Humanity has survived many pandemics throughout history and they have often taught us lessons that helped spur subsequent progress.
For example, the kingdoms and states of central and western Europe abolished serfdom once it became clear in the aftermath of devastating pestilence that dependency and servitude jeopardized leaders’ hold on power.
Similarly, the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic killed more than 50 million people, but highlighted the vulnerability of entire countries in the absence of widespread access to basic healthcare. That episode spurred governments to start building the public health systems that improved life so much in the 20th century.
More often than not, humanity has banded together in the face of all kinds of threats. The COVID-19 pandemic and its many ramifications threaten to push our social, political and economic structures to the breaking point. If the past teaches us anything, it is that our survival and welfare demand that we change.
The combination of disease, recession and fear can rapidly overwhelm states and societies. Each coming day brings increasing challenges that can be met only by caring for the sick; minimizing the effects of shutdowns on lives and livelihoods; securing the delivery of adequate water, food and energy supplies; and racing to find a cure for the virus.
As in any asymmetric conflict, success depends on resilience. To contain the economic and sociopolitical fallout from the crisis, policymakers should focus on preserving human dignity and welfare as the bedrock of national and international security.
In much of the world, the most vulnerable members of society are those on the front lines of the crisis: not just doctors, nurses, caregivers and pharmacists, but also sanitation workers, farmers, supermarket cashiers and truck drivers.
These people are displaying the courage, sacrifice and dedication that would see us through the next 12 to 18 months of lockdowns, but in the absence of state support, what is to happen to the hundreds of thousands of people who have been laid off and the millions more who face looming hardship as unemployment continues to rise?
As the calls for social distancing grow louder and more incessant, we must remember our humanitarian duty to one another. Security, far from being individual, is collective and global.
The logic of mutually assured survival does not allow for gray areas. In the end, successful conflict resolution always finds a way to transcend political beliefs, nationality, ethnicity, gender and religion. Likewise, beating back this pandemic would require that our commitment to life be truly universal.
The world has reliable brokers that can help to manage this and other crises, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders. They and other similarly trusted organizations must take the lead in developing a public platform of health facts so that everyone understands both the scale of the challenge and the changes that we must make to meet it.
Similarly, those who cry hoax need to be exposed as the callous cynics that they are.
The people who have been attacked the most over the past few years — migrants and refugees — must be an integral part of national efforts to halt the spread of the coronavirus.
The UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia has said that 55 million people in the region require some sort of humanitarian assistance, and that displaced women and girls are especially vulnerable in a pandemic — so the challenge to both public health and our shared humanity is vast.
Fortunately, the multilateral system, although damaged by nationalist attacks over the past few years, still has the capacity to face up to this existential crisis.
Although human solidarity initially was significantly weakened as the coronavirus spread from China, it is now being bolstered by Chinese assistance to Italy and other countries in their time of need.
The crisis is equally a crisis of globalization, which, while it has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty over the past few decades, has also undermined the foundations of sustainability. A better globalization would require nothing less than extending the ethic of human solidarity beyond the contours of our immediate response to the pandemic.
Real success lies not in taming a pathogen, but in rediscovering and institutionalizing the true values of compassion, respect and generosity in the weeks and months ahead.
Prince El Hassan bin Talal is the founder and chairman of the Arab Thought Forum and the West Asia-North Africa Forum, and chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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