Diplomatic note: When the whole world became silent

BY AMBASSADOR ENIOLA AJAYI 

I woke up in my room this morning and the house and our street were eerily silent. There were no sounds from cars on the street, there were no birds chirping and even the trees refused to rustle their leaves. I wondered why?

I suddenly remembered that the world was at war with a silent invisible attacker. We are at war with a virus we don’t understand its mode of operation. It ambushed us before we could prevent the attack. Worse still we can’t judge precisely, the level of penetration and our attempts to fight back have been devoid of logic and pattern. We suddenly learnt how weak our health and world systems are.

It has been a game of hide and seek. We have developed all kinds of strategies to protect our lives, our economies, our lifestyles, our borders and our relationships. Unfortunately, this invisible attacker keeps moving unabated and destroying the structures that took us generations to build.

All of a sudden, schools are closed, games are postponed, churches and mosques are not allowed to function, people have to work from home except for our medical personnel, cities are quarantined. The whole world became silent. The drumming ceased, the flying stopped, and the swimming ended.

We have learnt new ways to greet one another. We have learnt a new language – ‘social distancing’. We have learnt how vulnerable we all are. We have learnt to pray silently for God to protect and save us from this silent enemy. We humble ourselves seeing how vulnerable we all are.

The scripture that rings true in spite of everything is, “the horse is prepared for the day of battle, BUT SAFETY IS OF THE LORD.”

I pray that the Lord will save our world. I pray that we shall sing and dance again. I pray that Joy and laughter will shatter this silence. Our world shall rejoice because we shall overcome.

Dr Ajayi is Nigeria’s Ambassador to Hungary

March 17, 2020