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Max Mueller Bhavan | India

Reflections on a post-corona-time
 Day-Afterthoughts

Intellectuals and artists around the world on the social consequences of the pandemic © Kitty Kahane

A virus is showing us how globally networked and yet how fragile our public life is. What does the pandemic mean to and for each of us and for society as a whole?

Here are some responses from intellectuals and artists around the world with regard to our present predicament and what lies in store for us afterwards.

Romila Thapar © Shekhar Yadav, EPS

Danachgedanken
 Reflexionen für eine Post-Corona Zeit

Was globalization not meant to be improving standards of living, eliminating poverty, providing health care for all, education for everyone and the upholding of human rights and social justice? May we ask what happened? Can globalization be defended as a continuing future form? Today, all our aspirations are being cremated daily and one waits for the devastation of the earth.
Portraitbild von Michael Zichy in Graustufen; Zichy trägt Brille und kariertes Hemd und schaut schräg aus dem Bild © Michael Zichy

Salzburg
 Michael Zichy, Philosopher

The corona crisis has put the globally networked economic system on hold, thereby exposing its vulnerability; it is forcing states into massive debt and back inside their nation-state boundaries; and last but not least, it is plunging people into uncertainty, threatening their livelihood and subjecting them to extreme psychological pressure.
Head shot Oleg Nikiforov; he wears short hair and black rectangular glasses; in the background buildings © Oleg Nikiforov

Moscow
 Oleg Nikiforov, Publisher

My hope is a new unity of humanity, despising its “yesterday's” Babylonian scattering, in our laughing at the formal distinctions of races, classes, nations and historical circumstances. Indeed, the challenging power, opposing the mankind now as COVID-19, does not recognize these differences, – and why should we? 
Portrait of Anne Weber against a gray background; she has curly brown hair and is wearing a black sweatshirt © Anne Weber

Paris
 Anne Weber, writer and translator

President Macron spoke of war, a war that I, armed with soap and disinfectant, am supposed to fight mainly by holing up at home. Another war awaits me there: the war against myself and my fears, which no soap will wash away and for which there is no cure.
Square image of Eva Illouz against a brown backdrop; she wears short dark hair and holds a glas in her left hand Geisler-Fotopress © picture alliance

Jerusalem, Paris
 Eva Illouz, Professor for Sociology

I think that, because of the corona virus, the young people who see and experience firsthand what the collapse of the world may look like will know how to monitor the world better. Short of that, there will no longer be a public or a private interest to defend. It will become nasty and brutal, as the Philospher Thomas Hobbes said, it is about the state of men in nature.
Portrait of Georg Seeßlen, he has a white beard, wears glasses and a beig hat © Georg Seeßlen

Munich
 Georg Seeßlen, journalist

The crisis can’t go on forever, otherwise it wouldn’t be a crisis, but the end. The crisis is an interruption; whether it is also a break with the past remains to be seen. All sorts of different forces are at work in it; it is a period in which some forms of action are curtailed or even completely prohibited, while others are expanding.
Dan Perjovschi takes a selfie in a reflecting window; on the glass, two heads are drawn, underneath it says local and global © Dan Perjovschi

Bucharest
 Dan Perjovschi, Illustrator

Free to think. Forbidden to move. It is a slowdown shutdown sort of wake-up. We will never ever stop by will. We stop only by force. Global quarantine? Who would imagine? Borders closed inside Europe? European citizens forbidden to pass en route to their home country?
Portrait of Urvashi Butalia; she has long gray-black hair and smiles into the camera © Urvashi Butalia

Delhi
 Urvashi Butalia, Author and publisher

As I write, there are hundreds of thousands of informal workers are crowded together at the border Delhi, waiting to go to their villages. They have no food, no water and they are fully at risk. The lockdown is a luxury the rich can afford, for the poor, there’s nothing.
Portraitbild von Matti Bunzl; er trägt eine Brille und schaut nachdenklich © Matti Bunzl

Vienna
 Matti Bunzl, Museum director

What worries me is that the EU, yet again, is not playing the role it should be – nowhere near it, in fact. The coronavirus is the epitome of a crisis that does not stop at borders. So this is where we need unified, coordinated strategies. The epidemic absolutely must not lead to a resurgence of the nation-state.
Photo taken through an open window; outside the sky is almost dark © Susanne Kennedy

Berlin
 Susanne Kennedy, Theater director

We all want all the answers right now. We want to know everything that is going to happen. What is the world going to look like after this? Which consequences are we facing? What kind of utopia or dystopia is awaiting us? But we don’t have the answers yet. This needs time. Maybe a lot of time.

Day-Afterthoughts

To the project overview – read all contributions in German and in English.

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