How are the COVID-19 pandemic and the uncertainty that we are all experiencing similar to what people experienced during WWI and the Spanish Influenza 1918 pandemic?
"Any crisis situation has significant social impact, be it a pandemic, food shortage, or any of the many effects of war. The common (and arguably most detrimental) factor is uncertainty. Just as we are not sure how long all this will last, how bad it will get, and what will happen next, societies throughout WW1 wondered the same things and feared for their safety and family well being. I think the biggest difference is our current reliance on media which exacerbates problems and causes panic and worry. Just look at the last two newspaper headlines... ONLY 32 TESTED... CASES TRIPLE. Triple, referencing cases 3 and 4 of the virus in a population of 1.42 million. Factual accuracy notwithstanding, not exactly good public safety practices in my opinion. Media should inform, not sell headlines. A good idea for the site might be contrasting today's situation and past incidents and the role of media. Beyond news, social media also plays a large role, the benefit of which is debatable."
-Anthropology 383 Museum Studies Student
"The COVID-19 pandemic is for many of us the first true emergency situation we have found ourselves in, at least on this large of a scale. As someone with pretty high anxiety, I have had my fair share of panic so at first I wasn't really that concerned about it. I kept living my life and worrying only about the things I could control while I watched everyone else lose their minds. I only really started experiencing anxiety over it after our local government ordered social distancing, and dealing with that has been a struggle. Logically I understand that this situation will probably clear itself up if we all follow CDC/WHO guidelines, but convincing my anxiety that this isn't the end of the world has been a struggle especially with the media disseminating false and exaggerated information. The worst part of this whole situation is that we currently live in a world where we know the media and government lies to us, and so we don't know who to trust at this point. I think if we wanted to integrate our reflections we could do so pretty easily, and it might be cool to be able to relate our own experiences with a state of emergency to WW1 and the Spanish Influenza pandemic. I think for many of us this is a really scary time because we don't really know how bad this is and how long it will last. I definitely feel like this is one of those "the world is ending" moments. I just hope for the sake of all our sanities this pandemic is contained and dealt with soon."
-Anthropology 383 Museum Studies Student
"With all that has happened during the spread of Covid-19 throughout the world, I feel like I have been hyper aware of this virus. Before things even took a serious note out here, I was made aware by our pediatrician that we needed to be extra careful during these times because our daughter has Reactive Airway Disease. She had just gotten sick with a really bad chest infection and so her RAD was in overdrive. Here and there COVID-19 would come up in conversation, then, within a week the severity of the virus seemed to escalate quickly. Our son’s school sent us 5 differing emails in one day. Within just a few hours we went from thinking that we had a couple weeks to prepare for the kids being home, to realizing that it was in fact their last day for a while. Every channel on the T.V. and radio talking about the virus was enough to cause a little anxiety in me. Many things went through my mind, what did I need to do to prepare for the kids to be home, how were we going to juggle work and the kids being home. So, I picked my son up from school and decided to stop at target to grab some essentials and snacks. When we walked in there were people moving quickly throughout the store. We could see that shelves were completely bare, there were items all over the ground, people were banging their carts against each other to get down isles. I quickly made my son get behind me, because I had never seen anything like this. By far that has been the scariest part of this experience, for me. The behavior of people in a panic, the change in behavior that comes with mass hysteria. I was feared that I would have to physically protect my child from people behaving irrationally. Now when we have to make a run to the store it is either my husband or myself, my children do not come into the store with us. Panic, hysteria and ignorance breed hate, in its most horrible forms (prejudice, racism, etc.). It makes me wonder about the long-term effects that this will have on the social structure, the way we interact with one another."
-Stacy Manettas, Anthropology 383 Museum Studies Student
Reflection for Our Future
WWI made our world smaller as it began to quickly globalize in the proceeding years. With the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic, the war came to an end because of the death toll caused by a disease spread by people brought together across the globe to fight over resources. WWI solidified colonial power as Indigenous peoples around the globe continued to be displaced through violence and other means with the rise of nation states. These “untold” stories are highlighted in this exhibit. Through the telling of these stories, our exhibit also seeks to honor those with wisdom on how to steward the earth. Sustaining our planetary resources and health is contrary to the quest for private property ownership and capital accumulation, ideological drivers both then and today that fuel war. Just over one hundred years later, the United Nations has asked the world to stop fighting given the collective toll COVID-19 has taken upon us all in the year 2020.
COVID-19 is a symptom of the serious issues associated with globalization. Issues include our climate change crisis, largely caused by our industrial food system, one of many ways in which natural resources are converted into capital. Through deforestation, land is cleared for domesticated animals and monocrops as species are erased along with the traditional ecological knowledge linked to biodiversity. Animals are sold in bulk in large markets versus people consuming meat in moderation to meet sustenance needs. And hence, we have zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19 traceable to the meat markets in Wuhan China where it quickly spread to human hosts, one plane ride away from infecting someone else across the globe.
The current pandemic points to the importance of stewarding our environment and localizing our economies. Poverty, climate change, war, and public health crisis are all symptoms of unfettered capitalism, neoliberalism and an economy based on perpetual growth to create profit. It’s a system that will collapse in on it self. Its fissures have been exposed by COVID-19 as we see people dependent on food produced across the world, unable to meet the cost of living with a week of missed work, with no access to healthcare treatment to prevent spread, living in the U.S. with no running water to wash their hands, and….then we see skies clear from pollution and wildlife returning to places they once inhabited. The Himalayan Mountains are again visible from cities in India and dolphins are swimming through Venice.
The world has taken a pause, a deep breath as we all collectively face this challenge together. How can we do things better? How will we respond to our collective needs in the future? What are the parallels between today’s world and that of WWI and the Spanish Flu pandemic? This exhibit highlights the untold stories of people across the globe during WWI for upholding the notion of humanity and our collective wellbeing for meeting challenges. How can honoring the “untold” stories of today serve as a solution to our current crisis?