This is the concluding part of this article first  published in our last week’s edition In 1985, Sting serenaded
that “we share the same biology, regardless of ideology” while in 2002, Placedo Domingo looked into the crystal ball of “the future [and saw a] beginning where children live in peace and harmony.” Over the years, various artistes have persistently harped on the oneness of humanity. Sadly, humanity has demonstrated that its ear is ornamental; man does not “have ears to hear” (Matt 11:15).  In its threat to human life, COVID-19 brought humanity to a state of despondent oneness more than any other phenomenon in recent human history.  The Bubonic Plague of 1720, Cholera of 1820, and Bubonic Plague of 1920 were location-specific unlike COVID-19, which had no respect for national boundaries.
In its wake, stock exchanges in New York City, Paris, London, and all over the world were shut down; economies were threatened with imminent collapse while the hearts of venture capitalists palpitated as they perspired in disbelief.
All over the world, capitalism was sufficiently threatened to the delight of Karl Marx in his eternal sleep. The desolate streets of hitherto boisterous world capitals drove home the dependence of capitalism on everyday people on the streets of humanity. COVID-19 brought man to the consciousness that, in the final analysis, there are no dividing lines other than economic as race, religion, station and location all dissolved into absolute nothingness in the face of an assailant that was airborne and attacked the respiratory system of the human anatomy. In essence, COVID-19 attacked the biology of man regardless of ideology and geology. Succinctly stated, COVID-19 made the collective vulnerability of humanity abundantly manifest.
In the beginning, God (whoever or whatever She, He, They or It may be) created man, placed him in various parts of the planet and gave various peoples certain wisdoms and competences that are peculiar to their environments; competences that echo the biblical “dominion over everything that moveth upon the earth” (Gen. 1:28).
Out of these enablements, the people evolved their culture and traditions and know-how that constitute moderators of their behaviour. These wisdoms guided them in coping with the existential realities of their immediate environment with all its peculiarities. The lower animals were equally equipped with intricate knowledge on how to cope with the environment. Aggregated on a worldwide and all-species scale, these wisdoms and competences have the answer to man’s quest to conquer and permanently dominate the earth environment in perfect harmony and achieve godly heights. The anxiety regarding global warming and the resultant swelling seas and the cities that are speculated to be submerged within the lifetime of teenagers of today have occluded man’s consciousness of and sensitivity to other threats that practically stare humanity in the face.
Doomsday theorists project that Earth will likely become close to uninhabitable as soon as the end of this century. One school of thought holds that the Earth has experienced five mass extinctions before Homo Sapiens (HS), each so complete a slate-wiping of the evolutionary record it functioned as a resetting of the planetary clock
Many climatologists hold that these are the best analogy  for the ecological future humanity is diving headlong into. Another school of thought argues that HS is the eleventh, averring that Heidelberg, Java, Homo Rudolfensis, Boskop, Denisovans, Dmanisi, Penghu, Red Deer, Cave People, Homo Naledi and Hobbit predated HS. In other words, ten extinctions predate HS. Five or ten, the point remains that by his inordinate ambition for material acquisition and outright bellicosity, man may be threading the path of extinction and may well end up in the dustbin of time, like five (or is it ten?) of his distant forebears.
At a time “global warming” is giving credibility to the reference to planet Earth as an “angry beast” or “war machine”, it is absurd to think that humans are culturing mass-killer virus. Could it be a device meant to radically reduce the population of earth and hopefully rein in the devastation that humanity is bringing upon its habitat?
Having survived COVID-19, the drums of war across the world and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction  make one wonder if man is about to self-destruct. Cluster bomb, which is banned by more than 100 countries has been obliged to Ukraine for use in its war with Russia. Weaponised  precision-attack-commercial drones have entered the arsenal of global warfare. Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) as country after country has acquired nuclear capability.
It has been written that “in the endlessness of eternity, man will attain Creatorship and, like his Creator, create in his image and likeness.” The statement “endlessness of eternity” presupposes that man will not ravage his natural world and, thereby, annihilate himself. If that happens, man will have lost another opportunity of achieving his Godhood by HS taking its ignominious place in creatio continua as ordained; HS will then take the sixth (or is it eleventh?) place in the dustbin of time. “When [HS] passeth away,” the earth will heal itself over time and “abideth forever,” and “another [Species] cometh” to continue the Divine experiment. (Eccl. 1:4) Love thy neighbour as thyself. (Mark, 12:31) Live and let live.

By: Jason Osai

Osai is a Professor of Political Science.