Paul
Goble
Staunton, March 12 – The coronavirus
pandemic is continuing and even intensifying the direction the world has been
moving in as a result of the efforts of Trump, Brexit and Putin: the
destruction of the network of globalization and human contacts across borders
and the increased role of governments and security agencies, according to
Sergey Medvedev.
“The consequences of this pandemic
will be long and structural,” the Russian commentator argues. “Before our eyes,
borders are returning and the Shengen world is in fact being destroyed,” thus
continuing “the conservative, anti-modernization trend of world politics of the
last decade directed at re-nationalization, physical security, institutions
close to the land, and the undermining of international ones” (newtimes.ru/articles/detail/191879).
“It is obvious,” he continues, “that
the pandemic is a shock to democracy and a strong support for authoritarianism
and nationalism.” In Russia, it has made Putin’s moves to greater
authoritarianism and isolationism far easier. It hasn’t weakened him as some assume
but rather generated more support for him: “one doesn’t change horses in the
middle of a stream.”
“And even when the peak of the
epidemic passes, the conquests of authoritarianism and nationalism will remain,
and the world economy (likely mired in recession) and international institutions
will not very soon return to their former levels of trust, openness and
interconnectedness.”
Instead, Medvedev says, “the
structures of quarantine and the new authority of the security organs and sanitary
control will also remain in place – because as many warn we are only entering
an era of pandemics, called forth by global warming, the impact of humans on
nature (or biological war, depending on what you believe) and the next coronavirus
perhaps is not too far in the future.”
This explains the Olympian calm in the
Kremlin, the very people who by their behavior at Sochi have removed Russia
from the Olympic movement.
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