By Ladislaus Louis D’Souza
Mumbai: European powers were notorious for colonizing weaker, underdeveloped nations by engaging them on the battlefield, shrewdly applying the then highly effective strategy, Divide and Conquer.
Coming from the Latin divide et impera, in politics and sociology, the term ‘Divide and Conquer’ denotes appropriating and consolidating power by breaking up larger military concentrations into fractions that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy. This principle was fully exploited by sovereigns like Philip II of Macedon, Julius Caesar of Rome, Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte of France and others.
Napoleon clubbing it with the maxim divide ut regnes, i.e. Divide and Rule, a governing tactic by which the sovereign controls subjects, populations and victims of factional rivalry, who collectively might otherwise could ably oppose his rule.
This tactic of course was perfected by British rule in India [1757-1947], a legacy that has continued ad nauseam not merely in its linguistic fragmentation and the divisive religious polarization prevalent today but in the marauding Coronavirus.
Divide-Conquer-Rule principle in action!
The tiny virus that spun out of control in the year 2019 has emerged as the practitioner par excellence of a combination of the ‘divide et impera’ and ‘divide ut regnes’ maxims, running riot over countries big and small, claiming victims with unprecedented force and speed particularly in its second wave, nations pointing fingers at China as being the originator of the virus, and India foolishly claiming to have outdone other countries in both banishing the virus and exporting vaccines to developed countries.
While the country as a whole witnessed pathetic scenes resulting from an acute shortage of oxygen, medicines, vaccines, hospital beds, ambulances, burial space, crematoria, fuel and suchlike, states shut their borders and imposed quarantining, each ostensibly preventing the entry of the contagion from the other, fingers pointing openly at the central government over its ineptness and the government accusing opposition parties of politicizing the issue. Divide, conquer and rule at its best!
Covid-19’s divisiveness
Numerous helplines catering to medical assistance, food, finance, emotional needs etc have sprung up, the Catholic Church commendably in the vanguard. Nevertheless, the one issue that both the Church and society have probably overlooked is the effect of untimely Covid-deaths on the families and other loved ones of the deceased.
Instead of fretting about identifying the poor who need the assistance offered, the Church needs to analyze and dissipate the trauma of the bereaved. At the peak of the first Covid-19 wave, David Kessler, expert modern-day American thanatologist [thanatology: scientific study of death and the losses accruing thereof] who concentrates on hospice, palliative care, grief and loss, following death as he does wherever it may occur, applied the five stages enunciated by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross [late Swiss-American psychiatrist], to responses to the virus, as follows: “There’s denial, which we saw a lot of early on: This virus won’t affect us.
There’s anger: You’re making me stay home and taking away my activities. There’s bargaining: Okay, if I social distance for two weeks everything will be better, right? There’s sadness: I don’t know when this will end. And finally there’s acceptance. This is happening; I have to figure out how to proceed. Acceptance, as you might imagine, is where the power lies. We find control in acceptance. I can wash my hands. I can keep a safe distance. I can learn how to work virtually” (Harvard Business Review, 23 March 2020).
As families and neighborhoods grapple with the after-effects of both individuals and entire families being wiped out, COVID-19’s divide-conquer-rule strategy is further becoming evident in the blame game making the rounds of various quarters, part of the exercise including repeated postmortems of the how-why-where of the entry of the virus per se. Sadly, the gullible tend to get swayed by irrational theories all out to rend the fabric of peace and unity, be it in families or in housing societies.
Essentially, the point of the Kübler-Ross theory is, we need to get those bereaved to open up—something that of course doesn’t happen of its own accord but which can of course happen if our priests could but actually talk about it from the pulpit so that the hurting, suffering members of Christ’s Mystical Body may experience his healing touch.
Common sense the need of the hour
If we, irrespective of our educational qualifications and our supposed social status, are to retain our sanity until and after the virus has ceased, what with its variations springing up in a myriad forms at unexpected pace and places, we need to pull ourselves together and, adopting a conscientious attitude towards the entire issue, rationalize our analysis of the situation.
Thus, urgently needed is the will to acknowledge the truth that a pandemic is an epidemic that has unwittingly attained universal proportions, a worldwide phenomenon that clearly respects no boundaries and nationalities, leave alone recognizing differences between picnic spots and pilgrim centers, between markets and housing settlements, or even between highways and streets! That alone will enable us to stop the mindless blame game and save family relationships, in the process enabling each other to come to terms with reality.
(Ladislaus Louis D’Souza, is the copy-editor with St Paul’s/Better Yourself Book, Bandra, Mumbai, since 22 years. He is a founding member of the Indian branch of the Association of Lay Pauline Cooperators.)
The only way to counter this “Divide and Rule” phenomenon brought about by Covid, is to look up to the one and only Baba Ram Dev who said there is no crisis of oxygen, it is abundant in the air and all we need is to use our nostrils to breathe in and breathe out to become Aatmanirvar and one united Bharat. Plain living and high thinking!