How will you communicate?
The Third Task Force
Task forces composed of ‘wise’ men and experts to entrust with the post-pandemic are proliferating. Every country has in fact been presenting mixed groups of individuals who, on the basis of their curricula and accomplishments, are asked to conceive strategies and guidelines to manage the socio-economic changes caused by the spreading of the virus.
They constantly reiterate that we have to make virtue of necessity, turn this setback into an opportunity, rethink a future when nothing will be the same as before… All these notions must then be applied to the different territorial contexts and integrated according to the needs of globalisation. As useful and stimulating as all this is, it’s a responsibility characterised by a considerable complexity requiring articulated answers inspired to shared principles. In practice, what we would need is a next level of management directing the operations of the experts, a sort of General Constitutional Charter of Change or, rather, a task force of all task forces.
But who to entrust with this ambitious ‘meta-creature’ called to fly high, to imagine new world assets able to react to the effects of the pandemic and possibly solve some of the paradoxes that have dragged on for years like social inequalities and the uneven distribution of food and resources at planetary level?
My personal candidates – no ifs no buts – are José “Pepe” Mujica, President of Uruguay from 2010 to 2015, and Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope of the Catholic Church since 2013.
The two ‘lively grandpas’ have in fact always distinguished themselves for the symbolic reach of their institutional activity, combined with their ability to set a good example with concrete and coherent actions in their personal lives. We know, for example, that during his mandate Mujica chose to leave the presidential palace every evening to go back to his small house in the suburbs for the night, where he would take care of his garden and hens, while by day he was introducing innovative national politics of liberalisation and safeguard of civil rights for the Uruguayan population, and regularly donating 90% of his salary to the most urgent social causes.
With his message of ‘sobriety’ and closeness to the less fortunate, the Pope has strengthen the mission of the Roman Church, scaling down certain lavish liturgies in favour of a more intimate and spiritual symbolism, but above all by putting in writing – with his encyclical Laudato Si’ – our undelayable necessity to take better care of our ‘common home’ i.e. the natural environment.
I could easily see the artist Michelangelo Pistoletto being part of this team, another son of the 1930s who, for a long time, has been committed to sharing – at planetary level – deep reflections on art as a factor of social change, offering a solid theoretical paradigm as a point of reference for a sustainable future.
His frantic research activity of the Third Paradise, that is an intermediate dimension between the needs of nature and the needs of technical-scientific progress, has highlighted how this dimension is today actually within our reach. In the past few weeks, we have all had a substantial taste of the advantages deriving from a nature reclaiming centre stage and reacting to the reduction of the impact of human activity. Clean air and water, plants and animals thriving, landscapes acquiring new value through simple habits like a walk, triggering a chain of positive reactions like people smiling.
Our galactic task force could amply draw on this strong core of experience, irony, concreteness, ethics and aesthetics. Other names should join this team though, possibly younger, able to explore and communicate with all sectors of human life.
We can hold a public nomination to identify the greatest minds among men and women from the fields of philosophy, science, politics, sport, entertainment, music, technology, etc. and anybody who has dedicated their life to the search for a sustainable path towards a collective happiness.
We should (and will have to) give more and more prominence, importance and attention to the suggestions of these people, the Third Paradise will otherwise still have to wait.
