Fear and Courage

It is simply a contradiction of images.

Right here in our country, the dominant face that one can see is that of fear--fear of A(H1N1), even more pronounced with the announcement of its first fatality. Never mind that the person who died already had pre-existing conditions, what remains as strong is the high-strung and panic-engendering manner by which news, both TV and print, about the virus is delivered. It does not help either that our health bureaucrats seem to be sending mixed messages. While on one hand DOH encourages schools and offices to practice restraint in declaring closure of their facilities and suspension of classes, it is unable to drive the point home, simply because even its functionaries seem to reveal their own uncertainty on what particular strategy to take. After announcing that it is no longer adopting a policy of containment, but instead now adopts mitigation, one of the DOH officials who attended the public hearing called by the House of Representatives still advocated for school closures as a way to slow the spread of the virus, which is exactly at the heart of the containment policy which it has supposed to have already jettisoned.

Fear creates confusion. But it could also be said that confusion fans the flames of fear. The school where my two daughters are enrolled is now advocating for anti-flu vaccinations, and the carrot is that they can get it at discounted rates. Again, this is confusing, considering that the available vaccines are not for A(H1N1), and that it is not even 100 percent guaranteed that my daughters will not get the seasonal flu if they get vaccinated. What is only sure is that if they get sick that they will only get milder symptoms and will get sick only at a shorter duration . Why should I expose my children to additional chemicals in their bodies for some protection which they can easily get with healthier lifestyle and good hygiene? I guess, only the pharmaceutical companies will benefit from all of these.

The opposite of fear is courage. And in another place, in Iran, we see a lot of these. We are witnesses to the unfolding of a new face of opposition to the fundamentalist conservative forces that have ruled Iran for decades since the Islamic revolution. There, men, and in particular, women and children, and even representatives of the conservative mullahs, are openly showing their defiance against the Supreme Ruler, all in their desire to chart a new trajectory for Iran. Not even the threats of Khameini, or the state-sponsored violence inflicted by the police and the Basiji militias could cow these new faces of hope. In fact, the very violence inflicted on them serves as catalysts, if not an elixir, that continually fuel the rage that has until recently long been kept within their hearts, but are now exploding in unison, together with thousand others. The streets of Tehran, and other places in Iran, are now converted into venues for the exercise of courage in battling the virus of state repression.

This is where the irony lies. The virus that has come to visit us is one that can be fought with a healthy body and lifestyle; yet we cower in fear, or at least, our visible institutions. The House of Representatives, who had the misplaced courage, or rather, audacity, to railroad its misguided Con-Ass resolution, has folded up and declared closure of operations, despite the fact that it was not necessary, upon knowing that one of its workers who died was also infected by the virus.

Yet, in Iran, the possibility of death, or even its certainty, as seen in the image of Neda, that girl who died after being shot by the state-sponsored militia, is not enough to inflict fear, but is in fact the very force that produced courage. While the virus of state repression, the one that causes even more damage than a mild case of A(H1N1) is faced there with an enormous amount of courage, here in the Philippines, most of those who are in panic to wear face masks, suspend their classes and operations, and get their flu shots are not as courageous to stand up to the more destructive virus of all--one that is transmitted in the halls of state power and is born from the naked ambition of one short woman.