Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari has a dim view of how humans behaved during the coronavirus pandemic. In an interview with DW, he said that the really big problem was not the virus but our own inner demons, our own hatred, greed and ignorance.
“I’m afraid that people are reacting to this crisis not with global solidarity but with hatred, blaming other countries, blaming ethnic and religious minorities.”
A totally different assessment is given by Dutch historian Rutger Bregman. He concedes that most people find it relatively easy to see the selfishness that is around us. But he told DW: “For every panic buyer, there are a thousand nurses working as hard as they can. For every hoarder, there are a thousand civilians setting up WhatsApp groups and Facebook groups and people in the neighbourhood trying to help each other.”
Where others see the triumph of egotism, Bregman sees an explosion of cooperation and altruism.
Similar hope for humanity
Bregman’s comment and positive attitude to the world around us reminds me of Anthony Doerr’s novel All the Light We Cannot See. The protagonists lived during the war which is different in many respects ‒ but similar to others ‒ to the pandemic. Doerr, like Bregman, succeeds to find light where others saw only darkness. His book won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 2015 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.
Although Harari and Bregman propose different analysis of humanity’s reaction to the pandemic, they do propose a similar hope.
Harari hopes that “we will be able to develop our compassion, and not our hatred, to react with global solidarity, which will develop our generosity to help people in need.”
Bregman hopes that the “corona crisis will help bring us into a new age of cooperation and solidarity and a realisation that we’re in this together”.
Will these hopes come true or will we return to the way we used to live before coronavirus? This is not an easy question to answer. What aspects would change? Will it be the economy or politics, or industrial relations or our vision for humanity? If the post-COVID-19 world would be different from the pre-COVID-19 world, will it be a change for the worse or for the better?
The demons that assail us
Pope Francis in a recent video message to the participants of the worldwide Pentecost Vigil, organised online by the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, agreed that everything will be different as “we will no longer be able to do what we have been doing, how we have been doing it”.
Just under 400,000 have been killed this year by the virus. But millions die of hunger every year
But he is not certain the way the change would go. We can emerge either better or worse, says Francis. It would be a great pity if we emerge worse as all the suffering we have been through will have been useless.
The Pope lists the three demons we have to confront and defeat if we want the post-coronavirus world to be a better world. He also proposes a vision of how a better world should be.
During his homily this Pentecost, Francis names the demons or enemies that must be defeated. These are Demon Narcissus, Demon Victimhood and Demon Pessimist.
Demon Narcissus is totally ego-centric. The ‘how’ he can profit from the pandemic is his only concern. My needs first, says Demon Narcissus, and everyone else can go to hell (forget the pun).
Demon Victimhood is very different but equally dangerous. He is all the time complaining: no one understands him, no one experiences what he experiences and everyone is against him. If others don’t care about you, Demon Victimhood would say, why should you care about others?
Demon Pessimism is a worthy son of Lucifer if there ever was one. The damage he does is equally great. He looks around him and labels everything ‘bad’. Demon Pessimist is the eternal complainer. Get angry at the world, he exhorts all. See everyone in the worst light, then do nothing about it. Just complain. Just moan.
All three foment what Francis calls the “famine of hope” which, in turn, attacks his vision of a world built on solidarity. For Francis, if we do not build the post-COVID-19 world on solidarity, we would come out weaker and worse than we were before the pandemic.
Vague words? Not at all. He has a concrete programme of action. What he calls the economy of Franciscus is the underpinning of this world built on solidarity. More on this some other time.
Just one concrete snippet from the Pope’s homily on Pentecost should provide enough food for thought: “If we do not work to end the pandemic of poverty in the world, then everything would be in vain.”
Just under 400,000 have been killed this year by the virus. But millions die of hunger every year. Why does the pandemic of poverty not create a bigger reaction than the coronavirus pandemic? Is it because black lives do not matter considering the fact that coloured people are the main victims?
The Pope comes nearer home to prick our conscience. He speaks of the pandemic of hunger “in the country of each one of us, in the city where each of us lives”. I add, in the street where I live.
If the pandemic of hunger rages on after the coronavirus pandemic as it was before coronavirus, would our world be a better world? Will everything change? Or will it be a case that the more things change, the more they remain the same?