First Westphalian of the year, but we’re already a month into 2020. And it’s been a month where human fragility has been on full display. We’re not referring to physiological fragility, as we all knew that the flu can kill us. In fact, humanity has been facing (corona-like) viruses for all of its existence, nothing new there. No, we mean psychological fragility, i.e. the way people across the world react to global complexity.
Let’s start with the Coronavirus itself. It is essentially an aggressive type of the kind that also causes the common cold and other mild inconveniences. These aggressive types have existed for a long time, and every year many people die because of well-known and existing flu types. In fact, during the past weeks of Corona-hysteria, at least ten thousand people have died from regular flu, as opposed to the few hundred who died from the new strain during this same period. And yet, we are obsessing about an outbreak that for most of our readers is literally half-way around the world. The new strand is definitely a rational concern, no doubt, but mostly for local populations and authorities. It should not be something to send the world into panic mode. And yet, here were are.
We can explain this hysteria phenomenon, it happens on a regular basis: Ebola, Avian flu, BSE, the list is endless. Our reaction is influenced by many non-rational factors such as a fear of the unknown and unpredictable, a perverse enjoyment of global hypes, our love for criticising and questioning authorities, etc. Added to this list should be one of the uglier sides of our psychology: the rise of anti-Chinese (i.e. racist/xenophobic) incidents has exploded since the outbreak. For years Western media have been critical and scared of the rise of the People’s Republic, and that can now that fear be channelled through the Coronavirus. This was also visible during the Ebola scare with respect to African immigrants. It is irrational, it is ugly, it is destructive…and yet we do it.
Speaking of ugly, Nigel Farage and his fellow Brexiter thugs celebrating a “Leave Means Leave” party in London on January 31st. They literally stamped the European flag- and presumably any of their remaining sanity- into the ground. Leaving the EU was not enough, they had to gloat. Of course, they did.
Just like the anti-Chinese xenophobia, one could argue that those parties are only the extremists and that normal people who fear the Coronavirus and normal people who wanted Brexit should not be equated to a few ugly zealots. In both instances, however, the very foundation is an irrational and destructive rejection of expertise and sanity and a surrender to our worst inner instincts. It is obvious that not every one of the 17.2 million people who voted for Brexit is xenophobic or did so on xenophobic grounds. The same can be said about all those who are now afraid to walk into a Chinese restaurant for their fear of catching the flu: they obviously aren’t all racist.
But their acceptance of underbelly feelings over facts and a scientific consensus has created a fertile breeding ground, one that has caused very real human tragedy: a boy with cerebral palsy who died after his father was taken away for having a fever, thus leaving him without the care he needed to survive. Or families being ripped apart because one of the parents does not hold a British passport and may be forced to leave after Brexit. Or, likewise, because one has the Chinese nationality and the other doesn’t. Or people losing their jobs for the absurdly draconian travel bans to China and the coming trade barriers between Britain and mainland Europe. These are very real, very harmful results of humanity’s inability to be sane when it comes to global realities.
We refer you to previous editions for further evidence: our insane obsession with terrorism laid the foundations for the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in Iraq. Our tragic ignorance of foreign policy caused wars in Libya, Syria and elsewhere.
It is time we take responsibility for our impact on international affairs, and accept that it is not always just our global leadership that screws up. We allow them and even encourage them to do so.
