The fable of Chanticleer

The fable of Chanticleer tells how there was once a rooster called Chanticleer and how he and the farm animals were convinced that it was his crowing every morning that made the sunrise.

One morning Chanticleer was late and the sun rose anyway and as a result, he lost his sense of purpose and was exposed as a fraud to the other animals. 

At the end of the fable the animals assured him that even though he didn't actually command the sun, they all loved him and loved the fact that he woke them in the morning, and he, having regained some of his pride, went back to his role of announcing the sunrise. In the story, they all lived happily ever after.

The men of the cloth, from all countries, of all faiths suddenly found themselves separated from their flock.

Over the years these men of the cloth have taken on the role of protectors of the faithful. They have been the custodians who stood guard, making sure no calamity befell us, and it was these "Shepards" who appeared to steer us away from evil when we were weak. 

Now with covid 19, the places of worship are standing empty and the clerics worldwide are scrambling to stay relevant.

Just like the rooster, the public has become aware of the fact that life goes on with, or without them. The evil that we were told lay within us has not taken root as we feared. 

(or perhaps I am writing this too soon) 

The preachers are afraid that a post lockdown public may not find the institutions of faith as useful as they did in the past, so they scramble to embrace video calling, and internet technology solutions to keep their hooks in.

Some have protested against the governments who ordered the lockdowns in the hope that it could be reversed and life could go back to how it was. 

Others have argued that with the places of worship closed the world is turning away from the straight path. They point out the loss of protection against a calamity that these places of worship afforded us. 

Many clerics, it seems are prepared to sacrifice some of their flock to the virus to hold on, desperately, to their previous positions of influence. 

The lockdown has exposed the fault lines in the various institutionalized faiths. They attack each other on social media and the skirmish ranges from those who deny the pandemic actually exists to those who believe that its some kind of Devine retribution. Punishment for being wicked by an angry deity. 

The truth is painfully obvious.

The world will change completely and irreversibly.

What that world will look like is not clear. The fact that we will be confronted with abject poverty unemployment and in many cases starvation is clear. The poor and weak will be forever changed by the virus. If they survive the wildfire they will find their joy short-lived. 

Many of the giants of the industry will be ground to dust. Superpowers will and have turned to the less developed world for assistance and charity. 

The new technologies that will spring from this lockdown will revolutionize the field of Virology, medical devices, Ai computer modelling, remote workplaces, travel, tourism. All these will be changed forever. 

The crisis will bear fruit in the form of new cures for old sicknesses.  A cure for HIV or Cancer could come out of the new order. The scramble for respirators will result in many technology companies spawning divisions to supply medical equipment. 

The question of "will religion survive" is interesting. 

Yes of course the religions of the world will survive. This crisis will draw the faithful closer to God, of this I am certain. Will we allow ourselves to be micromanaged by the institutions of faith is another matter. 

Nothing the clerics have done so far has fatally damaged their institutions but it's still early days and they will need to get with the program to stay relevant. 

M Parak

April 2020