Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1231020
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 5 APRIL 2020 OPINION I have to admit it's been a while since I last sat down to watch an episode of Xarabank; probably over a decade, in fact (which is roughly the time I have been liv- ing without a functional TV set to actually watch programmes on). Nor have I missed the expe- rience all that much. No of- fence to Peppi, or the rest of the Xarabank team… but I've always found their format to be just a little too 'gladiatorial' for my liking: almost as though the sole purpose of a discussion programme were to pit as many contrary opinions against each other – with special emphasis on the loudest and most out- rageous views imaginable – in- stead of, um, actually discussing the topic at hand. Nonetheless, I find it hard to join the chorus of online disap- proval over the choice of sub- ject matter for this evening's episode: which posits the seem- ingly antediluvian question, 'Is COVID-19 a punishment from God?' For while it does, admittedly, chime in with all the usual crit- icism levelled at Xarabank over the years… e.g., that the pro- gramme is too 'populist', and tends to reduce complex issues to the lowest possible common denominator of public opinion (or, in this case, popular super- stition)… well, it's also an unde- niable fact that the vast majority in this country does indeed sub- scribe to the view that God ex- ists; and, more pertinently, that everything within the Universe must somehow be part of 'God's plan'. Presumably, that also includes viruses such as COVID-19… and all the other killer diseas- es, viral or otherwise, that have plagued humanity for millennia. As such, the COVID-19 pan- demic also resuscitates an an- cient philosophical dilemma that has reverberated endlessly across the millennia: perhaps unsurprisingly, for it is applica- ble not just to plagues and pan- demics, but also to earthquakes, tsunamis and all sorts of other natural disasters – and even to the great imponderable ques- tion of all time: why do such things as 'death' and 'suffering' even exist at all? At the risk of oversimplifica- tion, the dilemma boils down to the inherent difficulty in recon- ciling one's belief in an all-lov- ing, all-merciful, all-powerful deity… with the stark reality that the Universe, as we experi- ence it, seems entirely indiffer- ent to human suffering. And while it is very easy for non-believers such as myself to shrug the question off, by simply removing God from the equation altogether – 'no God, no plan, and therefore no pun- ishment, QED' – well, it's worth occasionally remembering that 'believers' constitute not only the overwhelming majority of Malta's population (and there- fore, by extension, of Xara- bank's target audience)... but, like it or not, their belief-system also underpins the entire ra- tionale behind the social struc- tures we have all been brought up in, whether we realise it or not. Inevitably, then, the beliefs of others can and do impinge on how the rest of us choose to live our lives. To cite but one exam- ple from my own experience: I happen to belong to that gen- eration which lived through the initial outbreak of the AIDS/ HIV epidemic, way back in the 1980s. To the best of my knowledge, the Catholic Church never offi- cially endorsed the view – huge- ly popular among homophobic zealots, at the time - that 'AIDS was God's punishment for ho- mosexuality'. But that, none- theless, is what we were taught at school (even if, admittedly, by only one teacher, who may or may not have been echoing official school policy). Even all these years later, I can still hear the audible gasp of disbelief and indignation that erupted when that teacher uttered those words in class… and such was the impression he made at the time, that I can still even quote him from mem- ory 30 years later: "There is no doubt in my mind – no doubt whatsoever – that AIDS is God's way of punishing the world for the sin of homosexuality…" And while some of us rebelled at the idea - and at least one of us went on to relinquish his Catholic faith altogether - well, who knows how many of that class of 12-year-olds will have absorbed the general message, and come away from the experi- ence believing that homophobia was in reality just a manifesta- tion of God's will on earth? How often was the same lesson used as a justification for bullying, or worse: both on the playground, and also in later life? Applied to COVID-19, the same premise could give rise to all sorts of other discrimina- tory attitudes: for if there are, indeed, people out there who genuinely believe that this virus is 'a punishment from God'… then it follows that we must al- so ask ourselves, 'a punishment for what?' Needless to add, all sorts of evangelical preachers (mostly in the US) have already crawled out of the woodwork to inter- pret the cause of God's wrath for us all… and unsurprisingly, most of their answers – as was the case with AIDS 30 years ago – turn out to be nothing more than thinly veiled attacks on vulnerable minority groups. We have been told (among others, by our very own 'Riv- er of Love') that COVID-19 is 'God's punishment for divorce, abortion, and same-sex mar- riage'. And while it is altogether too easy to deflate such argu- ments with just a few words (eg: if that's the case, how do we ex- plain the fact that Iran was sin- gled out for extra punishment… when it actually imposes a death sentence for homosexu- ality?) the fact remains that this sort of reasoning will inevitably resonate with people who share the underlying prejudice to be- gin with. Then there's the small matter of racism. Already there is ev- idence that the pandemic has greatly exacerbated xenophobia targeting Asians in general… on the basis that the virus orig- inated in China (and – let's face it – even non-racists are likely to assume anyone with Asians features is going to be 'Chinese', until proven otherwise.) This form of racism already exists in Malta… and we know from past experience that it needs very little fodder to sus- tain itself. But if we also add 'God's punishment' to this al- ready-volatile mix… what can we expect to emerge, if not yet another religious justification for hatred and discrimination, in a country that is already no stranger to racially-motivated violence? Meanwhile, the question posed by Xarabank may be im- portant for another reason: it can also be seen to divide public opinion, even among adherents of the same faith. Naturally, I can't predict what sort of answer Archbishop Sci- cluna will come up with on the show as I write ahead of its air- ing – though I strongly suspect it will be a reflection of Pope Francis' recent meditation on the same subject: i.e., that "The worldwide coronavirus pan- demic is not God's judgment on humanity, but God's call on people to judge what is most important to them and resolve to act accordingly from now on…" But – and it is a problem that has dogged the local Catho- lic Church for decades now – Archbishops and Popes do not have an automatic monopoly over the private opinions of all Raphael Vassallo 'God's punishment' for what, exactly?