Many readers will be at home wondering what to do, as the long day progresses with the COVID-19 pandemic. No school, no work, no ambition, sport, cinema or other, consumes our day. Even the TV is tern. Afraid, in mourning, suffering financially and without recourse to our spiritual mentors, the time indeed, seems bleak.
The Impact of COVID-19 on Europe
The virus will come to an end and probably sooner rather than later. COVID-19‘s rapid rate of contagion will be its own quick undoing as in the wake of infection immunity is acquired by the population at large. Once a large portion of the population has had the COVID-19 virus, including those who show no symptoms, anti-bodies of immunity will be sufficiently widespread that the virus will no longer be able to propagate itself. It will stop in its tracks, even in the absence of a vaccine or cure.
The economic results will still be felt as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. There will be those poorer, in debt, with many businesses forced to close their doors. However, a massive state intervention will help put a relieved population back to work. The situation is similar to that at the end of World War II without the ubiquitous physical destruction to remind everyone of what they had just gone through. Here, the destruction will be silent: to minds, bodies and institutions.
Yet as Europe goes back to work and joy replaces fear, much will have changed due to COVID-19. A population boom, like at the end of the war, will be welcomed in the joy that follows. The shouts of young children will once again animate European streets. Even immigrants will be welcomed, filling labour shortages, in the general reaffirmation of humanity that follows the destruction of the virus.
Hope on the Horizon?
World War II had very deep effects on the European psyche and the virus will do no less. After the war, Europe embraced the vocation of peacemaker and world citizen. The internecine warfare, colonialism and exploitation of peoples and the environment gave way in Europe to a deep desire for living in peace and harmony with nature and nations. War between the major European countries was as unthinkable after World War II as it had been common before.
Europe built the common market then the EU. It assumed a major role in a myriad of international institutions created after the war to assure the smooth functioning of the international polity. It took on, in fledgling fashion at first, the role of mediator between the great powers. East and West, no longer aspiring to a dominant role but rather a harmonious one. Europe initiated the Paris Accords; taking the lead in the efforts against rapid climate change and to protect our fragile environment. The virus will do no less.
We can anticipate great changes and no less in our own minds. After COVID-19, the role of the state will be greatly enhanced as it was seen as key in treating the virus and will be necessary to relaunch economic activity. As long months of inactivity will create shortages, the state will be key to rationing what supplies remain, assuring food supplies and medications as it orchestrates the relaunch of production among bankrupted previously private entities.
A New Europe
The EU itself will be strengthened as populations previously jealous of their prerogatives embrace central leadership. Enhanced federalism will soon emerge as well as a renewed sense of European citizenship. A European capital may well be one of the projects to relaunch economic activity that emerges. Greater international cooperation both within Europe, and outside of it, will emerge. International institutions will be ceded new powers as we will understand ourselves to be living on one planet that we all must share. We will gladly give up some minor freedoms for this enhanced sense of being good citizens.
In our minds and attitudes things will have radically changed as well. The meaning of life will no longer be understood as a race for status and economic wellbeing but a gift to share and enjoy. Competition will be replaced by sharing. We will consider ourselves first as members of a community and only secondly as our own centers of personal desire and pleasure. The work ethic will suffer in favor of leisure as the accumulation of goods will no longer be seen as so desirable. People will limit themselves to the basics required to enjoy life, first by necessity, and later by choice.
We Walk On After COVID-19
Religion will neither suffer nor be enhanced as the absence of God’s intervention in this time of crisis will not markedly change trends in Europe that are centuries old. For the many who choose to embrace the spiritual, the sense of our limited power in the cosmos and the desire to participate in its karma will be enhanced.
Such changes will undoubtedly cause confusion and resistance among some but I do not anticipate that this will lead to divisions as in the past. The desire to get on with life and enjoy its fruits will be too great. We mourn those who no longer will be with us, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, to enjoy these changes but embrace the enhanced wisdom the crisis will bring us.
