By Isaac Harold Gomes
Kolkata, April 15, 2020: On April 14, India Today TV conducted an interview with Yuval Noah Harari, Israeli futurist and a professor in the department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The topic of discussion was global cooperation to combat Coronavirus and future epidemics.
The professor said the world is in a better situation than any previous pandemic in the past history – for example Black Death. In the case of Covid-19, the level of mortality is much lower than Black Death which struck in the Middle Ages. But most importantly we have all the scientific knowledge and the technological tools to stop Covid-19 pandemic.
When Black Death struck, nobody understood what was killing the people and how it could be stopped. People wondered whether it was a punishment from God or beyond one’s power to change. Today in contrast we understand what is happening. It just took two weeks to identify the virus responsible for the disease, to sequence its entire genome and to develop reliable tests.
So we are no longer blind and powerless. We have the power to manage this crisis. The big question is whether we have the wisdom to use our power correctly. So far our response has not been ideal. What is lacking is a united global plan of action to deal with the pandemic itself and address the economic consequences. But it is not too late to unite the world in this struggle.
The huge problem today is we do not have a leader to organize global financial response. Harari says Coronavirus in Italy cannot consult the Virus in Spain on how to infect people. But human beings can consult on how to arrest the spread of the virus. Doctors in one country can help another country with their findings or one country can send medical equipment to another country that is short of the equipment.
If we do not use this human capability, then our ability to deal with the crisis is much diminished. Unfortunately we are now paying the price for the rising international tension of the last few years. When Ebola struck in 2014, the US led the global effort to stop the epidemic quite quickly. Similarly, in the economic recession in 2008, US led world economies to have a common plan.
Now in the face of Covid-19 attack, the US has basically resigned its position of a global leader. Instead of humanity first, we are witnessing “America First.” Indeed America has come first in the world – being the leader in the highest number of infection and death from Covid-19.
Haare says America has failed to give leadership to the world to combat the virus as it has fallen flat on its face from trust deficit. Because of this, peoples of the world have lost confidence both in America’s leadership and its competence to counter a pandemic. Now there is a leadership vacuum, no alternative leader has emerged who can unite human kind to combat Covid-19.
To develop a vaccine, it is critical that countries pool their information together, and have the ability to trust the information received from other countries. The Israeli professor says post Coronavirus, a new world leadership might emerge from East-Asian countries that have proven preparedness to combat the Virus.
In this context he opines it is not necessary that totalitarian/dictator countries such as China dealt swifter and better with Covid-19. The fact is even democratic countries such as South Korea, Taiwan and New Zealand did very well and in fact better, to control the pandemic, in a much more transparent manner.
To deal with the global economic crisis brought about by the virus, it is important to have global cooperation. The US can have a rescue package of US$2 trillion. But many countries such as India to Brazil do not have such financial resources. So until we have a global economic plan, we might face global depression, entire countries could collapse and this could destabilize the rest of the world.
He says had China been a democratic country, where information could flow freely without the fear of being punished, the world might have received from it the data after the initial attack of Covid-19 in that country. This information could have helped the virus from becoming a pandemic.
Now to stop this pandemic, we must realise we cannot depend on one powerful country, be it US or China. We need collective human leadership in which many countries of the world play a part. For this to happen we need to form Global Solidarity. We must realise the real problem is not the Virus.
The problem is the internal demons with humanity itself, a rise of hatred for countries or particular minorities; and finger-pointing by different countries for the spread of the virus. If we allow this kind of hatred to spread, it will prevent us from dealing with Covid-19 and will also poison international relationship for years to come. There is an urgent need to develop Global Solidarity not only to overcome the current crisis but to overcome larger crises like Global Climate Change.
He points out some short- term emergency measures being adopted by some governments like China and Israel. For example, surveillance by closely monitoring people’s smartphones, making use of hundreds of millions of face-recognising cameras, and obliging them to check and report their body temperature and medical condition.
By this the authorities can not only quickly identify suspected Coronavirus carriers, but also track their movements and identify anyone they came into contact with. A range of mobile apps warn citizens about their proximity to infected patients. He said the danger was these measures could become permanent and severely compromise a citizen’s privacy in the name providing healthcare.
If we are not careful, after Covid-19, deployment of mass surveillance tools might continue in countries that have so far rejected them, more so because it signifies a dramatic transition from “over the skin” to “under the skin” surveillance. Even when infections from Coronavirus are down to zero, some data-hungry governments could argue they needed to keep the biometric surveillance systems in place because they fear a second wave of Coronavirus, or because there is a new Ebola strain evolving in central Africa… there will be no dearth of excuses for maintaining surveillance. An alert citizen should opt for both privacy and healthcare and not compromise privacy.
It is crucial to remember that just like fever and a cough, anger, joy, boredom and love are biological phenomena. The same technology that identifies coughs could also identify laughs and seething anger. If governments start harvesting our biometric data en masse, they can get to know us, our feelings of joy and anger, far better than we know ourselves. Then they can not only predict our feelings but also manipulate them including our choices. By making surveillance like wearing Biometric Bracelets mandatory, the governments can also assess from the data analysis of one’s feelings, whether a citizen is for or against them.
He also said even religious leaders, including religious zealots, have realised that only advanced scientific research can save the world from this pandemic so much so they have voluntarily agreed to keep the places of worship closed, to prevent community infection of the Virus. He said that religious leaders have neither been able to stop the pandemic nor protect their flock. If given a choice between Science and Religious Leaders, in the light of Covid-19 experience, people were more likely to choose Science.
He reiterated that it is very difficult to stop an epidemic, by closing a country’s borders and flights. The real antidote is not isolation but global cooperation.