If normal is the way society is run then surely describing our Post COVID-19 world as the “new normal,” is wrong?
New indicates that it’s not normal, that it’s out of the ordinary, and so can’t be placed in any box until it becomes normal.
I see Trump continues to be the racist, sexist, misogynist he has always been pre-COVID so I am assuming that nothing has changed in his psyche except to become more of what he was before.
Palestinians are still being brutally murdered in their home by people that have no reason to be there so that would not be classed as “new.”
Politicians have always been self-serving and so many of them corrupt and I haven’t seen one of them fall down on their knees and declare they have had an epiphany and will now be changing their ways. So I have to say that it has pretty much remained normal.
The wealthy have not been led by their conscious and had awakenings so profound that they started giving away monies that can kick start economies. Again, I have to conclude that there is nothing new in their behaviour.
When this “new normal” is being bandied about, it hasn’t stopped the racists from their vicious oppression and demeaning of black and brown people so that remains “normal.”
Nothing much seems to have changed in this “new normal” except for ordinary citizens.
I see ordinary, “normal” humans change their behaviour. I have seen normal people become aware that they are not infallible and that death strikes their circles too.
I have seen normal people join movements such as black lives matter because humanity matters to them.
I have witnessed changes in “normal” people’s behaviour when they realized that a plate of food can and do help those people that are in need.
I am encouraged by the way “normal” people have worked tirelessly to find a child that was kidnapped; a child that did not belong to their family but belonged to their community.
I am hopeful when I see among all the bad politicians, the greedy oligarchs, and the evil that men do is a sprout, a tiny seed of what ubuntu is all about.
The world has fewer people in it and deaths, especially in the United States have been high, but those that are still around have begun to tap into a type of shared humanity; a common thread. A thread that ties us to each other by realizing that we are nothing without each other, that we need each other to survive.
Cruelty and greed have been on the front pages and trending on social media but now I see stories about survival, about strength, about compassion.
I see health care workers that have gone beyond what they studied for to save lives. I see people smile behind masks and consider the elderly when they have been exposed to them.
So many have lost their jobs but I pray that we build and help each other to be, not what we were before COVID-19 but better than before. I pray our new normal consists of realizing that we can’t do without each other and that hate, greed, and corruption are not sustainable. That we can’t move on unless our neighbour, village, community moves along with us.
I pray that our “new normal” will reveal all those abusing and murdering children and that they are imprisoned so we can start to rebuild the future generations’ psyche.
When starting again, our “new normal” must simply be new; new beginnings, new outlook, new care, new employment opportunities, a new way of loving and caring for each other.
