Covid-19 and its devastating consequences have completely shaken our world in all its dimensions, and the political establishment is struggling to manage it and face its challenges. (This concept is elaborated in detail in the recently published op-ed entitled: Inter-state relations with the challenges of Covid-19). All politicians, media, academia and scholars are expressing their opinions, making research or studies with a unique purpose: How to cope with this catastrophic situation and return back to normality. Therefore, many researching institutes are hardly working to produce vaccines or other medicines hoping that this is the right response to Covid-19. This is certainly a big deal, but it is “only half of the job” because they have to firstly deal with the causes of the Covid-19 emergence, with the following question: what and who is responsible for the birth of this corona-virus?
Through the emergency situation the World is suffering from, in the short term, those great efforts are certainly considered useful and appropriate. But, in the long run, those must be studied closely related to the answer to the above question based or inspired by another approach of learning the Covid-19 messages for humanity.
The first message:
It is related to the humanity living in our planet. None super-intelligence is required to conclude that our planet was not born with a certain capacity to shelter humanity, nor is any super-intelligence required to understand that humanity has significantly mismanaged and misused our planet’s life resources. It is also superfluous to explain why humanity, mainly over the last 200 years, has systematically destroyed its home. Meanwhile, science has proven that the overpopulation and overconsumption, which include all human actions and interactions, have deeply touched the heart of the planet. Such a long acting enterprise, as it is scientifically proven, has hardly damaged equilibrium of our planet life based on which our common home was born to live naturally in the universe.
This is why overpopulation seems to be the “first victim” of the Covid-19 action, and for this reason it needs a right response.
None super-intelligence is required to conclude that our planet was not born with a certain capacity to shelter humanity, nor is any super-intelligence required to understand that humanity has significantly mismanaged and misused our planet’s life resources
Going further with this idea: Before Covid-19 appeared, official UN sources said “the challenges facing humanity today stem mainly from overconsumption and the overpopulation of the planet…the world’s population is expected to grow by 7.7 billion today at 9.7 billion by 2050, and could reach nearly 11 billion around 2,100” which is a strong appeal to stop/control population growth. Furthermore, considering this dramatic reality that the world has been facing in the last 4-5 months, the “UN appeal” must be replaced not by just “an UN appeal/call”, but as “an UN cry out”. This is so due to the fact that the implementation of these objectives remains in the hands of national governments. It is unfortunately the latter which build policies based purely on national interests and in short terms which function like this: a state or a group X of states while they implement their policy of reducing births, another state or a group Y of states implement their policy by stimulating the growth of births. This is because both groups do not see our planet as ours and are guided by their national interests, ignoring common and collective ones. Therefore, all groups, states in our case, have to build and implement the UN well-coordinated programs which must be binding ones for governments to implement them accordingly.
Below, there might be the second, third, or fourth messages that I like to call “subsidiaries of the first message” because they are born from the necessity to maintain the life equilibrium of earth. However, emphasizing them one by one, we may well clarify Covid-19’s messages to humanity.
The second message:
It is related to climate change, which – as science has proven, has occurred due to the rapid development of industries over the two last centuries, associated with the growth of mega-cities, which have systematically destroyed our home – the entire planet. In this long period of time, what environmental policies have developed and implemented by industrialized countries? Only one: that of the adaptation by seeking the maximal profit. From now on, in addition to the post-industrial society, IT and thanks to new remote employment technologies, another story is going to start on in our planet: the process of population decline of those thousands of overpopulated cities around the world. If this process begins at the end of this century, it seems it will be finalized during the upcoming hundreds of years. It must however include the condition of the right and timely decisions taken by the political establishments at national and international level, along with the UN function role, as the World Government. (This concept is discussed extensively in the recently published book entitled: Diplomacy & Promoting Democracy – Understanding the World of Tomorrow).
Third message:
It is about the militarized world, the superpowers and other military powers, which have historically and nowadays established over and over their relations in order to maintain their rule and international order. Researchers in this field have argued that reliance on military power means that each country is being secured and protected by others and, when needed, they use the military occupation towards other countries. This logic and historical approach of the states behaviour was based on their own philosophy of watching over themselves and their territories, while being ready to fight against others. This is, in fact, a war which is divided in different rooms of the same house, our earth.
The measures taken by all governments during this time of Covid-19 have clearly and unequivocally revealed this inspiring national policy.
In this long period of time, what environmental policies have developed and implemented by industrialized countries? Only one: that of the adaptation by seeking the maximal profit
If not yet understood, militarization will soon be the “second victim” of Covid-19. In the future, as generations learn that states have struggled for a piece of land, they will see these military clashes as ‘ridiculous games’ of peace and re-establish international order. Now and in the past, military power might have played its role in this regard, i.e.: the Congress of Vienna, the Treaties of Versailles, the League of Nations, and later the creation of the UN and many international organizations with the good intention of preventing military conflicts, and preserve peace and stability. However, everything that has been done has always been inspired by the same policy: the Balance of Powers Policy while the Common Interests Policy seems to be still in its embryo.
Then, I think Covid-19 message on militarization would be: If we want humanity to survive, while its weight must drastically be reduced, this segment of state policy has to look ahead on common understanding, and gradually change its strategy. This means that its future goal will be totally different, based on a common and collective policy: to target the protection from enemies or extraterrestrial beings and being so the guardian of the common home – our planet.
Fourth message:
It is related to the policy itself, which can be translated like an appeal to the political establishment, to reformat their national policies; the one of relations within the states, as well as to give gradually its right place to the international organizations with the UN as the World Government. So, humanity needs visionary politicians inspired by new ideas, approaches, and theories, to be able to reshape their policies enjoying deeply and consciously understanding that states no longer consider only their own territory. Starting now, the entire planet must be seen as their common future home. Most politicians around the world (to be optimistic, some of them are different) while living in the present, their political approaches are based entirely on past concepts and ideas that come from history. Moreover, our politicians try to resolve any current issues and problems of today inspired by their maximum national interests in a short-term period, so often ignoring the common ones. As a matter of fact, the poverty of new ideas seems to be the real challenge of our time.
In conclusion, those messages or others that can be discovered, can serve to encourage scholars and politicians to further rely on new ideas and approaches in the service of policy-makers and decision-makers in order to build a new vision for the future of the World and, thus, to be able to cope not only Covid-19, but also others that will come to earth like Covid-20, Covid-21 etc.
