Dystopia awaits if we fail to work together 
However we toss the coin in this global crisis, we seem to be losing — especially if we thought we had figured out what the future holds for us.
For people like me, coming from the Global South to Spain in Europe, it sounds like we have arrived. As if the dream we had revisited thousands of times in our minds has finally crystallized into reality, putting aside everything we disdained about our country of origin. All the plans were made, money put aside if we were very lucky, children at school, a supportive social system, and projects in the making. Until an earthquake hits, creating the first cracks in the house, then an aftershock reveals layers previously unnoticed, and, finally, the arrival of a tsunami under the name of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) — possibly best described as the first global social distancing experiment in the history of humankind.
On a trip to Saudi Arabia while the crisis in Wuhan was unfolding, one of the topics that kept coming up among my fellow Arabs that have lived in the West was the seemingly nonexistent notion of personal space, without feeling encroached upon and having little control of one’s own decisions in the Arab world — unless, in a polarizing way, one chooses to live like a “European.” In other words, putting the principles of individualism in practice and setting boundaries both physically and emotionally to anyone and everyone. While acknowledging that not all Westerners have the same behavior, our fellow Arabs and “southerners” have built our dreams and aspirations on a Western image where we seem to desire what, with time, is proving to be an ailment for the West itself. A relevant popular Arabic saying reveals just how much emphasis our culture has placed on community: “Paradise is none if empty of people.” Can we conceive a life based on superficial relationships?
There is no doubt that this storm will change our way of living for years to come, but to what extent will depend on the decisions we and our governments make today.
The first outcry about social distancing noticed by the Western media was how this could be adding to their already broken societies, further reducing empathy, generosity and solidarity among humans. These three crucial notions — empathy, generosity and solidarity — which were once strong pillars in the Global South, are less visible in powerful and stable countries. They are not perceived as necessary in their success, as they have established structures and systems to deal with malfunctions, rather than counting on families and friends to be the safety net when one falls from grace after the system failed to help. The hundreds of deaths in retirement homes in Spain, however, offer a traumatic example of how systems fail when placing care for loved ones as frivolous.
As newcomers, we could perceive these automated systems as a solace that provide peace of mind and independence from our invasive families and societies back home — constantly there, checking on us to see if we are in need of any support, whether moral or material — but not today.
Today we learn that all societies are craving a human touch, sharing, empathy and solidarity. The digital world we so praise and that is available at our fingertips, serves, to a great extent, in bridging communication. But, after a month in lockdown, we are now feeling its shortcomings. Words are only one component and basing human interaction solely on them, without any physicality, loses meaning with time, leading to widespread unhappiness.
When governments around the world are too busy washing their hands of past and current mistakes, people are filling in the gaps. Where there is a food shortage or an urgent need for transport or medical gear, people are coming together to ensure the main goal of saving lives and alleviating pain. This crisis has proven more than ever before that we are one and equal in death and pain, and that we do not want to be alone in our suffering. We could be on our way to finally realizing that there is not much we need in our daily lives, and that the trap of our hyper-consumerist systems has led us astray from the essentials.
There are crucial lessons to be learned about the direction our societies have taken, from south to north, if we are ready to listen beyond borders and walls.
Here in Europe, we are getting a glimpse of a future that resembles the current present for developing countries and the Global South, with failures and lack of clarity, and posing an existential question of modern social structures. We are warned today that, if there is no partnership on an international level to overcome this as one critically suffering patient, the effects following the COVID-19 lockdown could be harrowing — a kind of dystopia hardly captured by Hollywood.
Mayssa Fattouh is a Barcelona-based independent writer, curator and cultural practitioner interested in intersections of art and knowledge production. She is the co-founder of the temporary public art platform TandemWorks and a member of the experimental online journal continent.cc.
