I liked the reference to airport security in the opening. It made me consider the concept of 'security theatre'. There is no evidence that any of the security measures implemented in airports have ever prevented a terrorist attack. Yet, we still have to throw that 110 mL bottle of suntan lotion in the bin if we want to get on the plane home. I worry that over the next few weeks, months and years we may see a kind of theatre emerge as we attempt to grapple with the inevitable fallout of COVID-19.
Is there no going back to the way things were? Humans are incredibly resilient, and no matter how good or bad events seem to be, we somehow always revert to how we felt before. The world may well change, but how we feel about it doesn't necessarily have to.
Our leaders indeed failed us, but we don't seem to have recognised that as sky-high approval ratings of our government and Trump in the United States demonstrate. What makes me even more concerned is that after crises, especially complex and abstract ones, people look for somebody with a face to blame - it's also easier if that face is different.
After the inevitable inquiries, we're going to have to deal with some difficult home truths. For example, it has become increasingly apparent that the World Health Organisation failed miserably and its role of identifying and warning us of an impending pandemic. Admittedly this was exacerbated by China's obscurification. This may accelerate the decline of international organisations with three-letter acronyms. I can imagine that rather than a call for reform, replacement or retirement it may merely increase the scepticism of experts and add fuel to the nativist [insert my country] first fire.
I'm concerned about the use of the term 'war' in the context of COVID. I think it may be a useful concept for politicians. Clausewitz called war 'politics by other means', and I fear that that's the case here. Wars have a clear enemy, defined goals and however long they last they come to an end with a winner and a loser. Coronavirus isn't an invisible enemy; it is the result of bad policy in a lot of different places. We know this because this isn't the first time a virus like this has arisen in these circumstances. Epidemiologist have been warning us about this for years, and there's a good chance it won't be the last on this scale that we see in our lifetimes.
Prevention as an organising principle - This is absolutely necessary. Our leaders need to understand that next time, it could be worse. Coronavirus looks to have a mortality rate of 1%, Ebola 50%. We were lucky with Ebola because it emerged in a less well connected country, you got ill pretty much straight away and therefore self-isolated by default. We may one day have a virus with COVID-19's infectiousness and asymptomatic period but with Ebola's fatality rate. We need to ensure our governments recognise that and pressure them to make sure that every country in the world prepares for the next pandemic. Partly because it will involve ensuring that countries in the global south are also prepared, and by prepared I mean universally accessible high-quality healthcare.
Our leaders indeed failed us, but we don't seem to have recognised that as sky-high approval ratings of our government and Trump in the United States demonstrate. What makes me even more concerned is that after crises, especially complex and abstract ones, people look for somebody with a face to blame - it's also easier is that face is different. However, the country is currently relying on unskilled delivery drivers and immigrant nurses and to keep us going. So this could be an opportunity to change the discourse. But we shouldn't underestimate the ability for the discourse to be hijacked or for progressives to fumble the ball.
Preparing for the future - I'm not sure that coronavirus as being the cause of whatever the fallout may be, it could just embed, exacerbate and accelerate the problems that were already taking place before it. We may not go back to the way things were, but we may end up going to the way things were going to be much faster.
I think there's a lot that we can do about it and we now have an even greater responsibility to at least try, and this is a good start.
I agree very much with most of your points, especially #5: We need to think very hard about our responses and certainly make sure that we don't go back to the status quo ante.
A thoughtful starting point for a probing discussion of a humanitarian foreign policy. I would add three points to the seven principles in the statement: challenge militarism and its narrow approach to security; broaden the meaning of security beyond physical security to include environmental, food and health securities; naming the system that underpins the international arena must understand the political-economic features of neo-liberalism which accounts for the inequalities experienced in particular by those living in the global south.
I liked the reference to airport security in the opening. It made me consider the concept of 'security theatre'. There is no evidence that any of the security measures implemented in airports have ever prevented a terrorist attack. Yet, we still have to throw that 110 mL bottle of suntan lotion in the bin if we want to get on the plane home. I worry that over the next few weeks, months and years we may see a kind of theatre emerge as we attempt to grapple with the inevitable fallout of COVID-19.
Is there no going back to the way things were? Humans are incredibly resilient, and no matter how good or bad events seem to be, we somehow always revert to how we felt before. The world may well change, but how we feel about it doesn't necessarily have to.
Our leaders indeed failed us, but we don't seem to have recognised that as sky-high approval ratings of our government and Trump in the United States demonstrate. What makes me even more concerned is that after crises, especially complex and abstract ones, people look for somebody with a face to blame - it's also easier if that face is different.
After the inevitable inquiries, we're going to have to deal with some difficult home truths. For example, it has become increasingly apparent that the World Health Organisation failed miserably and its role of identifying and warning us of an impending pandemic. Admittedly this was exacerbated by China's obscurification. This may accelerate the decline of international organisations with three-letter acronyms. I can imagine that rather than a call for reform, replacement or retirement it may merely increase the scepticism of experts and add fuel to the nativist [insert my country] first fire.
I'm concerned about the use of the term 'war' in the context of COVID. I think it may be a useful concept for politicians. Clausewitz called war 'politics by other means', and I fear that that's the case here. Wars have a clear enemy, defined goals and however long they last they come to an end with a winner and a loser. Coronavirus isn't an invisible enemy; it is the result of bad policy in a lot of different places. We know this because this isn't the first time a virus like this has arisen in these circumstances. Epidemiologist have been warning us about this for years, and there's a good chance it won't be the last on this scale that we see in our lifetimes.
Prevention as an organising principle - This is absolutely necessary. Our leaders need to understand that next time, it could be worse. Coronavirus looks to have a mortality rate of 1%, Ebola 50%. We were lucky with Ebola because it emerged in a less well connected country, you got ill pretty much straight away and therefore self-isolated by default. We may one day have a virus with COVID-19's infectiousness and asymptomatic period but with Ebola's fatality rate. We need to ensure our governments recognise that and pressure them to make sure that every country in the world prepares for the next pandemic. Partly because it will involve ensuring that countries in the global south are also prepared, and by prepared I mean universally accessible high-quality healthcare.
Our leaders indeed failed us, but we don't seem to have recognised that as sky-high approval ratings of our government and Trump in the United States demonstrate. What makes me even more concerned is that after crises, especially complex and abstract ones, people look for somebody with a face to blame - it's also easier is that face is different. However, the country is currently relying on unskilled delivery drivers and immigrant nurses and to keep us going. So this could be an opportunity to change the discourse. But we shouldn't underestimate the ability for the discourse to be hijacked or for progressives to fumble the ball.
Preparing for the future - I'm not sure that coronavirus as being the cause of whatever the fallout may be, it could just embed, exacerbate and accelerate the problems that were already taking place before it. We may not go back to the way things were, but we may end up going to the way things were going to be much faster.
I think there's a lot that we can do about it and we now have an even greater responsibility to at least try, and this is a good start.
I agree very much with most of your points, especially #5: We need to think very hard about our responses and certainly make sure that we don't go back to the status quo ante.
A thoughtful starting point for a probing discussion of a humanitarian foreign policy. I would add three points to the seven principles in the statement: challenge militarism and its narrow approach to security; broaden the meaning of security beyond physical security to include environmental, food and health securities; naming the system that underpins the international arena must understand the political-economic features of neo-liberalism which accounts for the inequalities experienced in particular by those living in the global south.