Post lockdown: Two important questions

Last week I wrote a column titled: "From Wisteria Lane to hysteria lane."

I was totally prepared for an onslaught of criticism following the publication.

There was the usual hate mail and someone even reported me to the ombudsman for "being prejudiced against people in the suburbs".

(Thank you for making me smile, complainant).  

However, what really surprised me was the number of positive comments I received.

Clearly the article had struck a nerve.

In e-mail after e-mail, people thanked me for writing the column and expressed their despair at the lack of empathy they experienced in their fellow citizens - particularly those… well, in the suburbs.  

Subsequently the President announced a dramatic easing of the lockdown restrictions. 

How nice it would have been if it was all over now.

However, in reality the real challenges - medically and economically - still lie ahead of us.

It is predicted that until a vaccine is found many thousands of people will still die and our already bruised economy has taken an enormous beating.  

So as we start exiting lockdown, it seems important that we ask what brought us to this point and how we can avoid it in future. Reflecting on these questions, there are two concepts that have really occupied my thinking.

The first one is kindness. A few nights ago, I came across a speech that the New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, gave in 2018 at the United Nations.  

Towards the end of her speech she said the following: "Perhaps it is time to step back from the chaos and ask what we want. It is in that space that we find simplicity …

"If I can distil it down to one concept… it is simple and it is this: 'Kindness'. In the face of isolationism, protectionism, racism, the simple concept of looking outward and beyond ourselves, of kindness and collectivism might just be a good a starting point as any." 

It seems to me that this epidemic has shown more than ever how intertwined we are as human beings. A microscopic virus thousands of miles away eventually brought the whole world to a standstill.  

At the same time, Covid-19 has again highlighted the huge inequalities that exist in our world - our country being one of the most unequal in the world.  

Inherent in these inequalities are a cruelty and an unkindness, a deep-seated injustice, that diminishes all our humanity.

As we start to think about a post-Covid world we have to collectively find the moral courage and outrage to change this.  

On an individual and collective level, kindness would be a very good starting point (to quote Ardern).

When you are truly empathetic (not the I'm-worried-about-people-in-the-townships-so-open-the-economy-so-I-can-get-rich-again type of empathy), then the world will change.  

The second concept is that of "essential"…