Unforgettable the tremendous scene. Wagner's “Ride of the Valkyries” blasting from American helicopters rampaging through a Vietnamese village. Beautiful landscapes, surfing on the river; and a brutal attack in which they even machine-gun a school. Apocalypse Now , Coppola, 1979.
With the military analogies of some on "the war" against covid-19, it is impossible not to evoke Coppola. There are no bombings, but an explosive "combo" while cleaning up the planet's climate: global pandemic that has already killed more than 228,000; recession taking off; authoritarian temptations everywhere (Bolsonaro, Duterte, Orban, etc.). Pieces that bear similarities to the last century after the Great Depression of 29: nourished fascism, Nazism, Japanese expansionist militarism and led to World War II. With 100 million deaths and other known lacerating consequences.
Latin America does not enter this crisis on the right foot; 2019 convulsed with the end of a “disappointing” five-year economic performance, in the words of the recent World Bank report on covid-19. So he was already in serious trouble. The gap between reality and expectations covered the region of instability. And now? Forecast, at least, "reserved".
There are, however, elements to hope that we will not inevitably march into catastrophe and widespread "great disorder under the skies." I highlight four without referring to a fundamental issue such as that of everyone's expectation for “the” vaccine, still unavailable, which, hopefully, will arrive soon.
First, with some exceptions, in most countries, states have assumed prominence and taken action. With quarantines and uncomfortable decisions that are generally receiving acceptance among the people; and direct State intervention with the massive use of fiscal resources.
The European Union, amid its tremendous internal tensions, seems to be signaling that it will not drift. The World Bank in its recently published report already announces an active role for the States that will even have to "assume ownership interests in strategic companies ... or ... recapitalize banks and absorb non-productive assets . "
Conditions, then, so that the recession in progress is confronted with tools closer to Roosevelt's new deal than to laissez faire or that of a neo-fascist institutionality. And so, in almost all the planet urged to put aside the thesis -santantic for some- of the "minimal" State.
Second, information technology and "almighty" algorithms. They have generated technical tools for computer surveillance that would delight the obsolete technologies of the SS, the KGB or the Stasi. And that generate in many, like Noah Harari, great concerns about its possible authoritarian use. But that technology is ambivalent.
It serves as a tool, first, so that people can learn much better than ever in the past, despite all the distortions of fake news or traditional tabloid and distorting media. And, secondly, to relate and intercommunicate with each other; and from there to take action. Millions of people can be summoned in a few minutes against authoritarian claws.
Third, the vitality –in the middle of everything- of some multilateral spaces. Hounded by unilateralist leaders like Trump, multilateralism would appear to be a "dying species." However, in extreme circumstances, such as those of the current pandemic, it regains initiative and vitality; and, especially, legitimacy and convening power. There are several multilateral spaces whose legitimacy revives. Two examples:
The WHO, its legitimacy and convening capacity in most countries, societies and global leaders: promoting concrete global actions to face the effects of the pandemic. The other, the invigoration of multilateral spaces that had been crumbling. The leaders of Merkel and Macron in the disjointed European Union, for example, are struggling to oxygenate and relax stale orthodoxies in the face of the effect of the crisis in countries like Italy or Spain.
Fourth, a globalization that in its current modalities could be closing a cycle, but that could point to a revitalizing reorientation. Macron - and no longer just radical environmentalists - calls from France for profound changes in the nature of globalization. It points to a renewed and indispensable cycle to face the recession that is beginning.
But a re-conceptualized globalization: that it is not a "borderless" space for trade and investment as the only variable of "success"; but make people and the fight against inequality a core purpose as well. A central objective on the global agenda that would make things very difficult for current emulators of authoritarianism that in the last Great Recession - that of the thirties - were great exploiters.
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