Editor's note:
Roberto Rave is a political scientist with a specialization and postgraduate degree in International Business and Foreign Trade from the Externado University of Colombia and Columbia University in New York.
He has studies in administration from the IESE University of Spain and is a candidate for an MBA from the University of Miami.
He is a columnist for the Colombian economic daily La República.
He was chosen by the International Republican Institute as one of the 40 most influential young leaders on the continent.
He was an advisor to the Congress of the Republic of Colombia from 2014 to 2017 and to the Mayor's Office of Medellín in 2018, and is the founder of the Libertank thought center.
Follow him on Twitter.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author.
Read more columns at cnne.com/opinion
(CNN Spanish) -
The year of deaths, the year of difficulties, the year of tears, the year of confinement, the year of frustration, the year of fear, the year of changes, the year of uncertainty, the year of goodbyes, the year of years.
The year also of hugs, of joys, of conscience, of family, of friends, of reunions and also of encounters with ourselves.
The year of the improvisation of governments and the effectiveness of private enterprise.
According to figures from Johns Hopkins University, this year ends with about 1.8 million global deaths.
In proportion, it is as if almost the total population of the city of Paris (about 2.1 million) has died so far this year.
In the Latin American region, deaths are close to 500,000 due to the pandemic, a figure that exceeds any military conflict in this region.
The figures are terrifying and the reflections endless.
However, a common analysis always addresses texts that uselessly try to draw conclusions about what is happening: the world has changed, not only in terms of labor dynamics and consumer behavior but also with regard to consciousness and awareness. humanization of people.
2020 was the year in which we revalued the warmth of a hug, the company of a family member, the closeness when shaking the hand of a friend.
However, the year of the pandemic has also reflected the great division that exists in the world, the devastating polarization that splits the citizens of all countries into two corners, the constant disqualification and the harsh reality reflected brilliantly in the words from Moisés Naím: “I don't want to romanticize the past, or suggest that the leaders of the past were always better.
There has been everything.
We have had Hitler and Churchill, Mao and Mandela.
But there is no doubt that this pandemic has surprised the world at times of great institutional weakness.
Crises close many doors, but they also open others.
This crisis will have many unexpected consequences.
Perhaps one of them is a strong reaction against the small leaders and the arrival of leaders who are up to the great problems we have.
LOOK: OPINION | The 2020 testament
advertising
The current circumstances have also served as a hiding place for those leaders who see populism as a means to achieve their political ends: improvised closures of entire countries, constant attacks on their companies, measures without technical support, but with all the political justification.
Perhaps this is one of the greatest risks that the pandemic brought: that populism, demagoguery and the coercion of freedoms will not find a vaccine in the coming years.
Meanwhile, it is important to open the window of opportunities to rethink the State in its deepest expression, corruption and bureaucracy as common factors must be eliminated through smaller and more efficient governments that stop seeing subsidies as the primary tool of their electoral policies and think in the long term and in the next generations, while forming citizens who also do so, valuing merit and effort as a means to achieve their individual and collective ends.
This year, the World Economic Forum has been promoting the idea of the “Great Reset”, or the great restart of capitalism.
For me, this was the year of hope because many understood that the great restart must take place in people and in their humanity, in governments and in their omnipotent powers.
LOOK: OPINION | 2020: the year we learned to appreciate life
Attacking capitalism has been a constant and almost a fad in this year of pandemic.
However, even with the flaws and gaps that must be corrected - it is estimated that 150 million more people will fall into extreme poverty due to the pandemic - this young economic and social system has achieved a 75% decrease in extreme poverty in 30 years, as Steven Pinker affirms.
The great achievement of humanity in the first 50 years of this 21st century will be supported by capitalism and its free market paradigm: the creation and vaccination of the world's population against covid-19.
That is why, in the face of the so-called “Reboot”, we must quote the words of the World Economic Forum itself: “Pope Francis is right to focus his attention on the plight of the world's poorest.
However, the suffering of the latter is not the consequence of unbridled capitalism, but of a capitalism that has been stopped in the wrong way ”.
The economic recession is a latent reality, as stated by ECLAC in its latest report: "The economies of the region will have an average contraction of -7.7% by 2020 -the highest in 120 years- and a rebound of 3.7% % in 2021 ".
This will mark the electoral course of the region, with presidential elections in Peru, Ecuador and Chile during 2021 and that has not yet emerged from the specter of extremes, especially the one that has destroyed Venezuela.
2020 was the year the world woke up to bring back its humanity, the year of hope and scientific advances to achieve the vaccine against indifference and against the coronavirus in record time.