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"God willing we will arrive in Greece and from there to Germany or Sweden"- Dozens injured on the last day of protests in the Greek islands against new immigrant camps
In these days of epidemic and psychosis of the coronavirus, more than one will have taken or resumed in his hands the wonderful pages of La plague , by Camus. There is, however, another literary work that from afar stimulates very interesting reflections for our time: Los Novios ( I promessi sposi ), by Alessandro Manzoni. In its final part, the book describes the plague epidemic that hit Lombardy - today European epicenter of the coronavirus - in 1630 and composes an analysis of collective psychology in crisis situations that should be taken into account.
Ça goes from soi: the coronavirus is not a disease even remotely comparable with the lethality that the plague had at that time or, more recently, Ebola. The health authorities explain that there are reasons for concern and need to be alert, but no reason to panic. However, hysteria spreads, much faster than the virus itself, among feverish media coverage, market collapse, drastic measures by the authorities.
We will see where this situation of collective stress leads, which is likely to be prolonged. Let us listen to Manzoni: “In public misfortunes, in the long disturbances of the usual order, there is always an increase in virtue; but, unfortunately, there is never a lack of an increase, and usually much more widespread, of perversity, ”he writes in Los Novios . The novel portrays how, little by little, nervous exhaustion brings out the worst of many citizens, triggers petty dynamics, lynchings to supposed "untori", supposed evil volunteer contagators arising from rumors and collective delirium. Terrible is the outline of the collective beating of an innocent old man in the church of San Antonio.
"The spirits, increasingly bitter by the presence of evils, irritated by the insistence of danger, embraced with greater disposition that belief [rumors about voluntary propagators]: anger aspires to punish."
Times have changed, and such reactions are not realistic; but they are irrational and petty reactions of another. The coronavirus is a new element that can be added to the forces that seek to climb the drawbridges, which preach the evils of open societies. At the moment there have been no restrictions on large-scale circulation in Europe. It may be that at some point the health authorities require it and, in that case, they will have to be implemented with the utmost rigor. In that case, it would be expected that they will not consolidate a regressive movement with the resurgence of multiple borders. In 1989 many fell at once; In the last decade, fences do not stop emerging.
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In parallel to the coronavirus, the serious situation of the conflict in Idlib, Syria, threatens to boost another great wave of refugees. Almost one million displaced people are crowded south of the Turkish border. The Turkish authorities, where more than three million Syrian refugees already reside, warn that they will no longer contain the flow to Europe. In the Greek islands the frustration is enormous and the construction of new detention centers for migrants causes violent disturbances. In this case - as the coronavirus is serious but not apocalyptic - it is the incendiary rhetoric of some parties that inflates the paranoia about the phenomenon and portrays it as a sort of barbaric invasion.
These factors affect a scenario in which the Schengen free movement space already lives in a state of permanent exception, with countries that have been practicing extraordinary controls for years claiming security reasons.
We will see with what degree of magnanimity and meanness Europe will face these challenges. The balance will define us.
