Two men were in the same difficult situation. When one wakes up, he says: good morning, Lord. When the other one wakes up, he says: good Lord, morning. Same situation. Same three words. Slight change in sequence showing an enormous change in attitude.
COVID-19 places the world in a worse predicament than that faced by the two gentlemen. In Malta, the pandemic situation is currently under control. Not so in many countries of the world. Some say that the worst is yet to come. Should we hope or should we despair? What can be done so that the pain that we have gone through would not be in vain?
In the past week, I read Pope Francis’s Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better World. Francis believes in hope. Instead of an apocalypse he sees the possibility of a new beginning.
“This is the moment to dream big, to rethink our priorities – what we value, what we want, what we seek – and to commit to act in our daily life on what we have dreamed of.”
Francis is not naïve. He sees the danger there is. He proposes that we, like him, find strength in a line from his favourite poet, Friedrich Holderlin: where the danger is, grows the saving power.
Viruses worse than COVID
The saving power for a better tomorrow can only be achieved if we analyse realistically and holistically the current crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has to be assessed in the light of the ‘hidden pandemics’ of our world, for example hunger, climate change, poverty, wars and the degradation of the environment.
The COVID-19 virus is not the only virus we have to fight against. There are the viruses of egoism, unjust distribution of wealth, neoliberal capitalism, the myth of self-sufficiency and populism. These viruses are present in Malta as well.
For a solution to the viruses that assail it, the world does not only need Moderna, AstraZeneca etc. but it also needs a strong dose of, for example, solidarity, subsidiarity, communal dialogue, striving for the common good and the preferential option for the poor.
COVID-19 has to be assessed in the light of the ‘hidden pandemics’, for example hunger, climate change, poverty, wars and the degradation of the environment
Francis refers to the commitment for others shown during the pandemic by the nurses, doctors and those who have kept the essential services running. He calls them “the antibodies to the virus of indifference”.
We can only become more human and more humane if we “let ourselves be touched by others’ pain”.
Whither post-COVID-19 Malta?
We can fashion a post-COVID-19 Malta if we follow the advice of Francis, who, here as in other places, emphasised, for example, the primacy of politics over the economy.
To those who believe that politics is just about managing the apparatus of the state and campaigning for re-election, Francis says that we need politicians “who take inspiration from Jesus’s parable of the Good Samaritan”.
To those who always justify everything, even corruption, by the ‘profit-first’ economic growth paradigm, Francis says that this “has fed a crony capitalism that serves not the common good” and has become a form of idolatry “that puts us in chains”.
To those among us who have made capital their one and only god, Francis says that “once capital becomes an idol that presides over a socio-economic system, it enslaves us, sets us at odds with each other, excludes the poor and endangers the planet we all share”.
To those who place shareholders over workers and value only work that earns money, Francis proposes the value of works which earns no money, such as “the work of the caregiver for her relative or a full-time mother or volunteers in a social project”. The post-COVID world, Francis says, should recognise the work of non-earners.
To those who resort to philanthropy to paper over the societal cracks caused by institutional injustices, Francis says that solidarity is not “the promotion of philanthropic works or financial assistance”. It is neither “the sharing of crumbs from the table but to make space at the table for everyone”.
To those who clamour for abortion or sit on the fence waiting for a pseudo-national discussion, Francis says that abortion “can never be a legitimate expression of autonomy and power. If our autonomy demands the death of another, it is none other than an iron cage”.
To those who use populist and xenophobic arguments against migrants, Francis says that “it is unacceptable to deter immigration by letting migrants die in perilous sea crossings”. He adds that “we need to welcome, promote, protect and integrate those who come in search of better lives”.
To those who laud unbridled individualism, Francis reminds us that “our lives are a gift and we grow by giving of ourselves: not preserving ourselves but losing ourselves in service. What a sign of contradiction to the individualism and self-obsession and lack of solidarity that so dominate our wealthier societies!”
The minister responsible for the construction of a strategy for a post-COVID Malta would be culpably reneging on his duties if he does not internalise these thoughts of the pope and then exteriorise them in the plan on which Malta’s strategy should be based.
