The “Civilization Tale” in Crisis — Developed West Countries Under Siege

All we have heard about ‘white civilization’ is being tested by human fragility.

The calling of colonizers in the 14th century was “to give civilization to barbarian”. After years we know there is no such thing called “civilization”, meaningless when West has made the worst event in human history: the holocaust.

We know now, all those social-created ideas were a mistake to control people. The logic of “north” and “Manifest Destiny” is just a myth between nations to take validate oppression and install power asymmetries.

Yesterday (on 2nd April) we achieve a million COVID-19 cases confirmed around the world. The US, Italy, Spain and Germany are leading the top in contagion increased. Those countries were particularly the most-developed nations, and suddenly an unpredictable virus put them under siege.

West Sunset in Sight

Ulrich Beck was a theoretical sociologist from Germany, he understood the human-being as “Risk Society”. A modern society that organizes its productivity forces around the risk.

Essentially “the risk” is:

a society increasingly preoccupied with the future (and also with safety), which generates the notion of risk

Humanity differs from other animal species, in its ability to plan. It’s probably that difference makes the HUGE origin in our constitution of building and development.

This pandemic crisis is testing our ability to overcome risks. But we are certainly having a stressful panic attack, especially countries with mid-low income, seeing the most developed countries in a crisis. How we have to act? Do we have to wait?

After this crisis we have to prepare our planning-ability to face a recession. The risk is going to multiply in social, economic and political issues. Which position is going to take the most developed countries, if the crisis is unpredictable?

It’s probably we’re seeing a sunset of western hegemony. Russia and China assistance to the west most affected nations recently, it’s our most human face during this crisis. Set aside differences to confront the same ‘evil’.

In an era where most intellectuals are talking about ‘How Democracies Die’, we have to stand together. Many political-outsiders have become to the power recently: Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Boris Jonhson. If they are not in the formal power, they are lurking democracies, like VOX in Spain, Alternative für Deutschland in Germany or other countries.

The political reactions into the support of those leaders are seriously dangerous, to give wellness to the people. Basically their support is based on a conservative agenda, which promotes neo-liberalism and exclusion for minorities (LGBTQ+) or underprivileged.

This crisis is fireproof for our ways of organization. With the recession just around the corner, some of these inequalities will be exponentially growing. Discomfort will be accelerating in hand with social-anxiety. Having the sight in the future can be frustrating and also the making-decisions could be the wrong way.

We have seen, since the start of the pandemic crisis, how humanity considered itself as indestructible; videos like President of Brazil describing “the Brazilian-man” as a non-contagious person. That’s unacceptable for any leader in the world.

We have to learn from our history…

… how we got to where we are. The old tale of ‘civilization’ has many costs in human lives. One of those learning has to be human-dignity and put out barriers for people to access vital services. In the context of hiper-globalization, we have no borders between countries, that's meaningless to develop. Now, we are connected, as we never have. It is important to take advantage of this opportunity to charge historical debts with many populations of the world.

History has learned humanity solidarity as an important value. But it is becoming just a “cosmetic word”. Many people deserve solidarity and justice of their rights.

I think it is important too, to have in consideration how many world possibles fit in one world. We are into a pandemic, sure; but we are also living climate change, and now it is time to remember the origins population from America which were respectful of the environment — their gods were from nature. Looking at our history, we can learn ways of human living more balanced.

Human is not an individual. Our sense of ‘specie’ is a cultural-building, and capitalism has transformed it into dark consumption. The only one Political Party that matters is humankind.

The real question is: do the selfishness triumphs after COVID-19, again?

Be Careful with Social Media …

and optimistic with the world: