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| Coronavirus brings Europe's borders back |
| 2020-04-20 |
| h/t Instapundit [DW]- The most astonishing thing about the coronavirus pandemic is how easily borders can come back. The internet metaphor that we use ever more often tells it best: One after the other European countries are installing a firewall with a simple click of the mouse. Then tourism is dead, trade is down, the stock exchange loses trillions and globalization itself is brought to a standstill. Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers return home to Bulgaria, Serbia or Romania, only to be welcomed with mixed feelings. On the one hand, "bringing our children back" had been a constant lament in recent decades, now everyone is back in "their place." On the other, there are no jobs to offer to the returnees, especially not in times of crisis. In addition, national economies will badly miss the remittances they used to send home. The welcoming ceremony in the fatherland consists of a sad quarantine — applied to any foreigner — and is accompanied by a feeling that you are trapped and can no longer leave, which people who experienced communism well remember. ...The new border between East and West has even acquired a medical dimension. According to one theory, a specific vaccine against tuberculosis that used to be compulsory under state socialism might have a protective effect against the coronavirus as well: Comparisons between the former East Germany and West Germany are underway. Not true, see Russia From another, more cynical standpoint, the new disease might be the price to pay for better health systems in the West that keep people alive longer. Both Italy and Spain today have the highest life expectancy — 83 years — as well as the highest mortality rate in Europe. Nope. The highest mortality rates in Europe are Sweden & Holland (and possibly UK - they don't publish recovery stats). All 3 have started with "lets go for herd immunity" countries - then gave this brilliant idea up, officially. ...The most worrying, yet invisible, border has been drawn between generations. The illness painfully puts young and old in opposition, as it is the latter who appear to be the only ones seriously menaced by it. Thus, the feeling grows that the world economy is being sacrificed in order to save the lives of people who are doomed to die soon anyway. Wouldn't it be better to shut them up some place and let the others acquire "herd immunity?" See the remark on Sweden & Holland above. ...Some speak of a ticking pension time bomb of some $400 trillion (€360 trillion) worldwide that will be lacking in 2050 and likely destroy the economy as we know it. But the most dramatic aspect of the clash of generations remains the degradation of nature, caused by those who quietly benefit from their pensions today. ...And that might not be the end of it. We might see growing class conflict between rich and poor. Tensions between the industrial and the developing world. Between democratic and authoritarian states. Borders have appeared all of a sudden again in Europe. Can we hope that they will disappear overnight, too? Ivaylo Ditchev is a professor of cultural anthropology at the University of Sofia in Bulgaria. He has been a guest lecturer in countries such as Germany, France and the United States. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |