Sri Lanka's New Normal: Demystifying Promise And Peril Of An Opaque Era

Ever since the COVID-19 outbreak struck Sri Lanka about two months ago, a couple of narratives dominated our life. They were mainly driven as coping mechanisms and containment efforts. Amidst discussions of social distancing, isolation, battle against COVID-19 the real yearning has always been about the post COVID-19 situation and a new normal will set in.

- Dr. Harinda Vidanage

Whilst there are multitude of analysis about what comes after, they all remain either based on scientific modelling, data analysis or historical transformational analysis. Thus, the common term that captures this condition is, New Normal. This week’s analysis is on the concept of new normal, inspired by a student of mine who asked me why I do not write about it? Indoosan Shanthakumaran here goes my take.

ILLUSIVE NEW NORMAL

The idea of the new normal and its narrative strongly embedded in both policy and popular lexicon as a postmortem analysis of the financial crisis of 2008. Since the establishment of the new global order in vastly helm and shaped by the global West in 1945 at the end of the second world war, 2008 was the year that started shaking that stability. The crash of 2008 led to the unravelling of the institutions that made up the global governance network.

Ten years after 2008, COVID-19 outbreak seems to be completing the destabilizing phase, the classic high point of this unravelling is when the incumbent US President attacks the World Health Organization (WHO), accusing it to be a functioning Chinese Pawn. However you look at it, it is poignantly telling of the fact of the beginning of the end of a system that managed global affairs and set bench marks of diplomatic interaction since 1945. The decay of the old system and one yet to be born, If one was an avid Marxist, we are living in the Gramscian times of interregnum.