May 15, 2020 - 3:35pm
We are beginning to see what a medium-term Covid world might look like. The ‘suppression’ strategy is winning out across the western and Asian world — country after country is opting to keep the virus completely at bay indefinitely, or until a vaccine.
The other side of this, of course, is that once you have almost no virus you have to shut your borders to preserve the purity of your virus-free kingdom: New Zealand is now completely closed to visitors; Hong Kong tests everyone on arrival.
One step further on from this will be pacts between neighbouring countries that share a common approach and similar levels of infection. In what has caused some understandable unease at a EU level, the young Chancellor of Austria has proposed a ‘travel corridor’ between Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic, that could even stretch as far as Greece, allowing the uninfected peoples of those countries to access the Mediterranean without fear of contamination. Are antibody-carrying persons with immunity passports going to be allowed into these special zones, I wonder? Britain is in discussions with France about a travel pact; the Baltic states have already agreed one.
One interesting aspect of this worrisome way of thinking is that the Swedes are suddenly bottom of the pile — with their more laissez-faire strategy they are considered unsafe. Politicians in Denmark are now considering re-opening their border with Germany but keeping the Swedish border closed.
In the US you can see a similar sort of fragmentation taking place between, mainly, Democrat-leaning Blue states that are being ultra-cautious and extending lockdowns, and Republican-voting Red states that are pushing for more rapid opening up. The state governments of California, Washington and Oregon have already signed up to a ‘Western States Pact’ in agreeing a Covid-19 rules, most recently joined by Colorado and Nevada.
Freedom of movement between states of the US is enshrined under constitutional law, but it remains up to the states to enforce this, rather than the federal government. If the divergence in approach between states continues, how long before we start seeing quarantine requirements for out-of-zone visitors, and subsequent legal challenges to them? An ‘infected zone’ along the southern and midwestern states, with minimal restrictions, and ‘pure zones’ along the seaboards.
Playing this out, you could start to see a very different sort of world, divided between the Covid-free world and those parts of the world that have decided to live alongside it. Will we start seeing direct flights from Stockholm-Arlanda to Dallas Texas, and straight down to Rio di Janeiro? Will the economy of this more freely connected world start behaving differently? Will the capitals of this new ‘free world’, with more lax quarantine restrictions, start acting as the new global travel hubs, replacing London and New York? It is too early to tell.
Meanwhile there is a sharp irony in the fact that those places most committed to an open, multilateral, progressive world (blue states in America, the EU, New Zealand, Scotland) look set to become the most closed and border-patrolled, while the ‘America First’ states and places like Brazil have the chance to look outwards like never before.
Freddie Sayers is the Editor-in-Chief & CEO of UnHerd. He was previously Editor-in-Chief of YouGov, and founder of PoliticsHome.
freddiesayers
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeHe will not leave without a fight. You forget that it wasn’t the middle classes that continued to vote for him. Poor people’s lives in Turkey changed dramatically for the better when Erdogan was initially voted in, people who have never been able to afford imported goods and don’t care about them.. They have applauded Erdogan’s “piousness”. Older poor people remember the past with all the coups and unrest, they don’t want it back. Many ordinary people were horrified at the last attempted coup. I personally think there will be more support than you think for him to hang on in there.
He doesn’t understand justice though and punishes the innocent. Many in opposition are still in prison, so there is no freedom of speech. Poor little Armenia are always getting it from Turkey. The massacres of the population in Armenia were horrific in 1914 but they still attack them. Is it because they are a Christian nation?. We do not need another Ottomon Empire with the slavery and cruelty again.
Erdogan was in the right place at the right time. There probably isn’t a single developing country that didn’t ride the wave of expanding globalisation to vastly increase the income levels of their populations during this period.
Erdogan is a menace to his people and a menace in the middle east. It would be great to see him go. Turkey has a lot to sort out from when he came to power.
It’s worth remembering that it was the (proto-)woke who helped bring Erdogan to power by non-stop complaining about the imperfect nature of Turkish democracy and how Erdogan was the necessary solution to fix it. The likes of NYT, FT, the Economist would publish editorial after editorial to support him.
Looking at what’s happening in US today going from crisis to crisis, I today judge Turkish democracy a lot less harshly than I might’ve back in 2003. The one big highlighted sin of Turkish democracy was about not allowing political Islam in government. We’ll see how that one unfolds in the west with many countries banning certain Islamic garb and outlawing some Islamic teaching already, not to mention Trump banning legal entries from Muslim countries.
As for Erdogan brining prosperity to Turkey, while Erdogan clearly is a capable leader and strategic thinker, there was probably more in that success about simply being in the right time and place. Turkey rode the wave of globalisation like any other developing country achieving comparable levels of income and wealth gains (e.g. see Brazil or China between 2003-now).
Any relation to Yunus? Just curious
Relation? Certainly.
How is Belarus making the migrant gamble toxic?
While Ataturk’s “laicisation” of Turkey was important, Erdogan’s bringing back of Islam into the political fold was an important corrective – Egypt could learn from him. Equally, Pakistan could do well to call them out. He has done the necessary – if he was truly wise, he would now step down. He probably won’t – as Acton said . . .