Solidarity should be part of a blueprint for the future

As the Covid-19 global crisis rages on, there have been growing calls for human solidarity across the world. Such calls notably transcend their traditional ideological homestead and are now also being embraced by some in the right.

A consensus on the imperative to save humanity from a common threat? The angel is, as always, in the principle; the devil, in the detail.

Unavoidably, the calls open the way for reflection on the political and cultural thought ecosystems that battle to shape human social organisation.

For example, generations before grew up on a diet which promoted appreciation of the truism: “Munwe muthihi a u tusi mathuthu” – “A single finger does not scoop kernels of corn.”

This outlook was reinforced by yet another idiomatic expression: “A dzimana ula malombe, mukosini aya phalalana” – “Feuding parties do not invite one another for a feast, but come to one another’s aid in times of trouble.”

These values battle against the whirlwinds of an antithetical perspective which holds that people are but atomised individuals devoid of collective consciousness beyond the self.

Across the Atlantic, the collective outlook held strong roots in the American trade union movement in the 19th and 20th centuries as the movement sought to organise workers into a formidable force.

The Noble and Holy Order of the Nights of Labour, one of the first labour federations in the United States (US), conceived the slogan: “An injury to one is the concern of all,” which was later locally adapted to: “An injury to one is an injury to all.”

In a move described by Lancet medical journal, editor-in-chief, Richard Horton, as “a crime against humanity”, US President Donald Trump this week froze his country’s contribution to the World Health Organisation, claiming that it was “China-centric” in its response to the Covid-19 crisis.

Horton said: “Every scientist, every health worker, every citizen must resist and rebel against this appalling betrayal of global solidarity.”

It is tempting to see Trump’s commissions and omissions as “psychopathic buffoon[ery]” as renown academic Noam Chomsky recently called him. The theatrical performances certainly bear the hallmarks.

But what if he is a logical man, albeit to a fault?

In his account of US labour history, Strike, historian Jeremy Brecher detailed the systematic destruction of the US labour movement especially after the 1973 recession into the years of Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

“Virtually all elements of the new corporate agenda,” he wrote, “helped capital cut real wages, reduce workforces, and speed up production, thereby helping to restore profitability in the short run, while often undermining the long-term bases of economic prosperity.”

Reagan and the “new right” groups formed the backbone of his political agenda sought to “resist the redistribution of power by scapegoating and repressing those they found socially or psychologically threatening and provided the mass electoral and activist base for economic and social policies that benefitted only the wealthiest individuals and most powerful corporations”.

Is it inconceivable that Trump and his fellow travellers might see themselves as Renaissance men and women working industriously to revive or even fan the American dream into a bonfire?

Two points about the foregoing are worth a mention. Firstly, the dominant social superstructural consensus promotes and reinforces ideas and behavioural patterns that are not only opposed to but present solidarity as the worthless property of inconsequential dreamers.

The popular phrase, “Every man for himself and God for us all”, typifies a dog-eat-dog outlook that is both at variance and inimical to the idea that “an injury to one is an injury to all”.

So are grotesque notions of success that propel the affluent to flaunt wealth to their otherwise desperate fellow citizens, sometimes under the guise of charity such as we have witnessed from some chillingly narcissistic and pretentious quarters during this period of the lockdown.

And watch the output of television and other media for half an hour on a given day and you will be lucky to emerge with any semblance of an idea that much as you are an individual, you are equally also a member of a community, a citizen and the world with obligations much as you have rights.

What is more, our children are, for the most part, indiscriminate consumers of this kind of output at a time when our time is stretched to the limit in response to the imperative of survival.

Perhaps the public broadcaster should place this issue among its weighty agenda as one of its contributions to public education for a sustainable human future.

A world bereft of solidarity does not lend itself to social cohesion both in the short to long term. In moments of crisis, such a world can either self-immolate or consume itself in the folly of deadly rancour.

Consequently, the construction of a society and world in which solidarity takes centre stage should, as a matter of self and collective interest, feature uppermost in our daily concerns regardless of our social class position.

The Covid-19 global crisis illustrates this point sharply because however the logic of a Trump – which we must strive to understand – the interconnectedness of our world means that no nation, however powerful, can insulate itself from what happens beyond its borders.

Multilateralism rather than unilateralism is key to the resolution of many of the world’s problems and challenges today.

Multilateral ambivalence is not a Trumpian blind spot. We only have to recall Madeleine Albright’s (in)famous remark: “We will act multilaterally when we can and unilaterally when we must.”

It might be that the spectre of China that haunts the moderate and extreme spectrums of the US establishment explains what appears as psychopathic buffoonery when in fact it is fault lines of ideological and imperial calculus.

Among other things, we ought to be weary of Cold-War caricatures of a China much as we should be critical of monolith presentations of the US political establishment.

Lastly, Cabinet this week issued a statement which promised a soon-to-be-announced economic recovery blueprint.

Such a blueprint should contain strong elements of growth as with redistribution, the better to promote much needed solidarity.

Mukoni Ratshitanga.

• Ratshitanga is a consultant, social and political commentator. (mukoni@interlinked.co.za)

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.