We commemorate wars and genocides, but our collective memory seems unfit to remember other catastrophes like pandemics. An essay about learning from the past.
The memory of the world wars has led to the creation of institutions to prevent a future world war.
Can the Covid-19 outbreak lead to similar commemorations and an institutionalisation to prevent and deal with other pandemics?
For the Dutch liberal Dutch weekly I wrote an essay about individual and collective memory, and about our ability – and inability – to learn, as society, from the past.
Essay ‘Voor altijd waakzaam’ in De Groene Amsterdammer (no. 7/2021)