The 2020s: the launch of the Declaration for Humanity - A story borrowed from a history book of the 22nd century

The COVID-19 crisis was a rare moment that changed human history

By Katrin Muff

Once upon a time, as it ever-so-often happens, a small group of inspired citizens got together to create a Declaration for Humanity. A new social order where the economy served the people, rather than the other way around. It seems, it is always small groups of people who change the big things.

It was at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century. The world was in the midst of recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic was the very first time where all people shared the same experience at the same time. This proved to be a catalyzer for change. The virus affected all nations from East to West and North to South. The 7.8 billion people alive at the time experienced that everybody sat in the same boat. For the first time in human history, a majority of people experienced an economic and social lock-down. Universities around the world were shut down; parents and their children were working and learning from home; the streets were empty; and the skies blue. The economy had stopped and millions of people had lost their jobs, health benefits and more. System-relevant workers, often the worst paid jobs, were the most needed. Economic growth as a go-to solution no longer worked, the system finally cracked. The COVID-19 pandemic had united the people in a shared experience called the ?Big Pause?.

In Dante’s “Divine Comedy”, the visit to Hell represents an extreme measure, a painful but necessary act, before real recovery or transformation can begin. When Vigil and Dante emerged from the narrow maw of Hell, they were greeted by the bright stars that had awaited them. 

The group of citizens were driven by a shared dream to help shape such bright stars. They were writers, thinkers, bohemians; there was a medicine man, an enlightened influential CEO, a former inspired President of a developed nation and a young social media influencer and activist. But that part of the story is well known. Let us look here at early days of this first group’s desire to shape a new social order. In such a world, the economy was an obvious sub-set of society.

In the early years, the fate of the future was undecided. It could have gone either way: both options were possible. The bright and the terrible. The coronavirus had brought our civilization to another turning point, not the first in human history.

In 1775, a terrible earthquake shook Lisbon, followed by a tsunami, and then the fires, which destroyed the 1000-year-old city, killing nearly 100,000 people. The news shook up Europe. Voltaire, who lived in Paris at the time, stopped believing in God. He wrote in an important letter that no God would ever do such a thing to his people. His letter became the sign of a period where the all-powerful God was deeply questioned. This questioning led to the separation of church and state. It is the foundation of democracy as we know it today, with the separation of law, ruling and execution. The catastrophe of Lisbon was a catalyzer in the process of Enlightenment – a wake-up call.

The tiny virus called COVID-19 was a similar wake-up call, causing an unprecedented global pandemic. While experts had been warning of such a crisis, the pandemic exposed the weaknesses of political decisions taken around the turn of the 21st century. Countries without a solid health care system, with polarized political tensions and nationalistic governments imploded. Countries led by women, with a strong social system, a solid middle class and limited wealth disparity and an intact democratic dialogue did better. COVID-19 was the Lisbon disaster of the 21st century! But rather than affecting one nation and triggering change only in one continent, this crisis was global from the start.

A crisis can uplift or destroy. Our inspired citizens were convinced that they had to use that moment when the world was out of balance, use it to tip it towards the bright side. They knew it would take a decade maybe longer and that patience was of essence. But they also knew that a powerful vision, a utopia, was an irresistible magnet pulling the best in people towards a better future.

The Declaration of the Human Rights was also a utopia. It was neither built on reality, nor did it contain any compromise. The Declaration of Independence of the United States was another such example. It recognized the right of everybody to be free, to be happy and to possess and to oppose. It was signed at a time when the first President, George Washington, wore fake teeth that were made out of teeth from his slaves. In France, the Declaration of Rights was signed at a time when the law ruled by the Guillotine. These Declarations were visions of a better future, not a negotiated compromise between competing realities. They were inspired by thought leaders who described better futures far ahead of their times. In the 18th Century, John Locke inspired Montesquieu, who wrote “the Spirit of Law” which in turn inspired the Declaration of Independence and eventually resulted in the abolition of slavery. These declarations were programs for the future; they were utopias – possible in rare moments of history.

The COVID-19 pandemic offered such a chance in the 21st century. The time was ripe for a new social order. For a world that was sustainable and just; where flawed economic thinking no longer ruled the world, but the living being was in the center of all decisions. 

The small group of citizens drafted the first version of the Declaration for Humanity. They found answers to questions they felt were indispensable. If it was possible to unleash unlimited resources to combat a virus, why wasn’t it possible to unleash whatever necessary funds to combat climate crisis and inequality? Why they asked, wouldn’t every citizen have a right to a basic income so that system-relevant functions including all forms of the arts could be guaranteed? Why couldn’t governments guarantee a right to live in a healthy, nourishing and safe environment? And why wouldn’t citizens commit to their duty to develop themselves towards their highest potential? Why they asked, couldn’t every citizen have the right to own the data that concerned them? Why wouldn’t business agree once and for all, that economic interests always and in every place on this planet come second after universal human rights? Why, they asked, wouldn’t crimes against the environment be prosecuted as Ecocide just as crimes against humanity were prosecuted at the International Court of Justice? And why wouldn’t decisions taken by politics be taken in the light of both future generations and living generations?

The corona virus had created the “Big Pause” which is now burnt into our collective memory. The lack of physical proximity over a prolonged time created a Hell the people had not known. People viscerally felt the transversal closeness, a sense of being one, and a deep interdependence. People experienced themselves as living on a small blue planet floating through the universe. And they knew that they had to stick together. It was a truly rare time and the perfect moment to launch a new utopia that created a turning point in human history. As we know, the Declaration for Humanity took decades in some places to be respected. And yet, once written and shared, it became another one of the bright stars that shone the way. A magnet that pulled current reality to a brighter future.

And the rest – as we know – is history.

This article is inspired by a dialogue between Ferdinand von Schirach and Alexander Kluge on March 30, 2020 (published in German as “Trotzdem”, “in spite of” by Luchterhand)