The long read: The pandemic has seen borders close and divisions widened. But in almost all aspects of life, humanity will only thrive by coming together
But these are not just doctors. The nurses and other hospital attendants – those who’ll empty your bedpans and bathe you when your family isn’t allowed to – are equally essential to our survival.
Freedom of movement doesn’t have to be in one direction, from the poor to the rich countries. Take the example of skilled immigrants. A Pakistani immigrant to the UK can learn medicine, and then go back every year to help out in a rural clinic – or move back altogether and run a hospital, as many doctors do.
To those who said, “Can New York survive the pandemic?” I have two words in response: “Jaikishan Heights”, the south Asian way of pronouncing Jackson Heights, a neighbourhood in Queens. When my family first came to New York in 1977, we found a dangerous, bankrupt city. I got mugged twice when I was a teenager. Our car got stolen regularly. Jackson Heights was not glamorous or welcoming.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all working-class families in cities all over the world had their own schrebergartens? If a fast-food worker or cab-driver had access to a plot of land with a little house, just over the city border, where they could go with their families and grow peppers and tomatoes and enjoy the springtime air, and wake up to birdsong rather than sirens? Access to nature should be a human right, and not just for the rich.
We need a new commons. Where can we meet? The bazaar, the library, the park? In cities around the world, outside space is increasingly When I was a teenager growing up in Jackson Heights, the place where my friends and I hung out, flirted with girls, read the news of the world and checked out books in 30 languages – because few of my fellow immigrants could afford to buy them – was the branch of the Queens Public Library on 81st Street. A library is, inWe need libraries more than ever because, post-pandemic, they serve as a place to work or study for those who don’t have space, or internet access, at home.