The covid-19 pandemic offers opportunities worldwide to do better, once the clouds have cleared. So do tons of people like me and you think everyday. Many dogmas have already flew out the window in recent months, many others may follow.
There are the seeds of hope, there is the massive challenge to shape a new world soon. But there is more that connects the members of the new resistance: they are constructive, creative and rightly impudent. People who resist demand respect for democracy and try to force change both inside and outside systems and organizations. The new resistance has new faces, but is based on a rich history and a strong civil society that is too often under attack.
The new resistance is badly needed now and as soon as COVID-19 is under control, or something like it. The recovery of our societies, of our economies, of our cities, of people will not go smoothly. We applaud, perhaps too soon, the prospect of a vaccine and new freedom. But practical objections, mistrust and a neoliberal roadmap stand in the way of a smooth global vaccination.
At the same time, the pandemic offers opportunities to do better when the clouds clear. Opportunities not to let those few annual percentage points of growth in gross national product get in the way of people and their needs too often.
Many dogmas have already flew out the window in recent months, many others may follow. Massive investments were smoothly planned to keep the economy going. I saw it was okay, though there was no other option. But how well prepared are we for a historic recovery with leaders in many places who are making the lives of countless others more difficult or nearly impossible just now?
It is sometimes a challenge not to become cynical. I look around and see that too many strings of the recovery are in the hands of people who usually did not care about the consequences of the corona crisis for the most vulnerable. I look in the mirror, but I also address you. Look elsewhere, avert your gaze and look for weeds and naturalists, people kicking shins and reminding us that, every day, we determine the future together.
STAY SAFE and KEEP THINKING BIG