Can we leave the crisis on the left?

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After the election results in Norway and Germany, some were quick to declare that a crisis was emerging on the left. But a quick analysis of the situation refutes this reading, because the Scandinavian country and the locomotive of Europe did not know the crisis. Or rather, they just touched it in such a way that it cannot be remotely compared with other European countries.

The same was said last December, after Joe Biden’s victory in the United States, but also the reasons for the change of tenant in the White House were other than a repositioning to the left: first of all, Trump’s unreliability and his fears of democracy, with the relative mobilization of Democratic voters, and from Among other things, the leadership role of minorities and the choice of a “centrist” candidate.

The same can be said about the Communist Party’s jump in Russia’s legislatures, which rose from 13 to 21% because historical opponent Alexei Navalnyg, who was not particularly progressive in himself, instructed his voters to vote for candidates with the best chance of beating Putin’s party, college assessment for college. In Latin America, elections in the pandemic have rewarded presidents on the right in Ecuador and El Salvador and on the left in Peru and Bolivia.

In short, the idea that the economic crisis caused by the pandemic has pushed voters to the left does not find confirmation in electoral processes where elections can be considered “clean”. Instead, statistically confirmed data indicate that during the pandemic in 81 countries, the state of individual liberties, freedom of the press and respect for human rights worsened, while the state of individual liberties, freedom of the press and respect for human rights improved in only one country, New Zealand.

Chinese President Xi Jinping recently used an illuminating example to illustrate his country’s position on the most important issues: “Whether wearing shoes is known only to the one who wears them. On what system can work in China, only the Chinese have the right to speak.” Essentially, what is happening in China is Chinese action: this is the response to both protests over the status of the Uyghur Muslim minority and pressure on Beijing’s advances in Hong Kong.

From the crisis, we read the pandemic, so it is not certain that we are going out to the left, not even to the right. It certainly comes out with a changing world, which, on the one hand, fails to agree on the larger issue of the environment, on the other hand has become fertile ground for the consolidation and spread of illiberal democracies or true authoritarian regimes. The suspension of some basic rights during the pandemic has become permanent in many countries, while in the West, so-called “lack of green corridors” demonstrate against pseudo-sanitary dictatorships that allow them, however, to express their opposition freely and openly.

On the other hand, no one is mobilizing for what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres denounced, obscene rich world, 80% of the immunized population has been vaccinated and the third dose has arrived, while 90% of Africans are still waiting for the first show.

The condemnation fell on deaf ears because at the moment the sense of belonging to one destiny has disappeared: the idea, that is, we are all in the same boat, can now be heard only from parts of the Vatican. In the world of “rescuing those who can,” powerful economic forces are doing big business and would-be tyrants find a downward path. And not a conspiracy, but the sad realization that we came out of the pandemic much worse than we came in.