How many pieces of advice does one corona give?

With the new-type corona virus Covid-19, which emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan and spread rapidly across the whole world, finally being seen in Türkiye too, we too have lost the comfort of watching from afar the developments about the plague of our age. Those who harbored the whisper of doubt "How could the corona that reaches everywhere not have reached us?" must also have been relieved.

Perhaps thanks to this, the effective and exceptional measures taken so far by the Ministry of Health have truly been seen more clearly. Whatever anyone says, on the occasion of this event, right at the start, the strength, effectiveness, and capabilities of the health system, one of Türkiye's greatest successes of 18 years, have been put to the test. This test showed that Türkiye has pulled ahead of the whole world, from the developed to the undeveloped. The gap pulled ahead of the Türkiye of 18 years ago may have been forgotten, but the gap that has emerged today between us and the whole world is, thank God, something that even the opposition has for the first time appreciated.

With the measures announced one after another following the meeting held at the Külliye under the coordination of our President, corona, although seen in Türkiye in only one person and although there is no epidemic, began to affect our lives in a way never encountered before.

The existence of corona and its propensity to spread in fact lets us notice many aspects of the life we live in its "contemporary" dimension, aspects that we have grown thoroughly used to but that have escaped our attention or that we have forgotten, been unable to see.

How helpless the human being can remain against the risks it harbors, as much as against the conveniences offered by the tremendous accumulation of knowledge that globalization has presented to humanity, and by the speed of circulation, communication, and transportation of information, goods, and labor…

Indeed, that the possibilities and conveniences offered by globalization itself enlarge the accompanying risks geometrically. That a virus that appeared in one city of China has become an epidemic spreading to the whole world in a short time is possible largely thanks to the speed and possibilities of circulation that globalization has provided.

The world has in fact always been a place harboring risks and dangers. Earthquakes, storms, floods, natural disasters.. Against all these, human beings throughout history have tried to take measures. Against earthquake risks they tried to build the sturdiest structures, to take measures so that even if an earthquake occurred it would not bring destruction and death. Against such natural disasters, which generally remain within regional limits, modern man took the matter somewhat further. Without ruling out any possibility, he focused on building a safe world unaffected by earthquakes, floods, natural disasters. Buildings unaffected by earthquakes, urban plans unaffected by floods, treatments that would keep diseases within localized limits were modernity's greatest successes.

Within the chain of causality, scientific reason was assumed to be self-sufficient in creating a safe world. Even so, the "insurance" system rested on an idea developed to ensure that incalculable possible developments would not affect a whole structure, so that a localized disruption would not collapse the entire system. In the end, even if a localized development occurred, it would be ensured that it did not harm the system.

In fact, the developments that have most made the reality of globalization felt were, contrary to what is supposed, not so much the circulation of goods, money, and labor and the possibilities of communication and transportation, but disasters whose effect went beyond national borders. For this, Chernobyl and AIDS, for example, were the most important examples. When the effect of an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor did not remain only within the borders of Russia but showed itself in all the surrounding countries, and moreover spread over years, globalization was realized in another way. In the same way, the spread of the AIDS disease beyond national borders had made the existence of globalization felt together with the great risks it contains.

As the human being goes beyond the limit of boasting about the systems he has put forth, he falls into a deep heedlessness toward the risks these systems may contain. In the world we live in today, the discourses about the human being's efficacy, power, intellect, and capabilities weave at the same time the curtain of a heedlessness that entirely disregards the possibility of helplessness he may fall into before a virus. That is why the corona virus, which is beginning to slowly take the whole world captive, has an effect that reminds the human being of his place in this world.

Whether it was produced in a laboratory or developed by natural means, corona shows the limits of the civilization humankind has produced. With what kind of confidence that the clouds above our heads would not suddenly collapse upon us did the human being fall into transgression in the world? Or, trusting that the mountains would not walk and fall upon us, or that the earth would not split and swallow us, how did he set out to lord it over other people, other living beings, nature?

What lesson can teach us that the bread, the water, the comfort, and everything else we think we possess, which we have withheld from the poor and the refugee who knock at our door, in fact do not belong to us?

Corona may be a virus produced by those transgressors who have drowned the world in corruption, or it may be an affliction that has befallen all of us as a result of their transgression. In any case, this affliction, which certainly does not and will not distinguish rich from poor, easterner from westerner, southerner from northerner, ruler from ruled, in short anyone, may give some a thousand lessons and may increase the transgression of others still more.