Tanzania: On Human Flourishing - Why JPM's Coronavirus Fight Style Worth Praise

MANY may have taken it lightly, but President John Magufuli's recent call for enhanced citizens' protection against fear amid Covid-19 is not only a great idea, but significant and timely.

Indeed, im portant and well-tim ed because looking at the nuances of how fear m anifests and the

dangers it can cause, in a national context, can be tragic. Fear com es with a risk to stability, openness and cohesion. This needs reflection. Yes, fear can be lethal.

And JPM knows very well the broad effect of it if it is allowed to bud and flourish in our society. H e also knows that being one of the m ost powerful em otions, it has a very strong effect on the m inds of wananchi.

Magufuli's call to fight fear alongside Covid-19 reminds m e of what his fellow President, the late Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat, the third President of Egypt, serving from 15 October 1 970 until his assassination by fundam entalist army officers on 6 October 198 1 , said as he fought fear and anxiety am ong Egyptians, he aptly states; Fear is, I believe, a most effective tool in destroying the soul of an individual-and the soul of a people.

For JPM , it is even m ore dangerous now amid Covid- 1 9, because, to use the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson (M ay 25, 1 8 03 - April 27 , 1 8 8 2) an American essayist, lecturer, and philosopher, it defeats m ore people than any other one thing in the world.

More im portantly, studies in sociology of developm ent tells us that many im - portant aspects of human developm ent relate also to people's security, som ething which we can loosely define as people's freedom from fear and freedom from want in a broad sense.

In a sim ilar but elaborate expression on the dangers and seriousness of fear, like JPM , a number of prominent people have written and spoken about it. Whereas Brian Germain, author and life coach wrote, fear is simply staring in a direction you didn't want to go anyway.

James Maitland Stewart, an Am erican actor and military officer sees fear as an insidious and deadly thing. It can warp judgment, freeze reflexes, and breed mistakes. Worse, it is contagious.

Others like Stefan Zweig, an Austrian novelist and playwright have even a much more wide-ranging explanation on the consequences of fear and explaining it as; A distorting mirror in which anything can appear as a caricature of itself, stretched to terrible proportions; once inflamed, the imagination pursues the craziest and most unlikely possibilities.

What is most absurd, suddenly, seems the most probable. And Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace, an English writer, wants us to note the magnitude of fear in terms of a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack , more potent than the snake. So for JPM , we have to be vigilant, because if we are not careful, fear will drive us through the floor.

It is much better for our people to understand that challenges we shall face, like social distancing and in some places shutdowns, both voluntary and involuntary, though hard on people, will be with us for sometime, and those already em erging should be accepted as other social changes.

As I write this piece, I am also reminded of what my mother used to tell us about fear and anxiety.

Though as a school boy I did not understand the im pact of fear well, but now I know, indeed as mama warned, that some fears and anxieties can take over my life, affecting my ability to concentrate, enjoy life, or even leave the house or go to, by them , my old Chanzige Primary School in Kisarawe.

I recall her warning that I should choose courage and not fear, because fear could easily hold me back from doing things I want or need to do.

Today, I know courage as an important value, as it is well stipulated in a num ber of sayings, like, for example, with a stout heart, a m ouse can lift an elephant (Tibetan); Like a fish, one should look for holes in the net. (Samoan); Heroism consists of hanging on one minute longer.

(Norwegian); A turtle travels only when it stick s its neck out. (Korean); And finally, given a challenge, rise to the occasion (unk nown). Shock ingly, even on our health front, fear is dangerous.

For example, when there is fear, our heart beats tend to go very fast, sometimes we breathe very fast, muscles feel weak , some people sweat a lot and can find ourselves hard to concentrate on anything else. These I have personally experienced, and I believe my reader may have gone through, at least, one of these symptoms, when subjected to fright, terror or distress.

But a cautionary message is needed here. When Mr President warns people not to cause panic, anxiety and distress during this Covid- 19 pandemic, he is not at all saying that we should be lik e those who in the early days of C ovid-1 9 responded with denial.

I remember som e people denied that nothing much needed to change. And we hear these people on the media, those who categorically deny that there is no good reason for our gatherings and lives to be disrupted. No, this is not part of Mr President's decree.

What he expressed in his recent remarks when he addressed heads of defence and security organs over the Covid- 19 crisis from Chato, was his concern for wananchi to continue to live in dignity, som ething which could be guaranteed only if they enjoy freedom from fear.

Magufuli does not want fear-which Usman B. Asif calls a dark room where negatives develop. JPM ' s vision is for citiz ens' participation to continue to organize them selves and their goals at all levels, and work together in order to fight the virus, because the issue at stak e relates directly to them .

He simply is against fear, especially fear of the unknown, because it can be an obstacle and a serious risk to citiz en participation. Equally im portant is the fact that, despite its consequences, fear has no boundary. It can find its home in any society, rich or poor, developed or developing; and any place in the world, south or north, east or south.

By way of example, a few years ago, and probably still is, the world witnessed a thread of fear weaving its way through European societies in the form of a culture finding its form and asserting its growing influence in num erous ways.

Think for exam ple the beginning of the year 2015 , when Europe was bogged down with the m igrant crisis and its associated anti-immigrant sentiments, econom ic crisis and a counter-terror crisis.

Think of its resulting conseq uences, ranging from the declining level of political engagem ent and trust am ong countries and leaders, and its potential to foster a divisive new political culture, to destabilising a long-tim e dem ocratic governance ethos.

These issues cannot be ignored. They are concrete concerns which created a sense of fear am ong m any European citizens. More im portantly, Europe takes these concerns seriously.

No wonder they are now calling it politics of fear, som ething which, for them , is carefully observed, because already it has asserted its influence beyond borders to issues of policies, welfare and social security provision across the continent. Magufuli's worry, like Europe, rests on fear that can easily weak en our wananchi's social bonds and solidarity.

Mr President wishes that despite the challenges of the pandemic, panic, alarm and distress will not be the source of disorderly conditions, but rather wananchi should move some bad peoples' perceptions of Covid-19 from one based on fear to seeing it as also an opportunity to come together and fight it.

So let our emotions, motivations, and actions rem ain focussed. Let us not allow fear to disrupt us because, to use Brian Krans, an awardwinning investigative, political, spot news reporter, fear is the thief of dreams. After all, there is great beauty in going through life without anxiety or fear.

Half our fears are baseless, and the other half discreditable, wrote Christian Nestell Bovee (February 22, 18 20 - January 18 , 1 904 ) , an epigrammatic New York City writer.

So, this is why Magufuli's fight against fear amid COVID-1 9 is a great idea, actually sim ilar to that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt ( January 30, 18 8 2- April 1 2, 1 94 5 ) , 32nd president of the United State of America, who over seventy decades ago, instructed; the only thing we have to fear is fear itself- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified, terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

Cheers!

D r Alfred Sebahene, PhD Social Ethics Specialist and Anti-Corruption Consultant St John's University of Tanzania, Dodoma, Tanzania Email Addresses: arsebahene2@ yahoo.co.uk , alfredsebahene@ gmail. com Mobile: 0 7 6 7 2 3 3 9 9