AFTER CORONA A GANGWAY WILL NOT DO... WE WILL NEED A BRIDGE !

The Black Death in the 14th Century and the Spanish Flu in the early 20th Century obliged Europe to face unprecedented situations. Both events accelerated the appearance of sudden priorities which had been dormant for too long.

The Corona virus is becoming, after AIDS, the second global plague, such as the world has not seen. This pandemic is hitting all the pieces of the world puzzle, one by one. 

There might be an other Decameron being written as we speak, about yet another group of men and women incarcerated  for the duration of this new plague...who knows? Or is Sartre's Huis Clos more appropriate?

Reactions to this pandemic vary from restraint to farcical (Trump again). Most actors (states, medics, societies, individuals...) act in a responsible way. By sheer intuition people appear to be conscious that this is not an ordinary situation. Indeed we might find ourselves in momentous crossroads, wherein customary believes and habits need to be revisited . AIDS laid bare the murmur of the heart. Corona uncovers the bluff of society's complacence.

The Gresham law pretends that the bad money drives out the good. One cannot allow now for half-baked, ill conceived placebos to substitute for the difficult alternative. It is self- evident that after this crisis will be "solved" there is no way one can just return to the past. The economy will be on life-support, social praxis will need reviewing and health care will top every agenda. The role of central governments versus states and regional entities etc., will have to be reexamined at the light of experiences gained (the hard way). An appropriate balance of power must correct the absurdities of past devolution. Last but not least, China, Trump & Co. will have lots of explaining and apologizing to do.

The post-World War II Contrat Social was an extraordinary achievenent for the world "then". The world today is in need of a new Bretton Woods and of an architecture wherein equal rights balance different assets. The ugly spin in the current crisis is the direct outcome of the selfish hubris of some (USA, China) and of the adverse distortions of others.  In between, the opportunistic liars (Brazil, Hungary and Co.) think they have a free ride.

It is going to be difficult to write a new chapter after the crisis. There is no longer a ghost writer-in-chief, while the intentions of the usual suspects remain dubious. The UN looks like the only place wherein an ambitious agenda might get a chance, on condition that the permanent members of the Security Council could leave their veto at the doorway for once. This might be too much to ask, but if they don't heed the alert they might get the sanction. 

The coming social/economic stress will fundamentally affect individuals and their habitat, wherein commerce, welfare and commonly accepted creeds could grow, albeit with uneven success. Now the need for reconstruction, or better, reform, will require more sharing, better empathy and redistribution. Last but not least, leaders have to concede once and forever primacy to science and to liberation from religious or political inheritances. The former were responsible for the rise of the AIDS death toll. These aberrations are again being recycled to avoid having to come to terms with climate change. The Trump hordes are dressed up accordingly, in the evangelical cloth.

It will be hard to find the individuals and to engineer the framework to brave a challenge, which is a multiple. Versailles, Yalta or even the UN in its current format, are things of the past. If leaders don't get it, the electorate will be unforgiving. The populist movements have been largely ignored in the pandemic. They are looking for every opportunity to get back in the spotlight. If there is no action now to prepare for the post-Corona times, shortsighted leaders will only have themselves to blame.

Francis Fukuyama had the guts to return to his former contentions and to correct them. The uni-polar world is dead. The multi-polar "happy family" is in tatters. One can hope he will take hold of a new, revised argument, propose an overdue correction and arrive at a new model:  a brilliant Hegelian exercise for the 21st century!

We witness the coming of the "new state". After the rise of internationalism  and regionalism, states are reclaiming the clout they had lost. The next challenge will be how to calibrate the increased role of the states without jeopardizing the existing, often messy search for consensus. The need for clear injunctions inside shouldn't be arrived at at the cost of overlapping wider solidarity. Quite the opposite, they should benefit from it. The "how" is for the new post-Corona generation to suggest. There might be another Robert Schuman for these new age in waiting after all...