The humanitarian disaster, whose significant impact on the poor populations is to be feared, can catalyse the emergence of real nations, including Kabylia, capable of organising themselves harmoniously – unlike postcolonial states such as Algeria.

In March 2020, against all expectations, the world order collapsed. Built on the ruins of feudalism, it had been extended to all continents through colonization and had been strengthened through international political, economic and financial institutions. It was driven by the rivalry between great military powers for world domination. This fostered the arms race through, among other things, technological innovation.

Save yourself if you can

A material, invisible to the naked eye, got the better of the whole building, which collapsed like a house of cards. A pandemic tsunami got the better of it. In the space of a few weeks there is neither the United Nations nor Europe nor any regional organisation left credible. The “save yourself if you can” approach has taken hold of all the rulers, who have twisted the notion of alliances and international cooperation.

Military strategists, who until then had only encouraged their leaders to (prepare for) wars, to over-arm themselves to deter potential adversaries from attack or resistance, find themselves faced with an enemy as unknown as it is unexpected. The arrogance of power gives way to the general panic that blinds the leaders who, in the space of a few weeks, have become more concerned with not losing face in front of their future voters than with organizing a real response that is equal to the pandemic challenge.

In economic and financial terms, the madness of over-consumption falls overnight, and faced with an overabundance of gadgets to be sold around the world, all States find themselves faced with a shortage of masks, gowns and a lack of medicines and treatments to deal with coronavirus disease.

Moral revolution

Expressed more poetically as “the world turned into a village”, globalization, which is supposed to ignore the borders of peoples and nations, has been brutally slowed down by the withdrawal into itself of each of its promoter countries. As a result, the vassal States, in reality slaves created by colonization, are abandoned to their fate. London and Paris can no longer take care of the Commonwealth and the French empire in Africa.

Social transformations, which socio-political and administrative reforms were unable to impose (teleworking, telecommerce, tele-schooling, telemedicine, etc.), are about to be achieved by the Covid-19 threat. New morals, new behaviours and new ways of thinking and acting are beginning to take hold.

Pollution, against which no international consensus had been possible until now, due to an economic paradigm that has become uncontrollable, has been stopped dead in its tracks since the beginning of March 2020. No planes, cars or factories are discharging their fumes into the air. Ships are forced to leave the seas and oceans in peace. As if they were its counterpart, emigration from the South to the North has vanished and oil is no longer worth much.

A new world… on what basis?

A revolution was suddenly required to move humanity from an age of military and economic power to that of a new world whose contours are still too blurred. There is no guarantee that it can be better, but this global crisis calls into question what humanity is, its civilizations and its organizational choices.

The reflection, which deserves to be undertaken today, is to know on what new foundations we are going to rebuild a political humanity based on solidarity, respectful of the rights of peoples as well as their diversity and intangible wealth; respectful of communities and individuals as well as of nature, fauna and flora.

Moreover, rather than living under the threat of new wars between nations, ideologies or religions, would it not be a good time to reflect on disaster scenarios of both natural and human origins? Would this coronavirus pandemic not be a kind of rehearsal for the most terrible shows, each one more terrible than the other, that will be called to sweep over our Earth? Can we ask ourselves the question: what would all the gold in the world be used for if a meteorite were to strike our planet head on; if the polar ice were to melt suddenly and tornadoes and other continental cyclones were to occur?

Border shutdown

What should not be done again is to think with the same ideas that led to the current general collapse. Philosophy must resume its rights and investigations while pursuing scientific research and technological innovation oriented towards the general welfare of humanity, the planet, peoples, species and individuals.

Today, can we put an end to the injustice that afflicts hundreds of peoples who are forbidden to exist by the law of the strongest? If we hardly speak of Catalonia, Scotland, Quebec in the West, of the Kurds, we complacently forget the Kabyles, Darfur, the Baluchis, …

The peoples of Africa and Asia, who had been shut out of the world order that had just collapsed, must now take charge of themselves and rely solely on themselves, their resources and their solidarity.

Western countries will not be able to reopen their borders for several years without risking the return of the pandemic to their territory. And their economies, heavily damaged, will no longer be able to provide Africa and Asia with the usual “plaster on a wooden leg”.

Towards real nations

The humanitarian disaster, whose significant impact on the poor populations of so-called underdeveloped countries is to be feared, can catalyze the emergence of real nations, including Kabylia, capable of organizing themselves harmoniously to the detriment of post-colonial states as I announced in 2010, in my book Le Siècle identitaire (Éd. Michalon). This is one of the essential conditions to achieve, tomorrow, a world of peace, freedom, prosperity and justice that humanity has always called for.

Reflection must begin on the new world political model to replace the one that is collapsing before our eyes. A change of paradigm is now vital. Capitalism must be overcome by new social relations that are more peaceful and more acceptable to all.

For the time being, no one has the miracle recipe and it is from the collective effort of reflection that solutions will emerge. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the European intelligentsia, faced with the agony of the feudal order, was reflecting on possible models of substitution. We are now facing the end of the capitalist order which, it is to be hoped, is to be replaced by a humanist order, based on respect for human beings and nature, to which scientific research and technological innovation must be exclusively dedicated.

In this unprecedented and tragic global context, this will already be a small flame of hope that it is up to us to maintain and spread.

By Ferhat Mehenni 
Translated from: https://www.causeur.fr/covid-kabylie-nation-epidemie-175287