Wear a mask for your fellow ‘china’

Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno. Sword.

The names probably mean little these days to those other than historians and, possibly, old soldiers. Those were what the allied invasion planners called the Normandy beaches upon which hundreds of thousands of young men were deposited 76 years ago, on 6 June 1944, in the final push to defeat Adolph Hitler.

Thousands of them died on that day. It was a brutal, bloody cauldron of killing, captured in all its heart-stopping detail in the iconic movie Saving Private Ryan.

A colleague of mine, roughly my age and who did his time “on the border” in the ’80s, posted a simple “Lest we forget” note on Facebook over the weekend.

I paid attention. Possibly because I once wore a uniform and carried a gun … but also because it made me think about altruism.

Altruism is, according to my research “the belief that the well-being of others is equally, if not more, important than the well-being or survival of the self. Further, altruism involves selfless acts or undertakings that put the welfare of others before one’s own.”

That’s what those young men did in 1944, when they laid down their lives and threw away any chance of a future, to liberate other people. That sacrifice goes even further than the Biblical injunction that “greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”.

Altruism is putting yourself through discomfort, risk, or even giving your life, to help someone you may have never met. I would go further to say that altruism is the highest development of humanity. It shows a being which can go beyond the urge to satisfy the animalistic needs of food, shelter and sex.

So why, then, are there so many lower-order animals roaming the suburban streets today?

Michael Ryan is the emergencies director for the World Health Organisation (WHO) which, after sending out mixed messages for some time, this weekend finally recommended the people wear masks when out in public to help cut the transmission of the coronavirus.

Ryan stressed that putting on a fabric mask is primarily about preventing the wearer from possibly infecting others, rather than self-protection.

“It’s an altruistic act,” he said.

So, if I see you out walking, running or cycling without a mask – and you don’t make any effort to put distance between yourselves and other people – then I’m afraid I see a lower-order creature.

This is a being so wrapped up in its own needs and gratifications that it sees nothing else. More than that, though, I see a criminal. That’s because, while not wearing a mask might not strictly be punishable in law (another one of the anomalies in our lockdown regulations), it can, nevertheless, be likened to assault.

The tests in law are that you are negligent if you should have been aware of something but went ahead and did it anyway. You are reckless if you know full well the risks of an activity but carry on anyway.

The science, as confirmed by the WHO, says that wearing a mask reduces your chances of passing on the virus, especially if you don’t have symptoms. So, if you don’t, you are knowingly – and recklessly – endangering someone else … possibly even giving them a death sentence.

So you’re no better than any other attempted murderer.

It’s a good thing it’s not 1944. Charge up a beach? Sorry, bro, me and my chinas are going cycling.

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.