Solidarity, solidarity, solidarity, solidarity… the one word we have been hearing at every turn ever since the “little green” virus has taken over the planet.
Constantly repeating a word until it seems as if it has lost all meaning is a known phenomenon, called semantic satiation.
“As if neurons are little creatures to be filled up with the word until their little bellies are full, they are sated and want no more. Even single neurons habituate; that is, they stop firing to a repetitive pattern of stimulation. But semantic satiation affects our conscious experience, not just individual neurons,” renowned theoretical neurobiologist, Bernard J Baars, wrote in his book “In the Theatre of Consciousness.”
How do we bring back the meaning of the so-often repeated word “solidarity”? How do we even conceive of a global solidarity at a time of a global challenge? Let us contradict ourselves and try to avoid verbal saturation precisely through repetition.
(Un)equal in Europe
Yesterday, the European Commission published a document called “European Solidarity in Action.” Across three pages, the EC rushed to highlight the need for mutual cooperation and help after weeks of facing backlash on the lack of solidarity in the first phase of the pandemic, and after the images of Cuban, Russian, and Chinese planes landing in Italy, carrying much-needed help, were seared into the collective memory of Italians. Now, after export restrictions, in place in some EU countries, had been lifted, solidarity could finally begin on the continent. Masks and disinfectants are suddenly being flown all over the place, countries are taking in patients from their overwhelmed neighbours.
Emergency financial aid has been agreed as well. But the pandemic has ripped open deep, never-quite-healed European wounds, and from the fissure emerged a question of solidarity between the north and the south after the virus had unleashed asymmetrical shock across different nations of the EU and the euro zone. If global solidarity includes, among other things, the principle that the rich should help the poor, that those less-affected should help those more-affected, if it is true that the worst crises of humanity – those of poverty, climate, xenophobia, private and public debt – are transnational, then it is supposedly normal to expect, in the pandemic crisis and its unprecedented consequences, that those who were hit less should help the ones who would be knocked down flat by the economic aftermath of the fight against the virus.
Spain, Italy, and six other EU countries have requested that so-called “coronabonds” be issued, with the idea that the burden of the European debt should be shared.
The request was met with resistance. German Finance Minister, Olaf Scholz, said it was important to ensure that countries can better shoulder this difficult situation and any additional debt that will have to come. Germany, which, due to the concept of its economy, is capable of creating a tampon-zone for the corona strike, claims that the funds from the European Stability Mechanism, created during the 2008/09 crisis, should be used. Scholz sees that as a contribution to solidarity, while Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission, has called the idea of coronabonds “just a popular word right now.”
Dutch Finance Minister, Wopke Hoekstra, suggested that the EU should investigate countries such as Spain, who claimed there was no room in their budgets to deal with the effects of the crisis in spite of the fact that the euro zone has been recording growth over the past seven years straight.
Anger electrified the air from Rome to Madrid, and, after a conference call with the European Council members, Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa pilloried the protagonists of the European north: “Such speech is repugnant. No one wants to hear the Dutch finance minister say what was said in 2009, 2010, and 2011. Spain did not import the virus. It hit everyone equally. If one country in the European Union thinks it can resolve the problem by leaving the virus in other countries, then it doesn’t understand what the European Union is.”
God is (not) one
Solidarity is deeply etched into Christian doctrine, which, in the European political arena, is reflected in Christian Democracy. Solidarity towards the one who is weaker, needier, the one in pain, regardless of faith, race, or class. Locally, globally. In everyday action.
Even though the St Peter’s Square was eerily empty as he gave his blessing, the words of Pope Francis, who said now is not the time of God’s judgment of man, but a call to choose what matters, echoed indeed across Urbi et Orbi.
“The storm exposes our vulnerability and uncovers those false and superfluous certainties around which we have constructed our daily schedules, our projects, our habits and priorities. It shows us how we have allowed to become dull and feeble the very things that nourish, sustain and strengthen our lives and our communities. The tempest lays bare all our pre-packaged ideas and forgetfulness of what nourishes our people’s souls… We deprive ourselves of the antibodies we need to confront adversity. In this storm, the façade of those stereotypes with which we camouflaged our egos, always worrying about our image, has fallen away, uncovering once more that (blessed) common belonging, of which we cannot be deprived: our belonging as brothers and sisters.”
As he touched down on Italy’s island of Lampedusa on his first trip as the Roman pontiff, Pope Francis lamented: “Adam, where are you?” Back then, global solidarity had failed when cries for help were coming from those in trouble, from the refugees, like Jesus Christ himself was.
The (not) United Nations
UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, published a letter to the global community.
This crisis of humanity calls for solidarity, he wrote. The international labour organisation, on the other hand, reported that workers across the world may lose up to 3.4 billion dollars in income this year. Guterres called for a coordinated, decisive response and innovative political action, with special emphasis to help the poorest countries and those most vulnerable.
Done right, Guterres writes, we can steer the recovery toward a more sustainable and inclusive path. But poorly coordinated policies risk locking in – or even worsening – already unsustainable inequalities, reversing hard-won development gains and poverty reduction.
Similar appeals came from the UN Secretary-General in regards to the war in Syria, to climate change, to gender equality, to a number of other issues in which global coordination has failed.
G20 leaders have decided to pump 5 trillion dollars into global economy, a move which many say is barely a drop in a tsunami that is coming our way. Australia is calling for global economy to go into hibernation mode until the health crisis is over.
No country is powerful enough to fight this alone. Debt was an attractive idea, but who, apart from a couple of global heavyweights, can finance it, and how? And while governments must pump as much money into their economies as necessary to cover the costs of crisis for both households and businesses, and central banks must support the stability of the system, at the end of the day, a global shock requires a global response. Deepening the inequality pool is not and cannot be the solution.
The letter
In 1973, a man named Nadeau sent an anxious letter to American author Elwyn Brooks White, lamenting his loss of faith in humanity. White responded:
Dear Mr Nadeau:
As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness.
Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say, the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society — things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed, sometimes rather suddenly. It is quite obvious that the human race has made a mess of life on this planet. But as a people we probably harbor seeds of goodness that have lain for a long time waiting to sprout when the conditions are right. Man’s curiosity, his relentlessness, his inventiveness, his ingenuity have led him into deep trouble. We can only hope that these same traits will enable him to claw his way out.
Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.
Sincerely,
E. B. White
Perhaps, then, we should not repeat words until they are meaningless. Because our time in our world is indeed limited, whether we choose to spend it alone with our own selves, or share the timeline with everyone else.
