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Former president of Romania Emil Constantinescu asserts that the COVID-19 pandemic has spotlighted some "serious deficiencies" in the wealthy states, in the health care and the human rights' areas included, and this could prompt the developing states to pose themselves "legitimate questions".
"Surprisingly, the pandemic has exposed serious deficiencies in the areas of health, economy, education, social protection, human rights, in developed countries and it has become clear that institutions do not have safety net systems to allow for readjustment in the event of crisis situations. Developing countries for which they were a role model can ask legitimate questions for their future. And, just as legitimately, they can ask academic representatives why they didn't address and expose publicly a long time before these deficiencies a virus has so painfully brought to light in just three months," Constantinescu said during the video-conference "The role of the academy in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals through the COVID-19 crisis" organized by the Institute of Advanced Studies for the Levantine Culture and Civilisation, together with Nizami Ganjavi International Center.
On the other hand, the former president noted that the pandemic has shown "the exemplary civic responsibility of billions of people around the world" who followed the indications of the authorities, even though the governments were limited to messages of a strictly sanitary nature "or, at the very best, to the management of current health and economic problems".
"Now, after three months, we see that the very lack of a message to address the problems of sustainable development has generated a social tension that can turn into more or less controllable riots, such as those that have been triggered in the United States in recent days, and in some countries in Western Europe," Emil Constantinescu said.
He recalled that 2020 was supposed to be the debut of the "Decade of Action of the Sustainable Development Goals", within the framework of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.
"The importance of Sustainable Development Goals, which are aimed at improving the situation in areas such as poverty, illiteracy, lack of access to water and hygiene, social inequalities, climate change, has not diminished during the pandemic. Even though the news bulletins ran priority information about symptoms, the number of illnesses and deaths, these problems continued to exist, and even turned acute," stressed the former president.
He argued that the response to the current pandemic should not be separated from actions concerning the Sustainable Development Goals, and it is only necessary to reassess and prioritize those related to problems that could worsen: poverty, education, access to water and hygiene, reducing inequalities, consumption and responsible production, ensuring peace, justice and managing certain enforcement institutions.
"The revitalisation of these critical objectives can only be achieved through solidarity and cooperation between states. Or it was precisely this that became difficult, after the states went into isolation in the face of tragic events, seeking solutions by which to save themselves on their own. Immediate solutions for recovery must include: better planning of public and private investment in sustainable development for the construction of resilient infrastructures; reinforcement of social protection systems; investment in the management of causes and risk reduction", the former president pointed out.
Emil Constantinescu showed that, in this respect, academia can provide "vision, strategies and working tools".
"For the solution of sustainable development, academia must build its own agenda, and refuse to take over the financial or political agendas, which focus primarily on their own interests, in order to prevent a return to previous situations or even their aggravation, as it happened after the financial or security crises in the first decades of the 21st century. (...) The academic environment must take into account the interests of citizens as a matter of priority," said Emil Constantinescu.
He advocated a society built on moral values and not on profit, "capable of diminishing greed, waste and arrogance and promoting a decent living".
"In this society academia must be the guarantor that must prevent computerization from affecting the right to privacy, artificial intelligence and robotics from dehumanizing the social climate, medical progress being strictly ethically controlled, returning to education based on knowledge and not only on skills and culture and not being replaced by entertainment. The alternative is what we've seen in recent days on TV screens and social media. The hijacking of peaceful demonstrations condemning a revolting abuse of police officers by violent groups whose purpose is to trigger generalized chaos," the former president said.
In his view, all this represents for Europeans "a 'deja vu': the image of street fights between far-right and far-left riots in Germany in the '930s that ultimately led to the fascist and communist dictatorship".
Constantinescu pointed out that Eastern Europeans are "vaccinated" against these types of dictatorship, but they are also cautious to the danger of "protest", defined by the former head of state as "violent movement without ideology, leaders or assumed participants, seeking the establishment of anarchy", as well as the threat of authoritarianism.
"The use of the terms 'dominance', the threat of firearms are ridiculous and deepen the division of a society that needs reconciliation to rebuild after the drama of the pandemic. The emotional impact of the pandemic, caused by the fear of a virus that can hit anyone regardless of social position, can reposition life as a supreme value. It is the foundation to build upon a culture of peace where the cult of violence should be eliminated and replaced by a real dialogue between the various groups and people that differ by their country, ethnicity, religion, traditions and opinions," concluded the former president.
