The spread of the current global pandemic is unprecedented. Future consequences are difficult to predict (will global geopolitics be radically altered? Will the global dominant economic system be superseded? Will the pandemic spell doom for the global metropolis?). The degree of uncertainty heightens paranoid states of mind (such as the belief that the virus was produced in a lab and unleashed on the world with perverse intentions).
In such critical moments, some believe that the time of politics accelerates, that slow decision-making must be superseded by fast-paced executive actions. The guidance of experts and the support of science (as if it were one and universally coherent) are widely invoked. But science that is itself struggling to respond to the new data and to the salvific projections that it is subjected to by citizens and governments alike. By the beginning of April, as the initial shock started to sink in, the WTO compared the current crisis to the Great Depression, warning of similar consequences especially on the most vulnerable sections of the world population.
As the weakest and most vulnerable are bracing themselves to face the brunt of the coronavirus consequences, from many parts inspired collective actions begin to create a network of activists-led responses to the crisis building potentially global solidarity networks. After the 2008 crisis, the World Social Forum, the largest global civil society initiative to date, organised one of its most successful events in Brazil. Participants were galvanized by the need to work globally to provide a response to the consequences of the global financial crisis. The event resonated with slogans like "Your crisis, Our solutions".
