Houston, We Have A Problem
We have long exceeded the forty days from which the word “quarantine” is derived. Quaranta giorni was a Venetian policy of isolating ships off coasts during the Black Death. While we continue to quarantine ourselves from most social practices, our cities are slowly emerging from lockdowns. Just as we have seen from plagues in the past, the world we will be returning to is not the world we took refuge from.
It is important that during this time of introspection, we imagine the society we want to go back to. That means recognizing our shortcomings. In this issue, Khadijah Kanji reminds us how our society, for all its virtues, has left far too many of us behind. That sentiment is echoed in Wajahat Mahmood and Harsh Trivedi’s article on the migrant workers who have been callously marginalized during the pandemic. Jill Andrew, Keisha Blain, and Tsedale Melaku stress the need for open, honest conversations to tackle racial inequality in every aspect of our lives—from education to healthcare, from workplaces to government.
Time and space seem to lose meaning in indefinite confinement, a feeling unnervingly captured in Andrew Wilmot’s story “When Skies Are.” We look to the natural world for respite, whether that be in our gardens, as David Leonard marks the passage of time through nature, or in the trees that were bare when this pandemic hit, and are now in their full glory, beautifully reflected in Nicola Woods’s art.
On one hand, our world turned exceptionally inward with the closing of borders and a global lockdown. On the other, this year saw the launch of three space missions to seek signs of ancient life on Mars. Our featured cocktail in this issue is a toast to all the scientists who looked to the skies and imagined the worlds beyond.
While this time-out from society has led to a state of ennui, where the days blur into weeks into months, spring into summer, it has also been, paradoxically, a period of action and revolution. Quarantine might have commenced with small challenges such as baking sourdough bread and mastering Tik Tok videos, but it has blossomed to usher in a movement for radical transformation on a global scale. It may take us years to understand life on other worlds, but for now we have the opportunity to ensure a better Earth for generations to come.