In a new book, Scotland After The Virus, edited by Gerry Hassan and Simon Barrow, some of Scotland’s leading thinkers, writers and commentators contemplate the Covid pandemic and what it means for our future
IN the winter of 1944, Nazi forces cut off food supplies to the Netherlands. Famine ensued, with people reduced to eating tulip bulbs, including mothers-to-be carrying babies yet unborn. Luckily, the famine was short-lived, although not before 20,000 people died. It ended when Allied troops freed occupied Holland in May 1945. Those short six months cast a long shadow. Once the babies were born and grew into adults, a surprising number went on to develop cardiovascular disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes and schizophrenia (Paul, 2010).
In 2001, the Twin Towers of New York City were obliterated in a terrorist attack. Hundreds of pregnant women were in the vicinity. Some could not shake the terror they felt, resulting in post-traumatic stress disorder, with its heightened sensitivity to danger. What happened to their babies? Research shows that a number carried the consequences of that day within their biology. At 12 months of age, their baseline levels of cortisol remained abnormally low. Their ability to handle stress had been permanently altered by experiences their mother had had while they were still in the womb (Paul, 2010). If you are wondering whether this essay is about pregnancy, it isn’t. I’m simply trying to find a way to talk about the remarkable ways in which, as human beings, our present is woven from strands of our past.
I don’t think we fully appreciate the connection between past and present. We tend to think of the past as a place. It’s a place with edges and boundaries. It’s a place we move on from. It’s a place we think we can move beyond precisely because we conceive of it as having boundaries. The past is a place we tell stories about -- because we don’t live there anymore. Except, the thing is, that’s not quite true. The past still lives within us.
We need to think more deeply about the threads that connect the past and present. We need to do that right now, as Scotland leaves our national lockdown and steps into the Covid world that follows. The decisions we take in these weeks and months will do more than get us through this unprecedented period. Those decisions will shape our future, and especially our children’s futures. That’s going to happen whether we intend it or not. I would prefer that we are thoughtful and creative and wise in the choices we make.
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