Undoubtedly the COVID pandemic will leave many unsavory ripples. Without recognising some of them, we will never be able to tackle them, or even know where to begin. One slice of them is discussed below. It includes: economic disruption; 'social distancing' (and the 'herd' instinct); social safety networks; magnifying internal bugs; and the vicious cycle loosened with the play of time and tide.
There is no question about the economic costs. Almost every country has had to trade off the virus from spreading by compensating job supervision/losses because of the quarantine. Huge amounts have been allocated only for starters: the United States, for the first time, has had to allocate trillions of dollars for a single purpose; the European Union came as close to a breakdown between the richer northern members against the poorer southern (Mediterranean members, derisively dubbed PIGS: Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain); Saudi Arabia had to withdraw its Yemeni troops; and similarly ghastly pull-backs or aggressive prevention everywhere else. In many places, given the absence of a COVID-correcting medicine, two months have already been spent under lockdown, meaning a second bail-out innings must begin as money runs out. Whereas the first was to prevent the sputtering economic growth (since 2008) from spilling over from the frying-pan to the fire, the second, as now, to prevent an economic breakdown, the third to soak up inevitable time-delay costs, the fourth to absorb work-return costs (oil rusted machines, restore supply-chains, renew input-expiration, and so forth), and a possible fifth to restructure the entire economy (perhaps automation replacing humans).
Such monumental tasks cannot be placed under a neo-liberal umbrella. Any COVID induced neo-liberalism collapse does not necessarily guarantee coherent economic consequences: workers will need retraining, since new skills will be harder to cultivate and activate, old production patterns will return in some cases, but 'social distancing' may shift labour-intensive production into machines, and even slow pension-fund growth because of the pandemic would raise proportionate costs of other forms of governmental expenditures. Those may only scratch the expenditures surface. With a return to normalcy, since quick profits will be targeted everywhere by every player, anarchic market conditions, protectionism, and chauvinism can only spiral, complicating routine economic expectations.
If these are not enough, another beast was introduced which, in its extreme form, can be manipulated and directed against any particular person or group, generally screwing routine behavioural patterns unimaginably. 'Social distancing' will be very hard to reconcile with collective-minded cultures, which a majority of all countries profess. These are so accustomed to extended families, holding hands, hugging, and so forth, that they (a) could not fully disband 'social distancing' during the pandemic because many people live in clustered quarters; yet (b) the imperative of having to do might hasten the inevitable long-term ending of collective cultures (parallel forces, like internet-type technological development, individualising societies seriously chip in too).
Even in Atlantic zone societies where individualism is the norm, 'social distancing' will reduce the normal hare-like speed of market transactions, for instance, to a tortoise-like speed. Many malls, cinemas, dancing halls, and bars, for instance, not to mention food-chain (like McDonalds) or beverage-spots (like Starbucks), will have to be reinvented for a smaller customer set-up to survive. A costly curve-ball amid a spiraling public debt is not palatable.
But it points to the third constraint-fueled arena: 'social distancing', as opposed to the 'herd' instinct of collective cultures, releases internal bugs. Discriminatory forms begin, with race, religion, and national origin being among the most perverted because they are the most visible; but also the less visible forms associated with class and profession. We have already experienced cases of Africans being vehemently discriminated against in China, but also of the United States wrongly blaming China for the pandemic. Since we already have many populists the world over, we can see minorities, women, and particularly these visibly/invisibly different persons being exposed to new vulnerabilities. What was already a snowball, instead of being halted and melted, will now be (if not already been) rolling faster down the hill, generating egoistic solutions to common problems. Among the manifestations: protectionism, bottled trade, slower investment and migratory flows, and environmental abuses.
What will exacerbate this 'can of worms' is the other more domestic can: possible breakdown of social safety or security. With bailouts taking such a huge chunk of disposable or generated invisible money, mounting social safeguards will be too uphill to fully pay, to say the least. Police-level security can only spike when discriminatory waves unleash themselves, on top of which the scarcity of food and other essentially demanded commodities could themselves spark unemployment and riots. With everyone building the same self-help or self-defence culture, provoked by 'social distancing', social order will only weaken until its break. Blame-games, back-stabs, and with them, the return of crime can only follow if control is lost in the transition back to society from the quarantine. We can only sit and watch from now which countries will be headed in which way by the policies they take.
As explosive as each one of these may be, the killer could be in their combination. Then a vicious cycle can only produce conflict. Time will be critical: the longer the pandemic, the more pent-up the hatreds and attitudes, and it is likely this could overflow even amid the pandemic.
After all, we have seen in Bangladesh and India how poverty thwarts 'social distancing', so much so that poor groups move in the only direction they know, or the only option available to them: towards each other. If, for instance, distributing food collectively is concerned, the 'herd' instinct returns and collective behaviour triumphs. It is very premature to say, but such clustering during even the pandemic, under the food provision in Dhaka, or the forced exodus from New Delhi to mark the start of the quarantine, could have sown the seeds of an unprecedented explosion of COVID cases. If that happens, Bangladesh, India, and other similarly clustering-anchored communities might end up undermining the 'pandemonium' term, giving it a completely and more expansive connotation. We do not have a term for that yet, but if the virus enters a refugee camp, the viral wildfire within camps and brewing opposition against refugees outside would be beyond catastrophic.
We have entered a phase of modern life as slender as a string and exposing shrinking future yardage faster than we have ever known it in peace time. Resorting to war is one pathway out of a plight, as in the late 1930s: the entire table of agreements established in the Paris Peace conferences between 1919 and 1924 was completely overturned by 1939. Both outcomes were unforeseen. Today, when our capacities to predict have simply been neutralised, made impotent, or simply washed away, we are no differently positioned.
In a worst case scenario, war calls; in a worse case scenario, today's ills get deflected to the future; and in a neutral case, the status quo is held. No best case scenario is visible. We have to head somewhere; exactly where depends on collective thinking when individualism dominates.
Dr. Imtiaz A. Hussain is Dean (Acting), School of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (SLASS) and Head, Global Studies & Governance Programme at Independent University, Bangladesh.
