The Coronavirus crisis confronted us to a reality that was thought to be impossible: a slowdown of the globalized economic system. This moment of respite gives us an unprecedented opportunity to rethink the world, taking advantage of an extensive and dynamic set of social networks. The effects of this crisis have shaken up many certainties of our system: this is a unique opportunity to question it as citizens. Hopefully, the Coronavirus crisis may allow us to create a New worldwide Social Contract, just like it was done after World War II.
This Manifesto is opposed both to a lack of changes in the system as well as to a return to isolationism. Instead, it proposes to build a New Globalization, founded from the grassroots by its citizens, who have already reaped the benefits of a connected and multicultural society. This reconstruction by the people would be done in opposition to a Globalization rebuilt by the elites, centered on deeper control over individuals.
For this new Globalization, some concrete reforms are suggested: a redefinition of the economy, founded on contribution instead of consumption, with State action to guarantee the welfare of citizens (universal income, self-sufficiency in essential goods, investments on health and research) and a deeper focus on the ecological crisis, seeing environmental balance as a human right to be guaranteed, as well as implementing changes to current methods of production.
This Manifesto was written so that the author can speak up before the future is written. He sincerely hopes that those who can and wish to do so, write their own manifestos. If the Utopia of a citizen’s globalization is to be achieved, it Will happen when citizens of the world use their voices and don’t let populist and schemers build a new world at their expense.
This is why this text concludes with a series of optimistic (and less optimistic) speculations on the future that awaits us after the pandemic.
The Coronavirus pandemic: waking up after a century of delusion
The Spanish Flu is a historical anomaly that resists any explanation. From 1918 to 1920, it infected a third of the planet’s population for three entire years, killing nearly 50 million people. However, hardly any monument exists to remember its victims.
While the Black Death is a historical milestone, and more recent epidemics, such as the ravages of SARS in Southeast Asia, remain vivid memories, the first pandemic of the 20th century was long forgotten. Before the upsetting reality of Coronavirus brought the Spanish Flu back into our collective consciousness, it was simply remembered as a gloomy epilogue to the First World War.
Faced with this strange silence, one can search for the memories of their elders, but even these remain scarce or contradictory.
What kind of collective neurosis allowed the trauma of the Spanish Flu to be buried by the sands of time? Could it be that the world decided to forget and keep its course, hoping that Progress would eradicate any future threat?
A century of relative health allowed us to believe this deception. Such was its power of persuasion, that it was hard for us to let it go when the coronavirus had already crossed borders and quarantine had started to become a possibility.
Several weeks have passed since an almost planet-spanning confinement left the realm of science fiction and became part of our daily lives. In continental Europe, the terrible first days where the pandemic seemed unstoppable are but a memory, as are those nights that came with a litany of bad news and a dizzying rise in deaths. Gone are the days where the applauses to the doctors from our windows felt like pleas for salvation, while an invisible monster roamed our empty streets. Every single one of us, in those times, had only its imagination for help to imagine the future.
So many weeks have passed, that it is impossible for us to remember the profound strangeness of waking up in a world besieged by an undefinable enemy.
The peculiarity of a worldwide quarantine: A Gateway to questioning our society
And yet, to forget that feeling of strangeness, is to forget the certainty that the world has changed forever. Our hyperactive economic system, which felt invincible and tortured our planet without hesitation, stopped on its tracks once it was confronted by its own mortality.
Of course, humanity is still free to create its own destiny. It can still follow the mediocre examples of the 2008 economic crisis or the Spanish flu, waiting for the rough times to pass, without daring to make the leap of faith. Distractions abound to escape this moment of reflection, pushing us to consume bottomless amounts of entertainment, or trapping us into an overwhelming cycle of productivity.
It may not be possible to escape, however. Perhaps, after the perplexity of the start of the quarantine, and the moments of confusion that will undoubtedly come once it slowly comes to an end, it may take quite a bit of bad faith to deny that things have changed.
That inevitable breaking point, with its batch of sacrifices and frustrations, does not have to be lived through with fear.
We are facing a historical milestone that we must seize as a Humanity.
For the first time, the endless stream of vapid and mesmerizing news has stopped. The great populist charlatans who diverted the attention of the media now live in anxiety, knowing fully well that Humanity awaits but one news: the end of the pandemic.
For a long time, we were convinced that rethinking the world was job only fit for ancient philosophers: our modernity was too hectic to be redefined. Back in 2011, when an exciting wave of demonstrations took over the world, social networks and their new languages seemed capable of starting revolutions. Back then, some already hoped to found a new world.
Very soon however, political machinations and a hyperactive economy displaced and buried their ruminations, making us forget the long term. It was impossible to calm down a hysterical world.
It took a deadly pandemic for the slowdown to happen. Nature managed to do what so many thinkers hoped for without much illusion.
Employing periods of seclusion to rethink the world is not new: religions like Buddhism and Hinduism seclusion as a central moment of any person’s lifetime. Other belief systems, like Islam, even provided suggestions on how to cope with a pandemic without despair. The past offers us countless advice on how to get through these times. We simply need to adapt them to our present.
When we leave our homes, we will adapt our routines to our new reality, due to the restrictions of a pandemic that will not have ended. Without a doubt, we will want to defend parts of the beautiful serenity that we conquered during isolation. Perhaps, in that period of transition, we will not long for the supposed peace of the previous world, but rather seek to found a better normalcy.
After all, this period has also raised hopes. Many of the fatalities that were cynically imposed on us, now seem solvable. The world stopped during the decade where climate change can still be reversed. States showed, to our surprise, that they were able to defend their citizens against imminent death.
Decades of pessimism accustomed us to act as if we permanently lived on the eve of the apocalypse.
There was a form of arrogance in believing ourselves to be the last generation of the human species.
Today, for the first time, we have strong reasons to believe that we are at the start of something new.
We can discuss the best way to react and foster a new world: how to unite, with or without leaders, and with what methods.
This Manifesto, however, appeals to a more primordial action: to inspire others to pronounce themselves. Hopefully, we will be enough to speak up, for our words to be listened.
Part 1: Defending Globalization while redefining its principles
Globalization and Pandemics: two phenomena that go hand in hand
Globalization, the process of increasing communication and interdependence between the nations of the world, is not a recent phenomenon. However, it undoubtedly experienced a profound acceleration in the last few decades, with an exponential increase in voyages, agreements and exchanges between nations and peoples.
However, it is important to remember that our globalized society was founded on painful foundations, and that its complicated expansion is not entirely over. Even today, contacts take place between members of the globalized world, and societies that have never heard of other latitudes, such as the close to 100 "uncontacted" peoples that subsist in the world.
Let us imagine the feelings of terror and fascination of an "uncontacted" community once they stumble upon an explorer from our connected world. After the curiosity of first contact, there would surely come weeks of speculation about the appearance of that mysterious individual.
But his passage would not only mark imaginations. Soon after his departure, disease, deaths, and the inexorable advance of a plague would leave their mark on the community, decimating these people without immunity against viruses from the rest of the planet.
Given the unstoppable evil that he brought us, why shouldn’t we despise the foreigner? Why not fear him like the plague, and name the disease after him? Is it not legitimate to hate him, for bringing destruction upon our world?
Let's not fool ourselves. Plagues have always been companions of Globalization. In addition to the eradication of the American peoples by European viruses, the Black Death is directly linked to the conquests of the Mongols, who connected China with Europe.
And those are not isolated cases: most of the epidemics that devastated Asia, Europe and Africa coincided with periods of intense international exchanges. After all these tragedies, except for the one that followed the conquest of the Americas, the same response prevailed: closing the borders.
Today however, for the first time in History, we have an alternative.
Thanks to the Internet and information technologies, we can quickly communicate across borders and distances. Decades of intense exchanges have created multicultural friendships and families, who now see this dialogue between realities as an essential part to their identities. They formed ties of affection that often cross continents, and that would live the end of Globalization as a tragedy.
Unlike those periods of forced globalizations, where empires mercilessly subdued peoples they saw as infra-human, an entire generation has learned to cross borders without fear or prejudice.
Without even noticing it, we have experienced foreign conflicts and crises like close tragedies, feeling them even more violently because we saw them develop every day. Almost despite us, the myth of the “global village” ended up fulfilling itself in our virtual conversations.
The unique opportunity to separate Globalization and Pandemics
What would the Venetians and the inhabitants of Cairo and Delhi have given to learn that a mysterious illness had appeared in the depths of the Gobi? Had they exchanged and communicated, would Flagellants have scoured Italy, asking God for Mercy while they brought the Plague with them? What would have happened to the Black Death if Arab, Chinese or Greek doctors had shared potions and treatments against the plague?
Stopping globalization and isolating ourselves would only be a short-term response, which would prevent us to achieve the necessary cooperation to eradicate the pandemic from the face of the Earth, and prevent the appearance of new diseases.
Today, unlike the times of our ancestors, we have the privilege of living in a Humanity that feels close to each other, and capable of sharing its knowledge.
Paradoxically, by being confined by the millions, people isolated themselves physically, but were united by social networks, allowing themselves to rethink their reality. From then on, a long conversation started, an event that couldn’t have been possible less than two decades ago.
God knows what will come out of this period of latent reflection.
Facing this possible communion, we must not forget that there are those who wish to close the borders. This health crisis can fuel latent tensions, and spur fury against the globalized world.
Faced with this questioning of globalization, it is possible to redirect the criticism.
The current pandemic did not spread because the world is globalized, but because of the way globalization is organized. A globalization where trade and technologies flow, but where human well-being is only a second thought.
Between Globalization and Isolationism, defending a New, Fairer Globalization
The opposition was already making its way in political debates, but after the Coronavirus pandemic, one can be certain that the debates of tomorrow will be centered on the opposition between Globalization, Isolationism, and its various nuances.
Faced with these future debates, this Manifesto advocates a re-foundation of Globalization, with principles of solidarity that are to be thought and proposed by its citizens, inspiring themselves from the principles of Alter-Globalization.
This re-foundation of Globalization would be in opposition to a barely cosmetic reconstruction, proposed only by businessmen, technocrats and politicians. It must be a new system, proposed by a world population that knows that it is united and does not want to lose what brought them together for decades.
To unite the world, one must not only promise a new normalcy, but aim towards a common dream.
It is a painful coincidence that this crisis came just when multinational institutions are weakened and besieged by populist leaders, seeking to dismantle them. Vigorous action by these institutions could have stopped the crisis efficiently, and their weakness tempts some to finish them off.
The dream of Multiculturalism is frequently sneered at by my generations, who sees it as a meaningless concept, manipulated by figures who used it to sell us a mercantile world.
The inaction and lack of inspiration of some supranational institutions contribute to the hopelessness. The European Union, the supposed champion of the old globalization, disappoints by its mediocre response, only acting when it comes to rescuing economic indicators.
In the face of this world that questions itself, this Manifesto defends that Globalization must be transformed, not destroyed, to face a crisis in which no one can be saved by himself.
The downfall of “Realism” in International Relations and the search for a new doctrine
Indeed, if there’s something that many of the world's old pragmatists refuse to see, it is that espousing so-called “realism” in international relations has been the most destructive doctrine against the Coronavirus crisis.
Thinking international relations as a zero-sum game and hiding data from other nations for fear of losing political advantages, has only accelerated the pandemic. Other "realists," like Boris Johnson in the UK, attempted to avoid quarantine to maintain their economic prosperity, and paid for it with tragic human losses.
Although many of these so-called "realists" gave up on their strategies, sordid actions still persist, and their political consequences will undoubtedly be immeasurable. It is needless to recall the insane negationism of the Bolsonaro government in Brazil, or the acts of piracy from the American administration, stealing masks and respiratory machines that were meant for other countries.
The Coronavirus crisis has made this supposed “realism” unsustainable: the crisis will only be contained with more and better communication, accepting our union as a single planet.
The ways to organize as a world have yet to be defined: with the advance of the pandemic, attention has turned to successful examples of containment. Examples that, in fact, would have been much more difficult to access and compare without the communication that globalization brought us ...
On the one hand, there are countries with advanced surveillance and control systems, such as China and South Korea. States with actions that are certainly successful, but which are also less willing to share their mistakes.
On the other hand, there are societies with developed health systems, such as the state of Kerala in India, or the Kurdish region of Syria, which have proven encouragingly reactive. The example of New Zealand is also remarkable, as a united and coordinated society where citizens communicated transparently to stop the pandemic.
This last batch of examples seems to outline an alternative response to Societies of Control: Societies of Solidarity, where crises are stopped with coordination and transparent communication between communities.
Instead of founding a more controlled and isolated world, it is possible to conceive of a more connected one, not only through impersonal economic flows, but through active communication.
A more profound and transparent globalization to escape the option of worldwide Vigilance
When the end of quarantine approaches, the need for an alternative model to surveillance is increasingly felt. In France, the possibility of a State-sponsored cell phone application to monitor the French population after confinement has drawn strong criticism.
On the other hand, our quarantine experiences have already shown us examples of neighborly solidarity: these acts of transparent coordination between citizens could be complemented with State coordination, ochestrating a harmonious and efficient end to the quarantine.
In fact, not all aspects of the globalization that preceded us have to be dismantled.
While the European Union's cowardice has been a disastrous disappointment -as such an institution could have been central to end the crisis on a regional level- the UN’s and WHO’s warnings against future pandemics have been clear signs of good faith. Furthermore, the deaf ears that the States lended them may be the proof that their self-centered model is now obsolete.
Although no international leaders rose up to offer encouraging messages to confront the crisis, some forms of action established patterns to follow, such as the implementation of quarantines and health plans to support the most vulnerable populations.
A third path against Coronavirus, that of anti-globalization in the name of ecology, supporting forms of isolationism and the end of long-distance travel, seems like a false solution.
I mistrust the act of sacrificing multiculturalism to close ourselves off, when we could so easily listen and organize ourselves better.
It is necessary to inspire Humanity, not to scare it, in order to found a new world.
Let's not fall into the trap of thinking that we are the virus, fully blaming ourselves for something that the system created: the old world caused the pandemic, and we have to transform it.
Daring to redefine the world, as it happened after World War II
Today, the Coronavirus crisis has put our certainties about society into question. It can also lead us to write a New Social Contract: an agreement between citizens of the planet on how to organize the world.
The truth is that the alternative to this new social contract are bleak.
In recent decades, we have seen our system confront political and social crises with disconcerting mediocrity. The war in Syria, the invasion of Ukraine, the migratory crisis in Europe and the Venezuelan political conflict were human tragedies that weak leaders left to rot, transforming their suffering into just a form of normalcy. The only ones to benefit from these lukewarm resolutions were the amoral and "realistic" leaders who saw these conflicts as pawns in their chess games.
It would be truly terrifying to see the Coronavirus crisis be confronted with that kind of lowliness.
Judging by the lack of coordination and the spirit of "realism" that still dominates the States of the world, a mediocre response to the post-Covid World seems almost guaranteed if we keep our current system.
The answer is to found a new world.
To make this refounding acceptable, it is necessary to understand the magnitude of what happens to us: this crisis is the “World War III”, with which Hollywood movies tried to hypnotize us. A conflict that would impact the entire globe and would unite us against a common foe.
Faced with such an event, it is legitimate to take radical decisions, as those were also taken after the previous world conflict.
Part 2: Principles for a new social contract
“The King is naked”. Let the people write manifestos for a worldwide constitution
The first consequence of quarantine has been to unveil several of the false truths that we agreed to live with.
Suddenly, failing to prioritize health and research for decades turned out to be a colossal mistake.
Without us realizing it, the times of scientific optimism of the mid-20th century were displaced by the era of patient-customers, where they are seen as mere sources of profit rather than people worthy of being helped.
With this barbaric reality for all to see, various liberal States took actions that should not be reversed. It is time to re-prioritize research and health, abandoning the cult of profit, dismantling pharmaceutical lobbies and polluting actions that were tolerated during the “silent” neoliberal revolution.
By complying with quarantine, we gave States the time to brace for the impact, saving them from utter breakdown. Now is the time to hold them accountable, questioning the reasons of their fragility, and rethinking the ways they are structured.
In this unprecedented moment, it is legitimate to aspire for the New World to be built on the basis of a planetary constitution, proposed by its citizens as they emerge from their long quarantines. This period of sharing of ideas will be an opportunity to give new meaning to the concept of the "citizen of the world", a concept that was though dead or dying.
For the refoundation of the world, this Manifesto advocates a globalization based on greater communication and collaboration, built from the grassroots, rather than a Globalization of surveillance built by the elites.
This new and true democracy can be re-founded taking advantage of the spirit of exchange, questioning and citizen participation that permeates social networks, which led both to the revolutions of the early 2010s and to the reviled multiplication of bubbles and fake news.
If this course is to be taken, we would enter a period in which everyone could share their own Manifesto in their social networks, sharing their ideas and revealing those that unite and inspire us. A way to speak up without letting others instrumentalize our indignation.
Rethinking the Economy: the essential step to create a new globalization
Among the issues that are being questioned during quarantine, the economy seems the most pressing and controversial subject.
As a matter of fact, the trials of the pandemic revealed several of the most grotesque injustices of our society. It became clear that our lives depended more on the work of a nurse or a cashier than that of a trader. The differences in prestige of these jobs became unbearable injustices.
Although one can criticize the apparent obscurantism of those who feel outraged by the donations to restore Notre Dame, the fact is that the lack of response to the pandemic by the great fortunes of the world is intriguing. As if human tragedy barely moved them.
A dissonance that becomes even more apparent with social networks, which expose the golden quarantines in which some of them await the end of the plague.
In addition to these questions about our abject inequality, other daily discoveries transform our vision of the system.
Those with the means to spend found out that they could live with much less than before.
Others realized that much of their work can be done in-house, and that quite a few international meetings could be done in Zoom sessions. A transformation of work practices that could change urban transportation to offices, and change the ways companies and universities hire and organize their work. On the other hand, this long period of physical absence is likely to accelerate the automation processes of various jobs, affecting several workers.
Refusing to yield the new world to the discourse of relaunching the economy
There is no doubt therefore that the Coronavirus, in addition to revealing injustices, will leave a considerable economic impact.
Not a day goes by without someone reminding us of the terrifying economic crisis that awaits us, like a divine punishment for having dared to slow down the world.
Facing the economic crisis would mean, in part, to legitimize the pre-pandemic system, that same source of injustices that we seek to dismantle.
This Manifesto does not intend to deny economical sciences, but considers that accepting the discourse of financial crisis and the idea of an economic relaunch would lead us back to the system that generated our problems. Such a relaunch would have catastrophic environmental consequences. Such was the case in 2008.
The idea is not to fall into the false dichotomy of the economy against welfare, but to redefine its priorities so that it doesn’t keep on sinking us into further injustice and inequality.
Ironic as it may seem, the responses of various liberal States to the crisis offer us a clue on the best ways to react.
Guidelines to a new world Economy, that prioritizes human welfare
By dictating quarantines and supporting healthcare, liberal States have proven to its citizens that they would mobilize all their forces to save them from death, whatever the cost. From now on, we must remind them of this action, so that they endorse their roles as protectors of welfare. And we should be wary of the leaders who did not dare to take such actions, as if they didn’t what to commit to such initiatives, or if they preferred to apply an understated form of Malthusianism.
Among some of the actions taken, one of those that we can demand to stay permanent is the so-called Universal Salary, which some States already distribute as a vital minimum to vulnerable populations. This model was already suggested by economists Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, and could be maintained, distributing it to populations for whom such help could be life-saving. For more prosperous populations and nations, this kind of support could be distributed in more precise ways and according to specific needs, so that its amount stays consequential.
In fact, following the thesis of these two economists, economic efficiency and redistribution are not contradictory: a poor person will not stop working because it gets work, and a rich person won’t stop producing because it is taxed. According to them, the pride of a citizen doesn’t necessarily come from its capacity for consumption, but that of contributing to society.
Some states seem to be following these principles, and that tendency may continue. Indeed, some have decided to cancel debts from developing countries, pay rent for precarious families or even apply new economic policies, like Amsterdam and its policies based on the “donut” model (covering the essential needs of its population without exceeding ecological limits).
Given the shortage of masks and medical supplies that some countries experienced at the beginning of the crisis, some ask for a return to certain forms of self-sufficiency, an ideal that countries like India had long ago decided to abandon.
Instead of letting the far-right take ownership of the idea, it would be interesting to propose forms of self-sufficiency for vital goods, following the donut model: a fundamental basis on which the region must be able to sustain itself.
Indeed, the idea of strengthening States is not in contradiction with a deepening of globalization. In an ideal future, states (or even cities) of the world would exchange data on the vital needs of their populations, and strong supranational entities would coordinate actions to equalize the quality of life of the world's citizens. After all, this crisis has proven that States are crucial to coordinate crisis responses: now is time to redefine their organization.
In this new context, States should dare to implement policies, such a tax on the rich, to reverse the inequalities that increased exponentially since 2008, and finally redistribute the abundant resources at hand that the previous system did not dare to distribute.
New production logics must follow less destructive principles, prioritizing the necessary over the excessive. The idea is to stop imposing the dictatorship of acceleration on us, allowing us to enjoy the slower world that we were able to LIVE during quarantine.
I dare to think that, after this period of isolation, our consumerist impulses will be redirected mostly to human gatherings, culture and entertainment.
In fact, Culture cannot be ignored and disdained in this new world.
We owe her the mental health that allowed us to face quarantine. With it, we expressed our hopes and fears. This culture, in its religious forms, also gave us the comfort and relief that some of us needed.
Often seen as a secondary theme, we must not forget what we owe to Culture once we build the new world.
The Fight against climate change, a central challenge for the new world
A Manifesto on the Coronavirus pandemic would be incomplete if it did not mention ecology.
During quarantine, it was impossible not to feel some relief seeing that the world's suicidal race had stopped, giving us time to question it.
However, it would be a mistake to think that the ecological crisis is over. This is just a respite, which must be used to change course.
The pandemic has happened, in part, due to our ecological indolence: the predation of ecosystems exposed us to diseases that our immune systems were not prepared to confront.
In this new globalization, solutions to the ecological crisis will have to be collective and not individual. We cannot return to the insane world where everyone's need to reach the top of the world caused a traffic jam in the Everest.
The fight for a healthy environment is not only on behalf of our individual well-being, but to defend a human right directly linked to the protection of our collective healths. Social and ecological conditions will have to be imposed on companies to prevent them from causing further damages.
To redefine the ecological rules of the new globalization, it will undoubtedly be essential to draw inspiration from the lifestyles of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon, who knew how to develop complex societies without damaging their natural environment. Making urban societies change their lifestyle is no longer science fiction: we all did so once we complied with quarantine.
Overall, the global fight against the common enemy of the Coronavirus may be, if we chose to follow a New Globalization, a rehearsal to better undertake the fight against climate change.
It is suspicious to see that those who deny the pandemic and the importance of international cooperation, are the same who deny climate change.
In fact, we must not forget that, facing this crisis, there are those who will advocate for nothing to change, and those who will dream of a world of fortresses, where everyone will defend its own interests.
Preventing them to dictate our future
As much as populists scream, however, the time for reflection has come.
This Manifesto was in part written as a defense mechanism. It is an attempt to construct my own discourse, before another one is imposed on me.
I am a firm believer that our current propensity for fake news and mass panic comes from the legitimate fear that the world of tomorrow will be decided without us. It is time to take hold on this future.
However, we must be aware of what awaits us at the geopolitical level.
When world leaders start to rethink the system, new models will be outlined.
On this chess board, States will fight pettily, guided by their supposed realism. With our Manifestos however, we will impose ourselves on these archaic giants, transcending them, denying the opiums with which they will attempt to silence us.
On the chessboard of classical politics, China seems determined to establish itself as a leader, masking its initial mistakes with grotesque triumphalism. Due to its lack of transparency, it is difficult to discern the lessons it will draw from the crisis, and what system it will propose for the new world.
However, the position of Trump's United States is clear. With stunning cynicism and cowardice, they decided to espouse "realism" and close themselves up, stealing masks and respiratory machines from countries in need. In a strange display of bipolarity, their discourse is divided between a minimization of the crisis and ruthless attacks on foreigners and international institutions. Formerly great countries, like Brazil, live under presidents who enjoy their role as lackeys, joining Trump’s mad and lethal negationism.
History is unlikely to forgive these leaders, and their nations will surely be relegated in the new world. To avoid this, their only way out would be if their lies ended up persuading the citizens of the world.
The danger of the Great Liars
In fact, the greatest menace of these grotesque characters is their ability to transform reality with their lies. Even today, amongst their followers, the idea that globalization and its institutions are the sole culprits of the pandemic has got hold.
Like them, there are several Great Liars, and their threat is greatly increased in these times of crisis.
After all, lies are invaluable consolations when uncertainty reigns. When the Black Death ravaged Europe, Christians imagined angels announcing the beginning and end of the plague. In Peru, an alleged prophetic message broadcast over the radio made more people respect quarantine than any presidential speech. In France, a nation prideful of its secularism, Dr. Raoult and his alleged chloroquine-based miracle cure has sparked a veneration that seems intriguingly religious.
Others even prefer to believe that fearsome conspiracies hide behind the Coronavirus. We got so used to living in a world controlled and demolished at Homo Deus’ whim, that we cannot imagine a disaster that is not the work of Man or some fearsome cabal.
Freeing ourselves from these conspiracies, understanding that even the powerful are overcome by the crisis, gives us more strength to confront it. Accepting the conspiracy, on the other hand, is a comfortable excuse for not changing the world.
It is dangerous to spend too much time discussing conspirators and negationists in this Manifesto: they have shown more than once than to give them space is to give them power.
However, the hopelessness that push their followers onward, and the bubbles they form to convince themselves, are perfectly understandable. The fear that motivates them is what drives me to write my Manifesto. It is the fear that the world will be rewritten without us.
Part 3: Visions of the Future
After these of proposals, comes a moment of speculation.
After all, rarely has there been more exciting times to imagine the future. All previous futurologies have expired: for the first time in generations, the field of possibilities has opened up for us.
Perhaps, we will see a return to lifestyles that we thought our accelerated world had killed forever. Contact, trust and exchange with neighbors may return, as these are skills that are essential to the Fair Globalization that this Manifesto proposes. Maybe, even the lifestyles of indigenous peoples, which we saw as exemplary but remote, will become norms to protect the planet.
Perhaps, the experiences of quarantine on a local level will make State systems be replaced City-based systems, in which neighbors communicate and decide in a form of direct democracy. Wuhan's quarantine, or Amsterdam's implementation of a new economic model, seems to point towards that future.
Maybe the world to come will trust less blindly in the greatness of Humankind, and will value Nature and Mysticism more.
Perhaps, instead of the misery that is promised to us, will come a time of greater equality. After all, the Black Death was followed by a radical reduction of economic inequalities, and a stimulus to culture that gave way to the Renaissance.
Perhaps the Coronavirus vaccine will be made free, and will be sent triumphantly to all corners of the planet. This already happened with the polio vaccine by Dr. Albert Bruce Sabin, who refused to patent it and never won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Such optimistic predictions are partly motivated by the downfall of many pessimistic prophecies. One cannot help but feel triumphant when the investment in guns of some Americans turned out to be useless, as the apocalypse was a time of solidarity, and not a Mad Max-like anarchy.
However, this stimulating optimism cannot blind us to the horrifying impact that this crisis will have, and already has, on the most vulnerable populations of the world.
The precarious and the poor are, of course, those who pay the most terrible price: for many, hunger will kill before the Coronavirus does. In Peru and India, massive exoduses see poor migrants return to their rural towns, sometimes bringing disease to regions that have no way to cope with it. Among them, the uncontacted indigenous peoples are undoubtedly the most fragile victims of the Coronavirus.
This crisis, which still has no end in sight, is yet another argument for a Fairer Globalization. This people must also be able to express their Manifesto and build the new world with all of us.
On the other hand, we must not allow fear of the Coronavirus to displace that of Global Warming: one crisis should serve as a lesson for the other.
The moments of beauty that the slowing down of the world offered us - the blue sky of Lima, the outline of the Everest appearing in northern India - will not come back if we return to the old normalcy.
The pettiness of an archaic world cannot rob us that future.