hree billion human beings confined. It’s not fiction; We are not on another planet! We are well on Earth—but an Earth where we feel threatened, where each country erects barriers, closes its borders, stops all activity including that of breathing on the street.
For the past couple of months, the coronavirus has been raging, wreaking havoc at our borders, and destabilising the world order. We are left with a feeling of helplessness and inferiority in the face of such an imperceptible threat.
Every day the virus erodes the health of our citizens but also the heart of our economy, and forces us to make urgent decisions and in doing so destroys the foundations of our democracy.
The impact of the 2008 economic crisis is historic; that of the Covid-19 is even more so because it targets the very core of our system: the human, which we suddenly remember as being central to our economic and governance models, which are today threatened with collapse.
Never has such drastic action been taken by any country, much less by dozens of countries, placing nearly three billion humans in simultaneous confinement. Terrorism, the migration crisis, climate change, economic crises—none of these challenges have generated such extreme, individual, and radical reactions on the part of states.
Each country defends itself as it can and with the means at its disposal. But can we be satisfied with this “Each for himself and God for all” attitude?
Many countries, although having taken drastic measures for fear of the unknown, are struggling to treat and contain the virus and manage their populations.
Every day the pandemic causes more deaths and more confirmed cases. Every day the pandemic is gaining ground and penetrating new countries indiscriminately. This is largely our responsibility, because in the past weeks we have all been slow to take stock of the situation we find ourselves in, we still lack information as to how this pandemic will affect our health, social, and economic well-being. The general feeling that is taking hold is that of a war against the unknown.
Faced with the inability of the most powerful nations to contain the virus, a feeling of intense fear has developed, and the unanimous conviction that no country in the world is, nor has ever been, prepared to handle this kind of crisis.
And yet the world has known many epidemics from which we have learned from, even if we seem to have forgotten some of the lessons. Our worldview has been shaped based on the belief that wealth equaled prosperity—a confusion between power and resilience.
The Black Plague, which started in the Black Sea region around 1340, and spread quickly in Europe and in certain regions of Asia because of fleeing populations, ended the lives of 75 million people. It would have killed between 30% and 50% of the European population from 1347 to 1352, according to some estimates. From this, the world learned—then forgot—the usefulness of containment.
The Cholera pandemic that raged from 1852 to 1860 in India, Russia, and the rest of Europe killed more than a million people. This pandemic is still raging but only affects poor countries, particularly African countries, and still causes millions of deaths. From it we learned the importance of preventative hygiene.
The Spanish Flu, at the end of World War I, which originally came from the United States, killed between 50-100 million people in 1918 and 1919 worldwide. From this we should have learned (and always remembered) that societies impoverished by unequal economic systems and wars are the perfect ingredients for the propagation of an epidemic.
In 1970, when it had already been eradicated in most of the world, smallpox killed 20,000 people in India. From it we should have learned that development must be inclusive.
Finally, from Ebola, a highly contagious and deadly virus, humanity should have understood that it owed its salvation only to the geography of a virus that appeared in an almost totally disconnected area. The borders were already hardly crossed there, and the world in 2014-2015 passed by a disaster without paying much attention to it.
Many pandemics have raged in the world, but they are either old and are part of the side of history that humanity believes to have overcome by fragile wealth and power, or they still rage in countries qualified as underdeveloped despite decades of economic and social progress, and are part of the side of history that we want to ignore because it does not concern us.
Humanity, has therefore not capitalized on the historic health crises which affected practically all continents long before globalization.
The big powers have not capitalized on the recent health crises which still prevail in countries in the global south because of a misguided idea that their development, and their knowledge is such that no new microbiological or viral disease could resist their defenses and cross their borders. That the economies were robust due to complexity, and not vice versa, complex therefore, fragile.
Covid-19—just as the swine and avian flu could have had this sad privilege before it—has demonstrated that the origin of pandemics is not always associated with underdevelopment, that the borders of contamination did not stop at the doors of the most developed countries, that the answers are not simple for anyone.
Many, including us, believe that the world before and after Covid-19 will no longer be the same. But it will be what we will do in its wake; each stone must count in the new system we build.
"Crisis" comes from the Greek "krisis": to decide.
Will we work to lay the foundations for a better world? Or will we again miss this opportunity, as our capacities for financial, climatic, ecosystem, and moral rebound become exhausted?
Several scenarios are possible as to the future of the post-pandemic world: What do we want?
A rise to power of a cynical capitalism where the nations most advanced in research would try to take advantage of the distress of the least advanced and would turn this health crisis into an economic or geostrategic opportunity?
A rise in nationalism and protectionism, by obscuring the foundations of solidarity and global consensus based on multilateralism and international cooperation?
A rise in authoritarian regimes that would take advantage of temporary restrictions on rights and freedoms by establishing lasting mechanisms for their control, thereby threatening the most basic principles of respect for human rights and democracy?
Or, finally, do we want to build a world of hope, opening up prospects for the sustainability of peace and security between our communities? To achieve this we must, from this instant, start to build the foundations of this new world order.
Here is how:
Strengthen international collaboration, based on the belief that the health security of the most powerful nation in this world is dependent on the health security of the weakest nation.
It is clear that the prosperity of the most developed nations is conditioned on that of the least developed, often the holders of vast deposits of primary resources. We must pledge to work toward sustainable development.
We must work toward a world where nations are putting in place a common governance base with objectives, procedures, and means for health security, with ambitious, permanent, and collective treatment plans in place to prevent crises.
We need a world where people finally realize that protecting natural ecosystems is imperative for their survival. How is it possible that in an era where 80% of species are threatened with extinction we are still surprised at the spread of new pandemics? How is it possible that with the climate change crisis, man has not yet realized that he is creating new ecosystems? New diseases? New viruses?
What is happening today with the Covid-19 should challenge us to consider our humanity and our relationship with nature. We are transforming the Earth and the order of nature; so, we should not be surprised if nature resists us.
Humanity has experienced pandemics in each century of its history, our stubbornness and our models of development are precipitating us towards more frequent and destructive crises.
Unprepared, blinded by our own blinkers, we have accelerated social breakdown by asking the most vulnerable in our society to shoulder the burden of the financial and economic crisis of 2007-2008. We were rushed into emergency; conversely, the deconfinement, the resumption of activity, but also the human and economic choices of the future will have to be done with transparency, in debates bringing together all expertise and especially all human experience.
What is certain is that it will take a real discussion on health systems and a global pooling of capacity and health solidarity; that recovery will have to be driven by investment for the climate, nature and the planet, including humans, and not by short-term consumption in supply loops, which we know are not sustainable and which have just demonstrated their fragility.
What is certain is that this time the debate must be real and democratic, just and lasting economic strategy for absorbing the cost of the emergency measures, and, more deeply, we must not consider these measures not as a "price" but as a first investment towards a human-centered society. Humanity already has all the tools and the solutions, and good will abounds. This world is already accessible.
While we are giving in to the emergency, nature and its ecosystems are already preparing the next tornadoes, freezes, fires and floods, the next viruses to resolve the matter, in one way or another.
We have this choice, all together, today, to remove our blinders.
a global affairs media network
Let Us Take Off Our Blinders and Build A New World
March 31, 2020
T
hree billion human beings confined. It’s not fiction; We are not on another planet! We are well on Earth—but an Earth where we feel threatened, where each country erects barriers, closes its borders, stops all activity including that of breathing on the street.
For the past couple of months, the coronavirus has been raging, wreaking havoc at our borders, and destabilising the world order. We are left with a feeling of helplessness and inferiority in the face of such an imperceptible threat.
Every day the virus erodes the health of our citizens but also the heart of our economy, and forces us to make urgent decisions and in doing so destroys the foundations of our democracy.
The impact of the 2008 economic crisis is historic; that of the Covid-19 is even more so because it targets the very core of our system: the human, which we suddenly remember as being central to our economic and governance models, which are today threatened with collapse.
Never has such drastic action been taken by any country, much less by dozens of countries, placing nearly three billion humans in simultaneous confinement. Terrorism, the migration crisis, climate change, economic crises—none of these challenges have generated such extreme, individual, and radical reactions on the part of states.
Each country defends itself as it can and with the means at its disposal. But can we be satisfied with this “Each for himself and God for all” attitude?
Many countries, although having taken drastic measures for fear of the unknown, are struggling to treat and contain the virus and manage their populations.
Every day the pandemic causes more deaths and more confirmed cases. Every day the pandemic is gaining ground and penetrating new countries indiscriminately. This is largely our responsibility, because in the past weeks we have all been slow to take stock of the situation we find ourselves in, we still lack information as to how this pandemic will affect our health, social, and economic well-being. The general feeling that is taking hold is that of a war against the unknown.
Faced with the inability of the most powerful nations to contain the virus, a feeling of intense fear has developed, and the unanimous conviction that no country in the world is, nor has ever been, prepared to handle this kind of crisis.
And yet the world has known many epidemics from which we have learned from, even if we seem to have forgotten some of the lessons. Our worldview has been shaped based on the belief that wealth equaled prosperity—a confusion between power and resilience.
The Black Plague, which started in the Black Sea region around 1340, and spread quickly in Europe and in certain regions of Asia because of fleeing populations, ended the lives of 75 million people. It would have killed between 30% and 50% of the European population from 1347 to 1352, according to some estimates. From this, the world learned—then forgot—the usefulness of containment.
The Cholera pandemic that raged from 1852 to 1860 in India, Russia, and the rest of Europe killed more than a million people. This pandemic is still raging but only affects poor countries, particularly African countries, and still causes millions of deaths. From it we learned the importance of preventative hygiene.
The Spanish Flu, at the end of World War I, which originally came from the United States, killed between 50-100 million people in 1918 and 1919 worldwide. From this we should have learned (and always remembered) that societies impoverished by unequal economic systems and wars are the perfect ingredients for the propagation of an epidemic.
In 1970, when it had already been eradicated in most of the world, smallpox killed 20,000 people in India. From it we should have learned that development must be inclusive.
Finally, from Ebola, a highly contagious and deadly virus, humanity should have understood that it owed its salvation only to the geography of a virus that appeared in an almost totally disconnected area. The borders were already hardly crossed there, and the world in 2014-2015 passed by a disaster without paying much attention to it.
Many pandemics have raged in the world, but they are either old and are part of the side of history that humanity believes to have overcome by fragile wealth and power, or they still rage in countries qualified as underdeveloped despite decades of economic and social progress, and are part of the side of history that we want to ignore because it does not concern us.
Humanity, has therefore not capitalized on the historic health crises which affected practically all continents long before globalization.
The big powers have not capitalized on the recent health crises which still prevail in countries in the global south because of a misguided idea that their development, and their knowledge is such that no new microbiological or viral disease could resist their defenses and cross their borders. That the economies were robust due to complexity, and not vice versa, complex therefore, fragile.
Covid-19—just as the swine and avian flu could have had this sad privilege before it—has demonstrated that the origin of pandemics is not always associated with underdevelopment, that the borders of contamination did not stop at the doors of the most developed countries, that the answers are not simple for anyone.
Many, including us, believe that the world before and after Covid-19 will no longer be the same. But it will be what we will do in its wake; each stone must count in the new system we build.
"Crisis" comes from the Greek "krisis": to decide.
Will we work to lay the foundations for a better world? Or will we again miss this opportunity, as our capacities for financial, climatic, ecosystem, and moral rebound become exhausted?
Several scenarios are possible as to the future of the post-pandemic world: What do we want?
A rise to power of a cynical capitalism where the nations most advanced in research would try to take advantage of the distress of the least advanced and would turn this health crisis into an economic or geostrategic opportunity?
A rise in nationalism and protectionism, by obscuring the foundations of solidarity and global consensus based on multilateralism and international cooperation?
A rise in authoritarian regimes that would take advantage of temporary restrictions on rights and freedoms by establishing lasting mechanisms for their control, thereby threatening the most basic principles of respect for human rights and democracy?
Or, finally, do we want to build a world of hope, opening up prospects for the sustainability of peace and security between our communities? To achieve this we must, from this instant, start to build the foundations of this new world order.
Here is how:
Strengthen international collaboration, based on the belief that the health security of the most powerful nation in this world is dependent on the health security of the weakest nation.
It is clear that the prosperity of the most developed nations is conditioned on that of the least developed, often the holders of vast deposits of primary resources. We must pledge to work toward sustainable development.
We must work toward a world where nations are putting in place a common governance base with objectives, procedures, and means for health security, with ambitious, permanent, and collective treatment plans in place to prevent crises.
We need a world where people finally realize that protecting natural ecosystems is imperative for their survival. How is it possible that in an era where 80% of species are threatened with extinction we are still surprised at the spread of new pandemics? How is it possible that with the climate change crisis, man has not yet realized that he is creating new ecosystems? New diseases? New viruses?
What is happening today with the Covid-19 should challenge us to consider our humanity and our relationship with nature. We are transforming the Earth and the order of nature; so, we should not be surprised if nature resists us.
Humanity has experienced pandemics in each century of its history, our stubbornness and our models of development are precipitating us towards more frequent and destructive crises.
Unprepared, blinded by our own blinkers, we have accelerated social breakdown by asking the most vulnerable in our society to shoulder the burden of the financial and economic crisis of 2007-2008. We were rushed into emergency; conversely, the deconfinement, the resumption of activity, but also the human and economic choices of the future will have to be done with transparency, in debates bringing together all expertise and especially all human experience.
What is certain is that it will take a real discussion on health systems and a global pooling of capacity and health solidarity; that recovery will have to be driven by investment for the climate, nature and the planet, including humans, and not by short-term consumption in supply loops, which we know are not sustainable and which have just demonstrated their fragility.
What is certain is that this time the debate must be real and democratic, just and lasting economic strategy for absorbing the cost of the emergency measures, and, more deeply, we must not consider these measures not as a "price" but as a first investment towards a human-centered society. Humanity already has all the tools and the solutions, and good will abounds. This world is already accessible.
While we are giving in to the emergency, nature and its ecosystems are already preparing the next tornadoes, freezes, fires and floods, the next viruses to resolve the matter, in one way or another.
We have this choice, all together, today, to remove our blinders.
