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We are just four days shy of the New Year and the air is thick with the fragrance of hope that 2022 will be a better year than the past two.
We are throwing cautious parties (sometimes surreptitiously tracking those on our guest list afterwards to make sure there were no ‘spreaders’) and before Omicron, we even booked tentative holidays.
Just like we did in 2020, we are ending 2021 with the optimism that the worst of the pandemic is behind us.
If there is one thing that the Covid-19 virus has taught us, it is to put things in perspective.
Despite the forced confinement to our homes as we adopted WFH practices and schools went online, we realised that this did not translate into ‘family time’. That is why recent happenings in Bahrain have underscored the old-fashioned goodness of spiritual, social and community values that we build our lives by.
Throughout the past two years, as the world battled the virus, Bahrain’s Crown Prince and Prime Minister boldly drew up an action plan to protect its people – a strategy founded on a vision of equal access to preventive action, medical care and vaccination for all, which was leavened by compassion and an all-embracing inclusiveness.
Domestic workers, labourers and CEOs, Bahrainis and residents, all have equal access to vaccination and it is this equality that is the key to Bahrain’s success against the pandemic. The care shows itself even in the everyday communication of public health officials.
When one of our family members recently tested positive, we received calls to check on our health and the reassuring tone used was a huge comfort.
It reinforced the strong social core of Bahrain which makes us all feel as one.
Of course, the freedom to follow your own spiritual path is embedded in the Bahraini way of life.
I remember a senior Bahraini, one of the first batch of students of Al Raja School which was attached to the American Mission’s church work, tell me, “We never had any confusion about ourselves.
We took the best of what the world offered without worrying about conversion and the ideas of other religions weakening our essential Islamic beliefs. I think that helped us to grow.”
We are part of a kingdom where the oldest Hindu temple in the region welcomes devotees within hearing distance of the muezzin’s call from nearby mosques and is within walking distance of a synagogue and church.
This month, Bahrain sealed this reputation for religious tolerance and harmony with the consecration of the largest Catholic church in Awali, in time for Christmas service.
And the best example that 2020-21 did not dent the luminous community spirit of Bahrain was the recent coming together of a neighbourhood to search for a lost child.
When young Abdulla, a five-year-old with autism went missing, the parents’ distress galvanised the whole community and even passers-by apparently dropped holiday plans to join the search for the little boy.
And when he was found 12 hours later, the way cars honked and people stopped each other to pass on the news was akin to celebrating a big sporting fixture win!
In a world which throws so many curveballs at us, we are blessed indeed to count so many blessings in Bahrain. In the rush and tumble of life, let us not forget to do so.
Onward and upward always, Bahrain!
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