Now that a snap back has become an illusion can we dream of a snap forward in 2021?
I know that whatever I was expecting in 2020 – it wasn't this!
So what do I foresee for 2021? I see the next decade and beyond being lived with a different consciousness produced by the aftermath of this global pandemic which has swept so much in its path. 2020 will be recalled for the grimmest of things: health systems overwhelmed, thousands of lives lost, economies massively impacted and the psyche and sense of well-being of countless humans being ruptured.
So 2021 may mark the beginning of a new consciousness and the path out of this nightmare with jobs, trade and travel bouncing back – or sadly it may still be a year steeped in anxiety and paralysed in pandemic territory. This will depend on an effective vaccine being created and globally distributed without vaccine nationalism that ignores the poorest nations. It is this latter point which sits heavily upon me. I do not believe any of us will be safe from COVID-19 until we are all safe. It is why I have been part of the #Endcovidforall campaign.
For some, the virus has providing the death knell for globalisation, with the obvious embrace of nationalism and the elevating of ‘negative globalism' into attacks on the World Health Organisation. Rather I hope that 2021 will provide a chance to reflect on the deeper meaning of the virus. Namely, that we are all biologically connected, utterly interdependent and our fate or destiny is
We can only solve our national problems – whether environmental, economic, security or in health – with global cooperation. Tim Costello
intertwined on this planet.
This ‘globalisation of solidarity' has been confirmed through a virus. This realisation has to become the conscious paradigm that shapes our thinking in 2021. We can only solve our national problems – whether environmental, economic, security or in health – with global cooperation.
Now that a snap back has become an illusion can we dream of a snap forward in 2021? For me a snap forward would be nations seriously committing to the global plan that is laid out in the SDG'S. Maybe they need a health tweak to acknowledge what the pandemics represents but these goals (honoured only in lip service) represent the best way to snap forward.
Pre-pandemic
Australia was not the society that most of us wanted to snap back to. Eva Cox
Interestingly, the post-pandemic outcome I hope to see is Hope herself, the final exiting figure from the myth of Pandora's container.
Her Greek name is Elpis, and her existence presumably offers the possibilities of dealing with the earlier emerging evils. Her being also female legitimates my feminist interest in her leading us into less macho civil societies than those operating at the beginning of the pandemic.
Pre-pandemic Australia was not the society that most of us wanted to snap back to, despite the PM'S desires. There was widespread distrust of our major political parties. Increasing social inequity, economic woes and general discontent, showing up in the rising voter distrust of those who led us. The turnover of leaders, and the ill effects of conditional welfare, privatisations galore, and the other legacies of decades of market-based decisions, undermine the remains of our social contract of fairness.
Then the pandemic arrived, and effective responses require political and social co-operation, not competition! We hope it is working, but already flaws are appearing, with conflict re-emerging as economic and social priorities clash.
Hope in the future is the almost magic potion we must provide to our societies, as pessimism (despair) leads to bad outcomes, and distrust creates populism and pogroms plus.
There is high anxiety in the community about the future, mainly expressed as protesting about the mess we are in on various fronts. Yet where are the proposals for fair and effective solutions? To propose such solutions from outside the ruling structures of government requires adequate optimism (hope) that good change is actually possible.
So, a group of us have set up an Elpis network to devise and distribute fair solutions to the mess we are in. Check our webpage https://www.elpis. network/ to find our first project, good social policies that we need to move from despair to hope!