Coronavirus Pandemic: Close Your Eyes

"What culture do you identify with?", people ask me sooner or later, mostly during the stage of small talk as my mother is from X, my father from Y, and I was raised in Z. "None, all of them and more, their synergy, depends on situation, varies with surrounding, don’t know, don’t care, it’s complex …". It‘s only small talk, so, why bother. Often, my reply is the shortest option that sounds okay to me: European.



As a European, I also used to like the idea of the European Union, this "peace project" linking Europeans through values they share, protecting minorites and vulnerable groups, insisting on equal treatment for all regardless of a person’s nationality, gender, culture, disability, blablabla. Except in difficult times.

10.779 people have died of this virus in Italy, 756 in the last 24 hours alone, a whole generation of nonne and nonni is gone. According to doctors, dying of the coronavirus is as if you were drowning while fully conscious, alone, isolated, no family around, no good-bye, no funeral, cities are running out of coffins. Italy is suffering, facing an abyss, urgently needs help and has asked for it. The European Union closes its eyes. Cuba sends doctors, China sends doctors and equipment more than once, Russia sends supplies, Albania sends doctors, Somalia is sending doctors, Israel shows solidarity when Jerusalem and Tel Aviv lighten up with Italian flags, so does Bosnia and Herzegovina - none part of the EU.
The pandemic brings to light the best and the worst in humans: lacking solidarity, nationalism, ageism, ableism. Jean-Claude Juncker once said: "Europe fails when egos prevail." Well?...

 - - - - - - -

photograph (c) MLM