It is said that culture is a way of coping with the world by defining it in detail. This makes all the more sense in the time we are living in as the world is wrestling itself out of the grips of a cruel, global pandemic.
Artists and literary wordsmiths will certainly be proposing to us, through their creativity, hints and brushes of their versions of the post-pandemic world. They will provide an honest or tainted interpretation of the changes that COVID-19 has brought about as they see it through their own eyes.
After all, we have already had world poets and literary geniuses who have lived through equally harsh pandemics in the past. T. S. Eliot wrote much of The Waste Land while suffering from the post-period of the last global pandemic. W. B. Yeats lived through the same period, having to watch in heartache as his pregnant wife, George, struggled against the virus at their rented home in Dublin.
The words they wrote with such mastery at the time make so much more sense today, a century after.
Fast-forward to contemporary life. British novelist Zadie Smith’s brief book of essays called Intimations is probably one of the first attempts of what the artistic response will be to life after the pandemic.
She coined a phrase which perfectly encompasses the feelings we all have gone through in the last months: ‘the global humbling’. I have tried to find words to explain this term in the best way possible but The Observer’s Tim Adams does so much better than I can ever do.
He describes Smith’s term ‘global humbling’ as that moment when we collectively realised that the confident certainties of what we used to call ‘normal life’ were only ever a heartbeat away from unknown threats.
Truly, following the greatest pandemic we have seen in the last generations, the world has changed and humankind will come out of it different than it was before. If words are a mirror of the heart, then the new vocabulary we have adopted throughout the pandemic shows that our lives have been altered more than we care to admit.
The malady hit the very humanity of being human at the very core. We have all gone through experiences which have touched us in the past months and there are a lot of stories of kindness, warmth, human bravery, personal hardships, support and community spirit which we shall never forget.
Throughout the past months, there was one constant, heart-warming realisation: the comfort that we are truly all in this together.
It was not only our life which had to be re-engineered but also business models. The rapport between suppliers and clients has changed and most of the changes are here to stay and will continue to be enhanced by AI, big computing, robotic and cloud transformation.
All this serves to echo once more Marshall McLuhan that “Technology is the primary driver of our society – technology is what causes cultural and social change and it shapes human existence. Technology is what determines the way our society develops.”
We are fully determined to reach our potential as a country in post- pandemic times- Owen Bonnici
The national post-pandemic strategy that my ministry will be publishing before the end of June analyses, evaluates and acts on such changes and their effect on the human person, which is at the centre of everything that we will do.
The government, in the past months, acted decisively to alleviate the hardships of the pandemic in order to save not only lives, through the brilliant work of our health carers, but also livelihoods by means of perfectly timed and designed schemes of financial assistance.
As a result of this excellent work, our economy is in the prime position for a strong post-pandemic recovery, aided by an impressive and efficient vaccination programme which is among the best in the world. This success, however, should not and must not mean that we should not look towards tomorrow. Rather, we should construct a vision about the future from this position of strength.
Our strategy is proposing three main questions for public consultation. How do we improve quality of life and well-being? How do we sustain business and employment and drive a strong economy? How do we remain resilient and competitive?
Each question contains a set of well- researched four thematic areas – 12 in total – which is being proposed that they underpin Malta’s post-COVID-19 strategy.
The team working on the strategy, led by Simone Borg, comprises seasoned experts with diverse skill sets and experiences. I am truly impressed and humbled by their dedication and commitment.
Yet, throughout this month we wanted to hear the people at large. We wanted the public to be able to provide its feedback and its thoughts on our way forward. We wanted to hear people from all walks of life. We wanted to, why not, let the stories of our people influence our strategy. We wanted to be inclusive.
Of course, the team has been consulting ministers, the government, business entities and leading stakeholders in order to engage with the largest amount of partners possible to get a holistic and inclusive feedback. In eight weeks, more than 40 meetings were held and most of them were very fruitful.
Your feedback will help us to come up with a strong strategy which will be truly one of the people. We want this to be your strategy. We want to have a holistic approach which positions the citizen of Malta at centre stage. That way, we can build a forward-looking vision which maximises our potential as a country in the changed world of tomorrow.
Yes, after the global humbling period, we are fully determined to reach our potential as a country in post-pandemic times and we want to do that together.
Anyone who would like to take the last chance to contribute to the consultation on the thematic areas underpinning the national post-pandemic strategy can log onto consultation.gov.mt and fill the online form by tomorrow.
Owen Bonnici, Minister for Research, Innovation and post-COVID-19 Strategy