Time to put global conflicts on lockdown

“It is time to put global conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives”.  The Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, live-streamed this appeal

to the world as Britain was going into lockdown. The Coronavirus pandemic could “open precious windows to diplomacy” and help create “corridors for life-saving aid,” he said. A former

Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth office, the Rt. Hon. Alistair Burt in a paper to the Defence and Security Forum has recently elaborated on the possibilities inherent in the

Guterres appeal.

Alistair Burt’s thinking derives from his experience of the Middle East with its intractable conflicts, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, US-Iran, Israel-Palestine-Iran. No-one can make concessions

or they will lose face or appear to be weaker than their opponent. No-one trusts their adversary as a negotiating partner. A bitter stalemate prevails. A ladder to climb down would be a

game-changer. Covid-19 offers one to the warring parties, Burt suggests. The belligerents face the uncontrolled spread of the virus. The combatants can cease fire and co-operate or many more

will die. “All win or all lose.”

Years ago I travelled from Jordan into Israel by what was then called the Allenby Bridge. There was a hold-up. I watched ambulances pull up on each side of the bridge. A patient from the

Jordanian ambulance was carried out on a stretcher and handed over to the Israeli ambulance crew. The two ambulances moved off. It somehow summed up the divisions in the Holy Land but also

how the medical world in its basic humanity and solidarity can overcome them. But Guterres’s appeal and Burt’s diplomatic vision, though, go wider than this.

The pandemic is what in biblical Greek would be called a Kairos moment — a time of great danger but also of great opportunity and possibility for fresh vision. The combination of

authoritarian rule and advanced cyber-technology combine to create a great sense of danger. China is using the pandemic to further entrench the surveillance of its population. But China’s

willingness to share its Covid-19 expertise with other countries also provides the opportunity to develop co-operation.

“These days of pain are bringing many hidden problems to the surface,” Pope Francis tweeted recently.  Coronavirus has cast an extraordinary spotlight both on the importance of good

governance, and on the impact of inequality and poverty on health. Only in democracies can citizens hold their governments to account and know with some certainty what is happening.

Inequality and poverty cause poor health outcomes wherever you live.

While we in Britain count the number of ventilators in thousands, doctors across Africa are working with much less. The world’s refugee settlements are even more in need of international

support. The realisation is dawning that “we are all in this together” when it comes to health, and that this should be the basis for policy.

When Coronavirus is finally under control, there will be a moment for renewed vision, an opportunity for changing direction. The choices are obvious. Either persist in an economics that

disadvantage the poor, or an economics “as if people mattered”; either promote a nationalist “beggar your neighbour” foreign policy, or foster international co-operation; either build walls

to keep desperate refugees out, or take a consistent fair annual quota.

Government emphasis on being “in this together” must apply a fortiori to climate change. Before Coronavirus, the idea that lifestyles must become simpler seemed either utopian or were

criminally ignored by governments, depending on your viewpoint. Now that lifestyle change has been imposed on us by the pandemic. We didn’t choose clean air — it is the bi-product of

economic collapse. Is it utopian to believe that having been forced to cut our carbon-based energy use we might in future choose to do so with a new determination? Will Alistair Burt’s

ladder also provide a way down for Trump, and the less obvious foot-draggers, from blocking action against climate change?

Our choices are becoming more obvious — but it does not follow we will necessarily make the right ones.  Now is the time for all people of good will, leaders of the faith communities,

International NGOs, campaigning organisations and governments that treasure social democracy and a just international order, to create the kind of coalition that can ensure that the right

choices are made. “Beggar my neighbour” or a genuine “Politics of Solidarity”? The G20 Riyadh meeting hosted by Saudi Arabia this November could be the first place for such a coalition to

make a major impact on the post-Coronavirus world.

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