Crossing the Rubicon : The Covid 19 Virus- by Laura Petrache
“Never let a good crisis go to waste” : this may be one of those moments and future generations might thank us.
The Covid 19 Virus will lead to permanent shifts in political and economic power, just as it has ended lives, disrupted markets and exposed the (in)competence of governments. The virus is about to create a world that is less open and less free, as citizens look to national governments to protect them and reduce their future vulnerabilities.
As governments seek to mitigate transmission of the deadly coronavirus, which has now infected more than 350,000 people worldwide, many countries are shutting their borders and limiting movement to stop the pandemic’s domino effect on all economic sectors. (Donald Trump said that Covid 19 justified tighter border controls).
Its origin, a city in central China, has raised fears, racism and xenophobia around the world. Previous virus outbreaks that have emerged from difference parts of the world have also triggered similar fears of simplistic ethnic associations — Ebola from Africa, or MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) from the Middle East.
Up to date, international collaboration has been insufficient. Hopefully, in every country, there are many examples of the human spirit endeavor: citizens, doctors, nurses, political leaders, they are all demonstrating resilience, effectiveness, and leadership.
This provides hope for the future, HOPE that we can prevail in response to this particular challenge. (For example India took the initiative to convene a video conference of all South Asian leaders to deliver a common regional response to the threat).
I, for one, prefer to focus on the unprecedented opportunities. There are two ways that disease outbreaks can change us:
· The first is through reflection. As anyone who has ever had a cold has realized, illness lends itself to introspection and sometimes personal growth.
· The second is a structural change: for example, the First World War accelerated the rise of working women: once they had replaced men in factories, the Rubicon had been crossed. (The phrase “Crossing the Rubicon” means to pass a point of no return, and refers to Julius Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon River in 49 BC, which was considered an act of insurrection. It refers to any individual or group committing itself irrevocably to a risky or revolutionary course of action. When we make a difficult decision from where there is no way back, we say we cross the Rubicon.)
By disrupting our lives, by causing painful tragedy it may introduce a new acceptance of unpredictability into our thinking.
Hopefully, in times of fundamental crisis, a window of opportunity for change opens up. Sometimes, this window of opportunity is purposefully leveraged to change the course of action. (For example, after the Fukushima disaster in 2011, Angela Merkel decided, that Germany would stop its reliance on nuclear power. In other cases, revolutionary change happens almost by accident, as was the case with the ’89 winter Romanian Revolution)
Coronavirus may make us reconsider how many journeys, work trips, conferences and other things in our lives are actually essential. Some business travellers adopted video conferencing instead of CO2 emitting flights and in the fact that it may bring changes to China’s live animal markets.
Coronavirus is not caused by climate change, but it makes us think of the kind of disruption we might face in the future. It comes after a series of wake-up calls: the Californian and Australian wildfires, the floods everywhere from France to Indonesia.
If we can accept cancelled flights, closed schools, postponed meetings and concerts, perhaps we can accept restraints in the future. Now that employees have to rely on Skype or Zoom calls, they may realize that video conferencing is a good alternative: one that is more flexible and more environmentally sustainable.
If we can rely on international cooperation now, perhaps we can build a better and sustainable future for the next generations…When China’s researchers identified the genetic sequencing of the novel coronavirus back in January 2020, they posted it online without delay. Scientists around the world got together on developing much needed tests and a vaccine. Such global collaboration requires governments and businesses to work together, toward one goal.
If the pandemic makes us recognizing our real interest in cooperating multilaterally on the big global issues facing us, it will have served a positive and very useful purpose. At some point we all need to change and the habits of a lifetime will change with us.
If the shock of coronavirus disruption isn’t enough for us to change, I am asking myself what will be?
About building a resilient world-by Natalia BAUDOIN
We’ve grown in a capitalist system, built on the idea of “the self-made man”. The idea that one man can do and get anything he wants, all by himself.
This system has fooled us all to believing we can “do it all”, no matter what the cost may represent. Moreover, globalization, communication technologies and the internet allowing us “to be in several spaces at the same time” have made us believe we are omnipresent and by extension we believe we are omnipotent, an attribute that only the gods used to have.
This system is based in the mobility, of capitals, of labor, of commodities and performance. We are asked to always do more, to work more, to consume more, to produce more. It’s a bulimic system that takes all sorts of resources and vomits all sorts of untreated waste. But constantly pushing the limit of our strength, the limits of our resources could not last forever.
The Covid 19 Virus Pandemic has shown us how fragile our socio-economic system actually is. By constantly looking ahead, we’ve forgotten to look where we are standing, and how messy it has become. The quarantine is like a huge mirror right in front of us, forcing us to stop and look.
Scary as it seems, this sanitary crisis is a non precedented opportunity for humanity to turn off the engine for a little while. It has forced us to see the real nature of the bricks we’ve built our own house on, and to see that it is falling apart. Activists like Malala, Greta Thunberg and so many others have been trying to alert the authorities into taking actions, for people and for the environment without much success.
However, in this very pessimistic scenario, I personally believe there is hope for us, for all of us. We have a golden opportunity to take responsibility for the world we want to live in. To create a more equal and solidary world, to learn how to live together. This can be driven by rethinking our ways of life. To balance work and family time. To eat healthier, to take care of oneself and others around us, to make our environments healthier. If COVID-19 has shown us something it is how much we depend on each other: my life literally depends on yours, your life literally depends on mine. To take care of oneself is also to take care of others.
I believe that crisis and adversity are motors for improvement, and that we all are inherently resilient. Resilience is the capacity we all have to face adversity, transforming pain or difficulties into a motor strength to overcome them and emerge stronger. To be resilient is understanding that we are architects of our own wellbeing. We need to be a little broken to build our inner strength. After all, it is only through the cracks that the light gets in.
But how can our individual actions have an impact on the immensity of the world? The artist Jorge Méndez Blake did on 2007 a very simple installation where a wall of bricks was built on top of a book. The simple, seemingly significative presence of this book, deformed the whole structure of the wall. This is the power of one. One single element that does not follow a pre-determined structure, BUT rather questions it, puts it to the test and acts differently, can bend the structure itself. Imagine if we all did that.
One small simple action can change the world. Are we ready to start the change?
Covid 19, a response -by Jonathan Midwood
Fear lays at the root of many of Man’s biggest failures, but it also drives the human race to push through to some of their greatest successes. Covid-19 offers one such opportunity. We are at an inflection point and if it is taken then it can help transform fear into a something that delivers us positive change.
In recent history we have seen the re-emergence of ‘social movements’, marches and coordinated gatherings like Extinction Rebellion. This type of social initiative seems to be galvanising not just the students of left-wing colleges who come together to protest against anything like the fate of the lesser newt. NO, what we are seeing and what is happening is something akin to the late 60’s social movement marches that were rife in the United States. Groups of people, from all walks of life, coming together to raise attention of causes that deeply mean something to them.
These marches were designed to not only bring attention to the government but society as a whole and were created to introduce the idea that there needs to be change and a shift in the mind-set of humanity. The problem in a lot of situations is that what is being presented doesn’t resonate enough with those who are asked to listen and the ones that are listening don’t have the desire to hear. Fear, as an emotion is relevant to both sides of any discussion, but it is often taken in different ways.
Fear is more than just a thing that we get from time to time, it is something that we always present with us and it is one thing that certainly has the power to create a response in us. We are designed as human beings to respond to fear in a; physical, emotional and behavioural way; in extreme cases it can be all three. However, in rare cases a 4th option is also there for us to choose, the intellectual response.
Whenever you are caught in fear you will respond physically, that is a given. The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) kicks in and the physically response to a fear stimulus is set lose. A stimulus is made up of real or perceived stimuli and in the case of Covid -19 it is actually both. Let’s use an example to demonstrate.
You are ‘triggered’ with fear when you are sat on a bus and someone starts coughing; you experience a heightened sense of fear and that will trigger your heart rate to elevate. That is your ANS kicking in. After that you may actually decide to move to another seat, get off at the next stop or cover your nose and mouth, that is your behavioural response at play and this is often learned behaviour or instinctive. Your next response may be anger, upset and irritation that is your emotional response kicking in. However, it is at this stage you have a choice. You can either get wrapped up in the whole plethora of emotions that spiral you away from a degree of control OR you can pause and reflect in a logical and intellectual way about what is happening.
In the case of COVID-19 and the reactions we are currently seeing we are in the ‘triggered’ stage and we are seeing the whole gamut of human responses in action. Fear is breeding anger, frustration, doubt, hatred and in a lot of cases self-serving behaviour. It is sad to see, but it is inevitable. Fear has us in its grip at the moment and we need to work through this stage in order to be able to see what is actually being presented to us.
As I said at the top we are at an inflection point and we need to see through this, through fear and work out the next question. What next?
This virus will go, it will inevitably do a lot of damage and it will leave an immeasurable level of destruction behind it. There is no getting away from that. However, it also offers us all a chance to make changes that could, if we ALL take a new direction, lead us to a new way of being and a new way of acting that will be for the betterment of the world and the people that inhabit it.
This virus is a trigger, fear is our reaction but what is our intellectual response? What we need to do is take this horrendous situation and turn what is bad into a movement for change and one that will deliver lasting good. We are rarely presented opportunities like this in our lifetime, now is our time. Let’s kick this virus and let’s kick out fear. Let’s galvanise humanity into a collaborative and unified collective that embraces diversity and difference and one that is committed to making the world a place where collaboration is the new currency of nations and a healthy happy human is seen as a measure of a nation’s success.
About us:
A Global Sustainable Leadership Network of global shapers: driving dialogue, action and implementing change. @B1-AKT//Global Sustainable Leaders
“We like being thinkers, but we are thinkers with a purpose and that purpose is to show not only that there is a pathway to sustainable development but that no other outcome is acceptable.
We facilitate a participatory visioning process through having formalized
and institutionalized mechanisms for the different stakeholders to cooperate, co-decide, and co-create.”
For more information about our contributors :
Laura Petrache founder of B1-AKT : http://b1-akt.com/who-we-are
Natalia Baudin Founder of Crafting for Change: https://www.nataliabaudoin.com/
Jonathan Midwood Founder of Head to Heart Network : http://headtoheartnetwork.com/
