There is a New Virus Emerging

This new virus is far more deadly than Corona, it not only infects those who have it but people around them.

The deadliness of this virus cannot be underestimated.

This virus is HATE.

It not only destroys the physical world and it destroys the inner being of all those who catch it.

This might end up being a long post and might even be a couple of posts.

So stop here if you don't have you long post peepers on.

This is really difficult post to write because I have to strike this just right – because while there are some hard words here against the purveyors of hate I do not subscribe the very thing I am on my soapbox about.

Every single one of the 195 countries in this world has unique and special gifts to bring to the world- every single one – the fact that a country has a clearly defined national identity means they see themselves as unique and that uniqueness only makes the rich tapestry of humanity richer and more beautiful.

Each and every flower in the garden of humanity brings beauty to the whole garden.

Overnight I have had several messages from very concerned people bringing my attention to articles or discussions all blasting China – all stirring up a pot of mischief and fear and condemnation for the Chinese Government, the Chinese people and pretty much every single thing about China.

I was also called a piece of scum for disagreeing that China committed a deliberate terrorist act against the world – which seems a strange way to do it - blow up your own house first to get the neighbor’s house.

And endure a huge cost in China economically and socially to bring it under control. And then start sending trainloads of supplies to the rest of the world, sending medical professionals to help and offering all the lessons they learned – as you would see from the document I posted from the hospital that managed to keep deaths to a minimum (1 death out of 1200 cases)

But I am sorry for that person – I am sorry that their heart is so mired in hate and their mind is so mired in ignorance – it’s a dark place to place your heart and mind.

From Boris Johnson’s ‘fury’ about China to Sky News, 9 News and other ‘News’ News corporations.

Hate is a great bandwagon.

Its so easy to get on that bandwagon.

Wind up your tongue and send it off hating all over the place and sit back and see the sheeples follow you and get their collective knickers not so much knotted, but chain bound.

Hate, criticism, sensationalism, and outright lying sells and it sells big time – that’s why so many newspapers and media outlets use it as a primary tool to get and keep audience.

Years ago I was selling leather jackets in the town of Whanganui in New Zealand and the local leather dealer got mightily upset at me – being an ‘import’ from Dunedin, and using his official title as Mayor of Whanganui (which he just happened to be) called down upon my head, which in those days was generously endowed with hair, the fire inspectors, the health inspectors, the groom of the stool and the privy councilors and more importantly every news outlet in town.

Which was one paper and one radio station.

They came to me asking me to comment how upset I must be having so much attention from the Mayor and would I like to comment – and I said:

Yes. I am sorry that the Mayor has found that our presence here has taken away from his business and I wish him well and hope that after I am gone things will return to normal and thanked him for doing what he thought was best.

Silence.

“Don’t you want to blame him for what he has been doing to you.”

“No”

And one guy turned to the other and said: ‘No story here let’s head off”

So right now, there is media stirring up hate, Politicians stirring up hate. And people letting rip with all their prejudices that they have kept in their pockets and hoping no-one would see them are dusting off these issues and bringing them into vocal opposition to China.

I was sent the message of a Bosnian immigrant to the US ranting about seeing a video of a dog being killed horribly in China and by extension the entire nation was at fault.

Seriously – Bosnia? – the scene of some of the most chilling massacres at the end of the 20th Century?

Should we hate every single Bosnian, Croat, Serb as a result of the actions of their military?

That that happened -the dog incident – is appalling – utterly appalling and the people responsible should be punished unmercifully – but you can’t extend the feeling to the entire nation because some ignorant savages commit some crime.

The virus of hate, if it spreads it will make the fall-out from the virus seem like kindergarten.

Hate never has never, will never, and does not solve a single problem.

It is only fuel to a fire that will burn the entire society.

Reading these things, buying into them, listening to the rants and the raves from ‘concerned’ commentators will only make you feel anxious, afraid and ultimately part of the hate.

Hate turns into mass hysteria and mass hysteria turns into nationalism and nationalism turns into war.

It’s as simple as that.

Just go to history – when hate rears its ugly head war is never far behind.

Let’s hate the Jews – they did everything wrong and the entire world would be better off without them

Lets the hate the blacks because they were slaves.

Let’s hate the Palestinians because they are stateless

Let’s hate the Muslims because they are all terrorists

Let’s hate all Syrian refugees because they are coming here.

Let’s hate the French because they refused to go to Iraq and call them cheese-eating surrender monkeys.

Let’s hate anything and anyone I don’t agree with or is different to me.

I say: Lets hate no-one and let’s find understanding for everyone - even ourselves.

And I pose a very provocative question here:

What if other countries start to hate YOU – what if China or other countries rise up to start calling out things that other countries had done, publicizing them and making the people hate YOU?

There is a fairly hefty list of things that could be put on the table – including total genocide of Tasmanian First Nation People, or US First Nation People, slavery, the subjugation of African American in the US – including still getting shot while you are sitting in a car for nothing, or the million or so Iraqis that were killed during GW1, after GW1 and during GW 2 subsequent to GW2, the death toll of colonization in Africa, the subjugation and economic slavery of India for 300 years.

My First nation friends in Australia don’t call the invasion of the British the ‘invasion’ they call it the 'genocide'.

The western powers invasion of China from the 1840’s through to the Second World War, that basically carved the country into western zones and extracted almost the entire economic wealth of China during that period, the burning of the Summer Palace and the theft of the most precious art and artifacts in the world – China has great and valid reasons to be wary of the west.

The ‘No Dogs or Chinese’ signs

The various government laws banning Chinese entry, enforcing unfair taxes, and other discriminations

This list could take up a whole book.

I am loath to even mention these things because it is perpetuating these lessons in the minds of people.

You should not punish the succeeding generations of people for the mistakes of their forebears or their government – but you can blame people when they take no time to learn the history of what happened and resolve to prevent that happening again.

And that’s how it should be kept.

I personally hate no-one

I don’t care what colour shirt you wear, what tone your skin is, what style your hair is, what sexual preference you have, what religion you follow, what you call your dog or your cat. Or even if you call me a piece of scum - because in hating someone I allow MY heart to be poisoned and that is fatal

I may hate the actions you take but never who you are on the basis that you are an ethnicity or a race or your dog is called Fido or you wear holey purple underwear and bay at the full moon.

So, lets address the big one that is causing these problems.

China knew about the virus and did nothing.

Bollocks.

Some incompetent officials, in the interest of making themselves look good by covering up the virus so they could have their party, ignored the virus for one month.

They falsified their reports because the law states that any hint of a new virus needed to be reported instantly to Beijing

They broke the law – think about that – there was and is a law that they were required to follow to report this virus and they didn’t follow it.

That is not in dispute.

They were all dismissed and are probably in prison or even worse but they were certainly not let off to roam the world for the rest of their life.

The doctor who broke the story about the virus did so on the 30th of December, which was the FIRST that the central government knew of the virus.

On the 31st of December – ONE DAY after being alerted Beijing alerted the WHO and declared the existence of the virus and then they got on to the solution.

Be fair – those are the facts.

An unkind man, which I am not (I hope) could say – well the governments who were alerted on the 31st of December and sat on their patooties until the number of cases forced them into acting are, at least 2-3 times a culpable – on timing alone.

That they have had almost three whole months to put in place the solution and ramp up production of PPE, tests, hospital equipment and contact tracing, plans for lockdown and they did little – which government is more culpable?

Or the people sunning themselves on Bondi Beach, or holding church services or parties or just simply ignoring the restrictions because of their human rights are equally as culpable as the officials who covered this up – equally – the only difference is one of degree of result – how many cases were spread at Bondi that day and how many deaths will be the result?

First cases in China were noticed around the 1st December 2019 so there was one month’s delay to the 31st of December in getting the fact out that there was a new disease on the table - and that date came from the doctor who reported it – not from the authorities.

But you have to understand when a new virus presents itself it is not immediately obvious that it is a new virus – the first several cases were interpreted as existing diseases – so in reality there was around 2 weeks when the officials in Wuhan did nothing,

But it was from 31st December to end of February - middle of March before several governments took it seriously.

Both situations are wrong.

What is right is that as soon as you start taking the right action then the virus will be defeated.

When Trump said he was going to open the country up at Easter I was incensed – but he has now made the right decision which is to NOT open the country up at Easter – that’s what is important – that these decisions are not perpetuated – it is a good thing that Trump has realized the severity of the virus and is starting to look at the right solutions.

It is good because it starts the cure – it starts the process of getting it right.

But if you add in the bonus of hate into the equation then the result just gets worse and worse and worse.

And it will get worse if hate is allowed to rampage and there will be no winners.

Let’s take Australia - just as an example

- 30% of Australian exports go to China. - $123 Billion dollars

- 26.5% of tourism - $11 Billion dollars

- Education sector - $3.6 billion – equating to around 21-25% of 8 major Universities’ revenue.

What if, as a result of the things that are being said in Australian media right now get a kick back from China and it says:

“well, if you hate us so much, or if our citizens are being subjected to physical violence then no problem – we’ll buy things from someone else?"

Who suffers then?

The people – the good people and the bad people – there will be no discrimination between the people who go without when the biggest single chunk of your economy disappears.

But is isn’t about that.

It isn’t about the economy or money or blame or who did what or who didn’t what.

It is about understanding.

Understanding comes from facts and it is the responsibility of an individual or even more so the talking donkey heads on the TV to ascertain facts first before making a conclusion.

There is so much misunderstanding about China.

Let me give you an example.

A friend of mine was the UN Representative on Population Control for China and he accompanied Kofi Annan to a meeting with Zhang Zi Min.

Kofi Annan started speaking (the word my friend used was lecturing) to Zhang Zi Min about human rights and Zhang Zi Min stopped him and said:

“Let me tell you about human rights. It is firstly a human right that the people have enough to eat, then clothes to wear and money to educate their children. Then it is a human right that they have health care and support for when they old or sick. It is a human right that they have a job to earn money from.

“If you tell me that being able to cast a vote for one of two people or parties every four years is a human right before all of these things then you are wrong”

I can tell you for a fact, from living in China for 25 years that the people here are not straining under the yoke of a brutal dictatorship – that the vast majority of ordinary people support the government and living productive and happy lives.

Are they aware of the shortcomings of their government?

Absolutely.

But which people in the world are 100% happy with their government?

Are you allowed to criticize the government here -

Absolutely - just not in print or in public forums

And before you say bollocks - I have sat in meetings with senior officials and at meals and have great conversations about the shortcomings of the government

But the society here is a far kinder society than many western countries – and that’s the subject of a further post.

The wages of hate are already starting – my nephew is studying in Australia and my sister-in-law spends more than $30,000 on the education fees and then a similar amount on living expenses.

Because of the hate in the media and the physical harassment of Chinese citizens he will be coming home.

And thus, it starts.

When this hate gets big enough the Chinese people themselves will simply stop buying Australian goods – and who suffers – which other country in the world will replace the $123 Billion dollars in export earnings?

What is, IS.

What is past, is past.

We only have the future to look forward to and to build on.

If, as a species, we fail to come together this time then the lesson will continue, and the world will walk a path that is as dark as dark can be.

Only love will defeat hate. Only light will banish the darkness. If a thought of hate comes into your heart, replace it with a thought of love – go and be kind to someone who needs it – call a lonely person, offer to get shopping for the housebound who can’t shop for themselves, find a way to change the hate into love.

Ka Kiti Ano