Gérard Faivre and all their teams wish to thank
the hospital staff, rescuers, postal workers, pharmacists,
cashiers, bankers, bakers, construction workers ...
All are at the forefront of the fight against coronavirus,
which is gaining ground every day around the world.
The coronavirus pandemic highlights the fragility of an interconnected world. In truth, this chaotic geosystem is on the brink of an abyss that vast Keynesian plans hastily drawn up will be hard to fill. The anti-liberal doxa denounces austerity, but the impecuniosity of the past decades has limited the possibilities of acting in states burdened by social-fiscal policies. Above all, there will be no Holy Health Alliance bringing the worsening geopolitical rivalries to the background. With several conflicting foci on its borders, Europe is particularly concerned. In the background, the possible convergence of dramaturgical lines leading us to a "Singularity". Beyond the circumstance, it is important to understand what is happening.
This is how Jean-Sylvestre Mongrenier, associate researcher at the Thomas More Institute, presents the following note.
If the consequences of the coronavirus have fueled the negative expectations behind the stock market crash, it is the result of multiple causes, the effects of which are cumulative. The collapse in oil prices and the inability of Western leaders to act together also have their share. The age-old trial of "finance" or "globalization" will not be up to the challenges.
The praise of the welfare state and the benefits of public action conceals the essentials. Without being able to reduce the burden of spending, the high levels of deficits and public debt will limit the latitude of action of the most impecunious countries.
In the register of "living together", special details and treats on the solidarity of "all and all" and "making a nation" are no longer in season. They hardly conceal the real state of atomized and exhausted post-modern societies. The improbability of therapy from above does not prevent us from making a diagnosis of our late modernity.
It would be wrong to think that the health situation could put a stop to power rivalries. The case of People's China, led by a party-state with totalitarian ambitions, attests to this. Far from beating its whim and acknowledging the mistakes made at the start of the Chinese epidemic, Beijing goes on the offensive.
Power rivalries are intensifying, as evidenced by Russia's sacrifice of "OPEC +" and its oil deal with Saudi Arabia. The new cold war spreads to the energy sector, even if it means scuttling the price level and undermining relations between Moscow and Riyadh.
In the future, the eastern and south-eastern borders of Europe will remain under tension. On the Baltic-Black Sea axis, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is still open and bloody. When the day comes, this “low intensity conflict” could escalate. In the south-east, Ankara exploits migratory flows to exert pressure on Europe. An unacceptable blackmail that will not hide the underlying geopolitical problem.
In the Middle East and the Arabian Gulf, nothing has been settled or even reported. The Iranian population may well suffer from the pandemic, the Supreme Guide and the Revolutionary Guards are tightening their grip on the country, and the Panchiite militias are pushing fires in Iraq. At the risk of a new escalation.
In Libya, on the African shores of the Mediterranean, Western disunity, European irresolution and the inability to deploy troops, in order to have a lever on this theater, caused a geopolitical vacuum filled by Russia in a first, then Turkey. The scenario of a "new Syria" would have serious consequences in Europe.
Against the backdrop of this global crisis, the "precipitation", in the chemical sense of the term, of territorial, ecological, demographic and identity issues is even more worrying. The convergence of dramaturgical lines becomes clearer with a “Singularity” in perspective.
The level of danger demands that we revive a high conception of Politics, grasped in its essence. It’s not just about exercising power but about reconnecting with the idea of ​​the common good. However, this will not be enough.