A new world: a year of pandemic
The pandemic spread last year and occurred âtill today has scared us, made us all victims of a shared existential vertigo, shaking the foundations of those were our convictions. In other words, it has shown us that values and norms â i.e. the culture â, which political rhetorics tried to preserve, are now problematic, that means theyâre not able anymore to answer those questions future asks, to find a solution to the serious issues of the present. Pandemic has shown us, with painful cruelty, that the ways with which we were dealing with the (environmental, economical, financial, social and cultural) crisis werenât the right ones; on the contrary, they were worsening the already fatal condition the whole world was throwing itself into. However, at the same time, the pandemic has given us time, slowing down our lives (more and more hectic due to the needs of the capitalistic system, whose first value is the consume, so that a production based on quantities), to turn our look onto whatâs happening and making a deeper judgement on the events, on problems and issues of our time, and then find solutions, gather energies to make a change in history and courage to take also definitive decisions, to sacrifice our system of ideas and values we, choose which of them to save and which taking from other normative systems, if not even cultural. Like the victory of the democratic Joe Biden against the republicans Donald Trump at the 2020 elections that suggests us a more and more distancing of society from populist ideas and strengthen of minoranze in politics; like Black Lives Matter manifestations as consequences to the murder of George Floyd, an Afro American citizen, committed by two police agents, and an almost global mobilisation in supporting the now famous Movement for the defence of Black people rights and battles against structural racism, developed as emulation of the protest occurred in the US and in some Foreign nations, such as France and Italy. There were environmental actions as well, the total lockdown of the last spring demonstrated how nature can regenerate very quickly when polluting industrial productions and the extensive use of gasoline cars stop; indeed, Countries like Italy has been planning projects for a more sustainable development, such as governmental bonus for the rebuild of housing buildings in order to reduce the impact on the environment, that are also a response to a more and more unrecoverable economic crisis. Surely this is little compared to upheavals provoked by the pandemic, to the getting worse of already serious conditions, to the tragic contingencies that the whole global population is facing. In many Countries, the percentage of people on the verge of poverty increased, many people were fired and many enterprises closed down definitely. In other Countries have been coup-dâĂ©tat or, like In Italy, occurred serious government crisis.
The election of Joe Biden is due not just to the ability of the new president to grado those that are the current needs of a nation like the US, but also due to the incapacity of populism (the ideology behind Donald Trumpâs politics) to read the reality and consequently to plan strategy to solve the most urgent issues, as a worsening economic crisis and improving sanitary facilities in order to deal with Covid-19 pandemic. Incapability hidden with galvanising the gut feelings, that increase the hate against minorities, which are already consider the scapegoat for problems caused actually by an inefficient politics or by issues occurring in every Western society. This hate against minorities that wasnât prosecuted by institutions and Trumpâs administration (and thus justified) brought those minority communities to ally and strengthen each other, and so influencing the election of the last Fall. The culmination of this sensation of insecurity and inadequacy perceived by minorities, especially by the black people, was the great manifestation of June 2020 as consequence to the killing of George Floyd perpetrated by a white policeman, not last, neither the first murderer of this kind; indeed this one was just another in that long list of black American citizen killed by the police. Murders that are rarely prosecuted and seldom the perpetrators are brought in a tribunal. A scary phenomenon that has increased especially during Trump, just because the former president wasnât able to condemn these action of racist violence, and that has lead a popular indignation, since itâs clear and evident these crimes is provoked by systematic hate, and not as a tragic consequence to the necessity to protect the people. These behaviours arenât tolerable anymore, especially after years and years of battle for black peopleâs and other minoritiesâ rights and this unacceptability leads to Black Lives Matter movement manifestations bursted in biggest cities of the US and the world. Manifestations that were threatened by Donald Trump through the idea to bring the army to stop those that were just pacific riots. Thus, if we suppose these manifestations, along with the distress lived by the other ethnic, sexual and gender minorities because of a governement whcih closed the eyes before these clearly episodes of systematic hate, brought to the victory of Joe Biden, to these we can add the battle of Jacey Abrams, who proved that were racial reasons for exclude people from voting. Her battles helped more people from a minority to vote, who preferred, as polls proved, the democratic candidate because Joe Biden, just taken office, aims to support better the minorities, with the collaboration of Kamala Harris, the first black woman as Vice President , who has always highlited his will to support to the battles for civil rights and create a more equal society during his electoral campaign.
Black lives matter. And much.
The election was also affected by the inefficiency of the past administration to handle the spread of the virus, sharing anti-scientific beliefs and a lack of strategy for strengthening the medical and scientific field while, on the contrary, Joe Biden has already planned.
In other words, this global pandemic revealed the real face of populism, a political and ideological movement that gives voice to the most visceral feeling of the people, capable to convince through a fallacious rhetoric but actually it canât hold the reins of a nation which is irremediably changing and such ideology doesnât manage to read the mutation of our societies (so thatâs mute and deaf to the new generation). Moreover, the tendency of populism to go against the so-called technicians provoked not few troubles: many government of this kind didnât follow the suggestions of the scientific community to contain the contagion. A tendency that was followed by tragic consequences, as thousand of deaths and many people who got a permanent damage to lungs, and that teaches us to give more attention, even mediatic, to scientists, researchers and the research for a vaccine shows us the quick progress of medicine and science made, if institutions support them. Institutions that prefer to sacrifice the scientific research, more and more necessary, in order to meet other economic requirements in a world based on epistemological thought and that demands more technical and sanitary innovations. Next to the issue of scientific research, there is that of technology: Countries like Italy and others have noticed they need a more efficient national telecommunication system and give support so that everyone can use and get electronic devices and a good internet to follow lessions and working from home. 2020 and Covid-19 pandemic showed us Greta Thunberg was right: itâs needed to slow down and reduce the environmental impact. The strict lockdown of the last Spring proved how quickly nature can regenerate itself and so that itâs needed little to deviate our path to the irreversible process of deterioration of the planet. This time, itâs the nature itself that gave us a second chance.
Coronavirus pandemic has been having a great impact on our lives, on our society, culture and economy. It has pushed us to reevaluate our values and believes, to reviews our strategies and ideologies. It gave us the time to slow down, give each other a look, observe the world and itâs thousands of societies, think about our era and helped us figure out what would have been dangerous for the development for a more right and equal world, our mistakes and gave a chance to remedy. These were, are and will be painful, tragic, scary moments and we are all victims of a serious existential crisis because weâre aware that we arenât going to be same as before, that the world is different and in our future this will be evident. We are in a new world and weâre different as well.
Viviana Rizzo @livethinking
Article in Italian here
