville, Magellan was accompanied by around 200 sailors. However, only 18 people returned with names. At that time, people did not yet know that there was an "invisible enemy" that could emerge evolutionarily in the water barrels that we have and if consumed could have fatal consequences for the human body.
In March 1520, still in the same year, a slave who accompanied 900 Spanish soldiers who departed from Cuba, landed in Mexico. Francisco de Egula, his name. He himself did not know that in his body there were trillions of cells that could be a biological bomb in the form of the smallpox virus.
At that time, wrote Yoval Noah Harari (Time, March 15, 2020) that Central America did not yet have trains, buses, or even donkeys that would allow the epidemic to spread quickly (compare that to us now who are connected everywhere). Nine months after de Egula's arrival, smallpox killed a third of their population.
In Homo Deus (2015), the historian who graduated with a PhD from Oxford University in 2002 wrote: "A shivering Francisco was put to bed in the home of an American family in the town of Cempoallan. He infected the family members, who in turn infected their neighbors. Within 10 days Cempoallan was a burial ground. Refugees spread the disease from Cempoallan to nearby towns. As one town after another succumbed to the plague, new waves of frightened refugees carried the disease across Mexico and spread it beyond."
The Maya of the Yucatan Peninsula said: the disease was caused by three evil gods, Ekpetz, Uzannkak, and Sojakak, flying from village to village at night to infect humans. Meanwhile, the Aztecs believed that it was the work of the god Tezcatlipoca, the god of the night who had black lines on his face and carried an obsidian mirror, and the god Xipe Totec, a god who wore peeling human skin. There are also those who believe that it was black magic from white people--a kind of conspiracy and racial accusation that also appeared in the Covid-19 outbreak.
At that time, humans did not know about invisible germs and viruses. Humans initially only focused on "visible enemies" but neglected "invisible enemies." Doctors and healers have actually tried, but sometimes those efforts do not succeed quickly.
But we are lucky to be human. Humans are equipped with reason with unlimited experimental abilities. When one method is deadlocked, they look for another. When one drug fails, they look for another. When one vaccine fails, they produce another vaccine. That is something we are most grateful for in our destiny as humans.
In this uncertain situation, it is time for scientists to work hard to find out what the new virus called covid-19 really is. It is time for scientists to exchange information, both from China, America, and other countries affected by the crown-shaped virus.
Here, the task of scientists becomes very important to "win the war on pathogens", quoting Harari. To be able to become "the winner" of course requires international cooperation and an attitude of mutual trust - two things highlighted by Harari - which are very important in the current context. One country can no longer think narrowly. They must unite, because this virus attack is not really an attack on one or two people, or one or two countries, but a global attack on humanity.
When I was a volunteer for a community, I was once assigned to help a patient from Gebe, Central Halmahera who was being treated in Ternate. The doctor said, based on an examination of the feces (excrement), there were many worms in the patient's body whose presence disturbed the child's body. As a result, good bacteria lost to bad bacteria; his body became very thin.
The information I gathered came to the conclusion that this was inseparable from the lack of knowledge or information about health and a healthy lifestyle. The child came from a poor family who lived on the beach. Every day he defecated on the beach. From there, bacteria and germs entered.
An unhealthy lifestyle does not stand alone. There are many factors. It could be because of the poverty that plagues the family (the government must be serious about reducing poverty, of course). The synergy between poverty and ignorance usually causes an attitude of indifference, indifference, and even if they try--to get treatment--it does not reach the maximum level.
Therefore, social solidarity is needed. If a neighbor is sick, the closest neighbor must help as much as possible. The minimum is to contact the nearest authority or "distant authority" (center) via social media which is currently so easy to reach. This solidarity will strengthen "social resilience" so that it is not easily collapsed by various problems that come.
After fighting for so long with smallpox and the discovery of a vaccine, humans have become the winners. The World Health Organization (WHO) in 1979 stated: humans have won and smallpox has been eradicated (Harari, 2020). In 2019, Harari continued, not a single person was infected or killed by smallpox.
This success is a collaboration of many factors, especially vaccination, antibiotics, improved hygiene, and much better media infrastructure. Not to mention, the human factor is increasingly aware of the importance of a healthy lifestyle.
Learning from this success, it means that humans have a chance to win if they are united in heart, mind, and action. Unity of heart means that their intention is to fight the virus together. A healthy mind is also needed which is accompanied by actions that are oriented towards the same goal. Reduce differences, strengthen similarities. For humanity.
The victory in conquering the virus is a human victory born from the historical process. "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it," said George Santayana, a philosopher born in Madrid, Spain (1863). Those who do not learn from the past will be condemned to repeat the same mistakes.
So, we must also learn from the tragedy of Magellan's men who returned home in name only because of the weak knowledge about health and the ignorance of the Mexican people about the entry of the smallpox virus into their village. Indeed, the more modern we are, the viruses that come also experience mutations into various variants that are sometimes difficult to calculate.
It is time for scientists to unite to recognize the virus in detail - its strengths and weaknesses - and then produce a faster vaccine that is healthy and safe to minimize the number of victims. Because we cannot be sure that the virus has disappeared forever even though we are no longer in lockdown like before.
YANUARDI SYUKUR is an Indonesian writer who is also a lecturer, editor, researcher and speaker at various conferences and expert resource person on several Indonesian television stations and ministries. He has participated in various international programs in Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, the United States, as well as Ukraine. He is an anthropologist at Khairun University who is interested in various global issues. He is currently also active as Vice Chairman of the Islamic and Middle East Research Center (IMERC) of the University of Indonesia and is active in the Commission on Foreign Relations and International Cooperation of the Indonesian Ulama Council. E-mail: yanuardisyukur@gmail.com.
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