Pandemic Museum

AFP/GABRIEL BOUYS

A woman wearing a face mask walks in front of the painting "Christ Washing the Disciples\' Feet" by Jacopo Tintoretto at the Prado Museum on June 4, 2020 in Madrid, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak. - Spanish lawmakers voted to extend the state of emergency a final time through to June 21. It is the sixth time the measure has been renewed, meaning the restrictions will remain in force, although they have been significantly eased since the start of the lockdown in mid-March

What thoughts might run through people’s minds in the coming decades when they enter a pandemic museum, exploring halls filled with rows of exhibits and artifacts?

This imagined museum describes human suffering and people’s unpreparedness in the grip of the pandemic. A contemporary painting entitled “El Amor en Tiempos de Pandemia” (love in the time of the pandemic) by a Spanish artist is on display, depicting a couple kissing while wearing masks. There is also a replica of an isolation ward with a virtual simulation that runs on a giant LED wall, so visitors can feel the loneliness and stillness patients and healthcare workers experienced.

Never before has a pandemic become the center of human life. This museum shows a shift in human thought that was originally divided, separated by ideological ambitions, and which has finally been made to realize that the pandemic is something greater than the anthropocentric assumption of human beings.

Archiving pandemics is very important. An interesting ancient literary work about epidemics is the masterpiece Arthashastra. This text of ancient philosophy dates from the 4th century BCE and is written by Kautilya, an Indian philosopher and statesman of the Maurya Dynasty. The work is still relevant in how it deals with the role of government and leaders during a time of crisis. Although the power structure the Arthashastra discusses is a monarchy, the text critically places leaders in positions that lend weight to their duties and responsibilities, rather than their rights and privileges.

Archiving pandemics is very important.

The Arthashastra elucidates the urgency of leaders’ sensitiveness in introducing policies, particularly related to disaster mitigation. It also emphasizes the importance of protecting forests in order to avoid various calamities from floods to hunger. The ancient text also prioritizes ecosystem health to avoid various epidemics. The Arthashastra discusses purification in times when there are outbreaks. Purification can be interpreted in two ways: on the one hand, it is purity of life in spiritual terms; on the other, it is awareness of maintaining environmental balance.

AFP/TIMUR MATAHARI

A doctor displays a vaccine for COVID-19 coronavirus at Padjadjaran university educational hospital in Bandung, West Java on July 6, 2020, in preparation for efforts to vaccinate 1,620 volunteers in the community next week.

I’m rereading the Arthashastra during this period of activity restrictions, through nights that are often interrupted by the wail of ambulances, endlessly passing by. Likewise, loudspeaker announcements from the mosque next door grimly call out, “Innalillahi [to Allah we belong]. This is to announce the passing of...”

The Arthashastra is steeped in religious elements and ritualistic nuances. However, its writer Kautilya was a rational thinker. The last part of the Arthashastra affirms the fundamental position of science in building good societies. One of its verses states, “So this study, described with the instruments of science, has been composed for the acquisition and maintenance of this world and that which is to come.”

Today, science is the focal point of humanity to enable us to adapt to the impacts of SARS-CoV-2. The entire capacity of science needs to be called upon maximally in research that undertakes an interdisciplinary approach beyond the science cluster, from health, science and technology to social studies and the humanities.

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Maintaining rational thought is indeed a challenge in this time of a pandemic. Public hysteria is worsened by government communication that is sometimes confusing. Hoaxes, denial of health facts and vaccine refusal are very sad social realities. I had a discussion with Bagus Takwin, a psychology researcher studying this phenomenon. He mentioned at least three reasons – the epistemic, existential and social – why some people believe grandiose conspiracy theories more than objective facts.

Maintaining rational thought is indeed a challenge in this time of a pandemic.

Bagus explained that the epistemic motive concerned the need for knowledge and certainty, but that people faced the problems of access and accuracy to distinguish between credible and bad sources. He continued that in terms of the social aspect, those who believed conspiracy theories usually had a need to be unique, in that the information they possessed was special and superior.

At the group level, Bagus revealed that people felt they excelled in their group yet lacked internal appreciation from their group, so they tended to choose a different narrative.

The last reason is existential, which arises as a result of people’s unwillingness to accept their feelings of helplessness and their loss of autonomy. This disappointment leads to escapism, which obscures their capacity to rationalize correctly.

It is indeed hard to stay logical during the pandemic. I have also been struggling with the reality of repeatedly losing family members, friends, colleagues, teachers and students over the last year and a half. My common sense seems to resist this. Psychoanalyst Fernando Castrillon wrote that this pandemic was frustrating, but we have to accept the reality. He called it “convivirus”, derived from the Spanish convivir, meaning to coexist. I snorted, thinking it was unfortunate that we must accept this miniscule, mysterious and deadly entity as part of daily life, a smart and agile organism that replicates itself into diverse variants!

KOMPAS/AGUS SUSANTO

Rorotan Cemetery, a burial space for Covid-19 victims in North Jakarta.

My imagination returns to the pandemic museum of the future and what historical meanings it can reveal. The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted economies, made a global tragedy of social justice. It has led public health systems to collapse and denied the human right to equal health access. A diorama depicts desperate people in search of oxygen cylinders, while on the other extreme, the commercialization of vaccines becomes a heart-rending fact for humanity.

Approaching the final gallery of the museum, visitors are presented with a distressing hologram of gravediggers in their hazmat suits standing, exhausted, on mass graves. Family members are crying at a distance and cannot see their loved one face to face; nor can they touch, embrace or hold the hands of their loved one in the last moments of their lives. Depicting tear-streaked faces, the hologram documents the fact that the people who have lost their lives are not mere statistics; they are more than just numbers.

Saras Dewi, Lecturer of Philosophical Studies, University of Indonesia.

(This article was translated by Aris Prawira)