The Americans claim a new name is required for Swine Flu. I’m with them, it’s awful. What’s more it undermines the niceness of pigs generally - especially the bacon part. So, what are the alternatives? I guess it has to be something related to the pig family seeing that’s where it originated. Warthogs and Bores are part of the pig family so it could be called the Boring Flu or the Warty Flu. How about the Snorter Flu or Squealer Flu. Maybe the Snout and Trotter Flu.
As it happens I developed a cold a couple of days after we became aware the Swine Flu problem. Subsequently I have felt like a leper in public places. I waiting for people to throw hankies over the noses when they see me sneeze. Perhaps they should anyway? It’s not like other forms of the Flu are more beneficial.
Fear is a powerful thing. It only takes the mention of the word Pandemic and vast numbers of people hit the internet to find out what’s going on and whether we are all going to die. The rest wonder what all the fuss is about. What is a pandemic anyway?
Personally I think there is reason to be concerned, but not because we’re all going to die unexpectedly. The impact of these events tends to be financial and political - being cut off from tourism or meat export is always a problem for New Zealand. What most people fail to understand is that if Swine Flu is a problem, Foot and Mouth would be catastrophic in ways that we can only imagine. International isolation would be immediate. All our exports and travel would cease. As a nation we might as well live on Mars. It’s that bad.
From time to time these “germ” events come our way. There’s no avoiding them, only preparing for them. Yet what is it that frightens people about germs and bacteria and viruses? For reasons beyond my design ability we need them as much as they need us. Yet we regularly buy bottles of liquid to spray on everything to kill the threat. There’s a strange irrationality to our behaviour though: as we rush to clean the kitchen bench-top of killer bugs on a weekday morning, we are at greater risk of being maimed on the way to work.
Perhaps it’s just a fear of the new - a new disease, a new insect or some other “thing” that represents a perceived threat. Oddly enough it can also be another person. Just as bugs threaten our existence and livelihood, so do people. Have you ever considered that we often have the same reaction to intimidating people as we do viruses? Just as we can’t rid ourselves of viruses we can’t rid ourselves of unfamiliar individuals. As with viruses, we need to become stronger to live with them.
The writer of the psalms claimed that one person will always sharpen another. It’s a different way of being. Where I might see a new threat, God is offering a new strength. One requires running or defeating, the other, understanding.
Digby Wilkinson 2009