164. A Pandemic of Beauty, Art and Tenderness
By Giulio D'Ercole
Walls don't work during a pandemic
There is something that has truly bugged me from the very beginning of this all pandemic: despite the clear and tangible evidences that we were all going to face a pandemic, governments behaved like monads, without implementing the slightest effort to act in a coordinated way, of mutual help and collaboration. On the contrary, walls were erected and those who tried to establish collaborations found themselves in front of people who even fomented internal and external divisions and splits, and then took advantage of them in the near, horrible future. Only much later, when the stables were open and the cows left to run widely and wildly, some sort of timid dialogue was established, but still the defense action is divided and not homogeneous.
It's funny because the secret of this all thing, the key to overcome this world disaster is close, so very close, it's in the word we are using: Pandemic.
The word "Pandemic" comes from late Latin "pandemus", which comes from Greek "pandēmos", a word made out of two other words, as it often happened when Greeks had to mean complex things: pan (all)+dēmos (people) , something that regards all people. Not one person, not multiple persons, not one people, but ALL PEOPLE around the world. People of all nations, of all ethnic backgrounds, social statuses, religions. And how can you solve something of this magnitude if you act separately? This truly defies my ability to understand.
What is more worrying is that Governments' behavior, somehow, influences citizens' behavior. So, the result is that even individuals, groups, nationalities begin to build walls, start acting in self-defense, nurture beliefs of being better than others: we deal, we act, we respond to this and that better than you because we are so and so.
Don't get me wrong, I do understand the need of identity we all have in order to belong and to survive..... but as human beings, should we not feel the identity to one "race", to belong to one species, the one of mankind?
Art, beauty and togetherness are the answer
So, as two days ago I posted a terrific video where Italian students sang all together, each from their own homes, Helplessly Hoping from Crosby, Stills and Nash, today I am going to share with you another song, recorded using the same editing technique. This time the singers are from France, Italy, Spain, all united in a beautiful song of hope and love:
Symphonie confinée - La tendresse
