Gringo view: What’s a restaurant, Daddy?

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – (Opinion) “What’s a restaurant, Daddy?” How can we ignore that question from three-year-old Maria who spent the last 16 months in pandemic isolation in the heart of restaurant-filled São Paulo?

Better than a lot of commentary about the ways the Covid-19 pandemic has changed our lives, her question clearly reflects the new reality here and throughout the world – and it is not a pretty picture. Everything has become virtual, nothing that you can touch.

It’s bad news when you realize that for more than a year, you haven’t been able to enjoy the company and stimulating contact with your friends. (As someone quipped on television: “I’ve been stuck in my apartment so long without seeing my friends, I’d even be happy to see my enemies.”) Virtual cocktail hours just don’t cut it like the real thing.

During this year, readers know that this Gringo, like many others, has had an increasingly dark and depressive view of the world that our children and grandchildren will inherit. I fear the anger which appears to be driving our societies to needless conflict.

We have watched the pandemic and its new variants sweep across the world. Instead of bringing us together to confront a common enemy, it has turned the question of whether or not to be vaccinated into an often-vicious false political argument that threatens peoples’ lives.

As a brilliant public service TV commercial asks: “Do you know anyone with smallpox? Do you know anyone with polio? Vaccines work.” What kind of people are these who ignore, or worse, fight over that reality?

How can we ignore the reality of accelerating climate change and Bolsanaro’s continued failure to stop the destruction of the Amazon, as the ‘Guardian’ wrote: “to placate the agribusiness lobby and tapping global markets that reward destructive behavior”?

The rainforest, often referenced as the ‘lungs of the world’, faces catastrophic danger that its delicate eco-system, which recycles water through trees to generate rainfall, will collapse and the area will become a savanna, no longer providing lots of the world’s oxygen as it does today.

All this for the short-term economic advantage of a few, at the cost of the longer-term disastrous Covid-like destruction of these lungs. Once again, the equivalent to vaccination is available through government action and clearly in the public interest. But there is a rich and powerful group against it.

How can we ignore the brutal takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban and the scenes of thousands of terrified Afghans, promised safety for themselves and their families by the Americans, whom they supported during twenty years of military occupation?

They are desperately trying to enter the Kabul airport during this horrendously botched withdrawal and evacuation. Said a diplomat, almost in tears and asking the question so many are asking: “This is about America, leading the world?”.

Even the lucky ones who have escaped almost certain Taliban vengeance are having to face xenophobic anger on the far-right of the American political spectrum. One of many conspiracy theories that are the foundation for much of the right-wing agenda is the racist ‘Great Replacement’ theory postulating that liberals and progressives are trying to “replace” Whites with non-Whites in western countries. These Afghans who have risked their lives for the ‘generous’ US must wonder about the benefits of democracy.

How can we ignore the reality that cyber warfare is the dangerous background noise of today’s political world, or that thanks to Artificial Intelligence, privacy is a thing of the past? We and our phones can be easily tracked and our normal communications, hacked. The great leap forward in technology has been matched by a large step backward in real human interaction and kindness. Our phones can do anything except smile.

How can we ignore that the world seems totally out of control? Wherever we look, there appears to be conflict instead of co-operation. Our worlds have been turned upside down. Our sense of isolation will not go away.

I worry about how Maria’s dad is going to respond to possible questions about our gloomy future world. “Daddy, what is a hug?” or “Daddy, what is an immigrant?” or “Daddy, what is a tree?” It is not going to be easy to explain this changing world to our kids.