History will misremember this pandemic
History establishes nothing more than her treachery and slippery nature. She cannot seem to grasp anything completely, and has not enough hold on reality to be infallible. There are so many sides and perspective to any story which makes it quite difficult for her to remember anything accurately.
For instance, it is as difficult to pinpoint the true cause of any war as it is difficult to know the log that started a fire. World war I, for example, is documented to have been started by the murder of the archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria by Gavrillo Princip; in truth, however, war blocs had started forming way earlier than that.
Similarly, Covid-19’s origin is largely unknown, and will remain so. It is even questionable whether its very first victim was in China, and even if he/she was, we have virtually no way of determining how he/she came to contract it. However, seeing as it is the winner’s job to record history, whoever’s highest selling version of 2020 will ultimately become the historical truth despite its assumptions and lies.
It will not be the first time.
Indeed, posterity has been known to celebrate cruelty and shun goodness. Today, America celebrates her founding fathers as industrious, sagacious, and revolutionary people without whom the new world’s first democracy would have crumbled.
True to form, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and the rest of them were great leaders.
However, many of them were not good men as history would have us believe.
Thomas Jefferson, a slaver, tried to actively sabotage the newly-founded union; Alexander Hamilton was rash and impetuous; John Adams was too timid for his own good; George Washington was a slaver.
Needless to say, no one likes to remember this version of the truth.
In the old world, the Athenians celebrated and commemorated a day for Theseus, who had been so reviled while alive due to his rape of Helen and his accumulation of power, that he had been exiled to Sciron where he had died after being pushed off a cliff by the king, Lycomedes.
Allow me here to offer a contrary example: The greatest man to ever live and who we will forever revere, Jesus Christ, was not as popular while he was alive. We are told, in the Bible, that the Romans had a tradition where during a feast they released one man, who the people called for, from the judgement of death by crucifixion. Yet when the offer was made between Jesus Christ, God-the-son, and Barnabas, a common thief, to the people, they cried out for Barnabas to be released and Jesus crucified.
Such is the treacherous nature of history and mankind: what we believe today may not be what we will believe tomorrow. The people we love today are the people we will hate tomorrow, and vice versa. We don’t easily agree, even on mundane topics. Health science will have us eating seven eggs a week today, and tomorrow condemn them as the genesis of all known diseases.
We have differing opinions over everything.
Some will claim that Donald Trump was the worst president ever where others will praise him for his great leadership. In Kenya, many will fault the Jubilee administration for its accumulation of loans where others will praise it for advancing peace and promoting development.
Some will have Beyoncé as the best female artist in the world where others would place Adele or, God help us, Cardi B.
There is nothing, however good or bad, that is too one-sided not to have its supporters and critics.
President Barrack Obama is remembered fondly in the United States for his presidential demeanor more than he was ever praised while in office. In fact, there are some who, reportedly, voted Donald Trump in to spite Obama, and this month voted Trump out to bring back the ‘sane’ Democratic era.
Rwanda’s Paul Kagame is seen by some as a dictator yet an overwhelming majority of people gave their consent for him to extend his legal term, and in Kenya, many remember Daniel Moi’s tenure fondly claiming him to be a better president than the current, whom the late Mzee Moi endorsed for office, forgetting his dictatorial tendencies.
Thus, said Wallace Stevens rightly:
Twenty men crossing a bridge into a village are twenty men crossing twenty bridges into twenty villages.
I am almost inclined to believe the saying that there are no facts, only perspectives. The sun may rise to the east of earth, but to Venus, it rises to the west.
The Covid- 19 pandemic has destroyed the lives and livelihoods of many while building the lives and livelihoods of others. These will claim and write books highlighting the good parts of living during a crisis which will sell more than books showing the plight of many who lost their families, jobs, and homes.
History will most definitely forget them and remember the ‘Covid heroes and millionaires’ who will be studied in schools and preached in churches.
Such is our twisted fate.
