Covid-19 takes us very far away, to Ancient Greece, the same that coined the word "Europe", and which distinguished the civilized world from the one that was not: the Peloponnesian War (430-404 BC) between Sparta and Athens. Because if it is true that historia magistra vitae then we should try to understand how the enlightening Athens of the time handled that plague, which according to the account of the famous historian Thucydides, had entered the city-state through the port of Piraeus, the only source of food and supplies. The pandemic caused many deaths throughout the Eastern Mediterranean coast, presenting itself as violent on several occasions.
Just as Thucydides then recalls the rhetoric of social, political, economic and cultural propaganda, which was made throughout Hellas about the importance of staying united, even today that same forced distance helps to contain the virus.
Historically, pandemics have been the main cause of population decline and the changing geopolitical order in the world. The plague of Athens affected everyone and without social and economic distinctions; People felt abandoned, so the whole value system known until then was called into question. Even the most fervent religious were convinced that it was a test of the gods, who favored Sparta as the victor; it almost seems to see similarities in the media somersaults of Donald Trump as he tries to blame Xi Jinping's China, without having the proof, as America is getting used to and used to.
There is also a particular fact in the writings of Thucydides, which is that inherent in the consequences of the epidemic on the res publica. The Athenian historian points out that in that period there was the total disappearance of social customs: the disease had in fact had serious repercussions on the civil and religious order. The citizens of Athens had ceased to respect the Law and did not fear the consequences because they already felt under a greater yoke that would condemn them to death. So people spent all their wealth at their disposal, and while many lost, there were also a few individuals who invested in the city, becoming very wealthy. And this will certainly happen even today, for those who know how to take advantage of it. Another significant fact that comes to us from ancient Greece is that of dishonorable behavior: people had ceased good habits because they were no longer interested in cultivating their good reputation, considering that they would die in a short time. This is a risk that our modern democracies also run today and in the immediate future.
Today the Piraeus of old and modern Athens are the airports of Milan, Paris, London, New York, Tokyo, Singapore, Beijing, junction points of our contemporaneity, all closely connected to each other, while today's Peloponnesian war is the one between the traditional system of conceiving work and the longa manus of capitalism. Our society is therefore forced to rethink the models of work, self-employment and resource management in the era of today's globalization. Retracing the steps of the historian Thucydides, we can note some data about people's behavior in various areas, because if people are forced to stay at home, some sectors of the economy will gain in terms of growth, such as digital, while others, such as industry and tourism, will come out deeply torn. Just as pandemics have had socio-economic repercussions in the past, today it is easier to record their effects, even looking at the data, which are much more conspicuous today than they were then; because if it is true that the politics of the Bel Paese today is perhaps not shining in its choices, the strength of Italians is confirmed in the usual ability to transform even a tragedy like this into a possible and necessary opportunity.
Covid-19 is changing our behaviour, for example by affecting how people search for information online. According to research on keywords searched by Italian users on search engines, seotesteronline.com, an Italian company specializing in SEO analysis, says that searches have increased in the food delivery, ecommerce, medical as well as mobile phone sectors, while the automotive and travel sectors have been destroyed. The fact that we spend more time at home has also led us to an increase in conversations on social media, and this figure is confirmed by creationdose.com, an Italian startup specializing in Martech, verifying an increase in direct messages on Instagram of over 71%, while stories and live have increased over 75%, with content on sports at home, cooking and shared moments with the family. While on TikTok the increase was over 2.3 billion views on the hashtag #iorestoacasa alone, a social initiative that saw Italians share the need to stay at home in this phase of crisis and therefore lockdown.
With the forced stay at home, we have also changed the way we experience work, and this is pushing Italy towards a forced process of digital transformation, which the country has been needing for some time: in fact, we have gone from 570 thousand smart workers in October 2019 to 3 million in March 2020 according to coderblock.com, the Italian startup specializing in remote work. The fact that we can't move from home has also led us to adopt new shopping habits, and has seen the surge in ecommerce as an easy way to shop. According to Netcomm, the Italian ecommerce consortium, the lockdown has tripled the number of new online consumers: in fact, there are 2 million more than the 700 thousand in 2019. While Nielsen, a global performance management company, confirms the boom in online orders, with a growth on the national territory of +82.3%. Even big brands are investing more and more in ecommerce, as confirmed by data from japal.it, which specializes in this area, which alone has seen an increase in sales of over 155%.
The value of having tools that allow us to communicate our messages and the interactivity with which we act is one more possibility than the cives of Athens because we are all involved in this story and together we can try to contribute to the birth of a new Era and towards a new future, leaving evident and lasting traces, And not just temporary and closely linked to this emergency. It has happened before in history, and it will happen now. But it is equally true that, today more than ever, issues such as privacy and freedom should shake us, because we need to rethink the dynamics of power between those who hold the monopoly of information and states (we are all realizing only now, and late with contact tracking apps, how important all this is and how it really impacts our daily lives).
These issues can only be tackled in political terms (and not only from a health or economic point of view), and the time has come for our governments (and probably first and foremost the peoples of Europe) to reorganize their ideas with respect to the status quo of things, because the possibilities to get out of this plague, as old as the world, There are only two: that of being submerged by this wave, or of riding it, giving us all citizens open spaces where we can think and plan our lives and our future, in the concreteness of our rights and duties, and of our freedom. As they say today in Italy: distant, but united. So today Europe must look at what was its true primordial form, the one engraved in the words of Altiero Spinelli in that Ventotene Manifesto, and which echoes the motto of the European Union even today: united, in diversity. Really hoping that this disaster can at least be an opportunity to really unite; and to come together, in our Europe.
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