The Battle of Sutjeska

Last Sunday, despite strict preventive measures against the pandemic, local elections were held in France. I won’t debate whether it was appropriate to organize elections in such a situation, but I decided to vote. I took my pencil, a pack of disinfectant wipes, got on my bike, and made sure to maintain a safe distance from other voters and the election commission. As far as my personal safety was concerned, I don’t think I risked more than I would by visiting a pharmacy. I hope, however, that I contributed to the defense of democracy—which is always one of the first casualties in times of crisis.

Recent public opinion polls revealed that a third of voters had decided not to go to the polls due to the virus. Before the government ordered all restaurants and bars to close on Saturday night, this was undoubtedly the topic of much café debate. Meanwhile, other surveys showed that fear of infection had done little to improve the hygiene habits of the French. Take handwashing after using the toilet, for example: before the crisis, 29% skipped it; now it’s 28%. That’s percent—not individuals. The similarity in numbers is striking. I can’t prove correlation, but I suspect one exists. Panic and shouting are rarely allies of responsibility and reason—and in this case, not even of basic hygiene.

The speed at which normal life is being turned on its head is astounding. In recent days, as Lenin might say, decades have been happening. I canceled a business trip to Zagreb last Friday—just hours before the Council of Europe suspended all travel and meetings for its employees. A multilateral organization that can’t hold international meetings is in an awkward position. The first days of the workweek were spent managing the most urgent fallout and minimizing the impact on future operations.

In my directorate, we quickly began preparing for a collective shift to remote work. While teleworking has long existed in our institution—as in many others—it’s typically been used for brief, individual tasks like drafting reports, project proposals, or speeches. It’s obviously not a model that functions when 170 people from my directorate are working from home and still expected to keep the organization operational. Not everyone can sit at home writing reports from meetings that no longer happen.

Within two days, my colleagues and I compiled a list of tasks that could still be performed under the new circumstances and formed small working teams of four to five people for each. Each team leader was left to determine how best to coordinate communication and collaboration based on the nature of the work and the team’s technical setup. We established protocols to ensure security and continuity of administrative and financial operations. A networked system of collaboration was developed among teams. We created simple reporting forms that group leaders would send along a designated communication chain up to me—like a digital courier service.

Many of these solutions were later replicated in other parts of the organization. Only a few days later did I realize the source of my inspiration. Our emergency planning mirrored the knowledge drilled into me nearly 40 years ago by my high school teacher of “General People’s Defense and Social Self-Protection,” none other than Janez Janša. I say this with absolute sincerity and not a hint of irony: I’m very grateful to him. Since Friday, the Council of Europe’s Directorate for Democratic Participation has been organized like a territorial defense unit.

One of the most encouraging experiences during this time has been people’s responses—despite their anxiety, they’ve acted with responsibility, efficiency, creativity, and humor. The latter is especially vital in situations like this, which is why I can’t understand the public outcry in Slovenia against anyone who dares crack a joke. Humor is the immune system of sanity and mental health. Remember the wartime jokes about proverbial Bosnians Mujo, Haso, and Fata? They were invented by Bosnians to keep from going mad.

To help maintain perspective, I rely on my friend Goran, who spent the entire war in Sarajevo under siege. “Over a thousand days with mortar shelling,” he says. “We survived largely because we didn’t have Twitter.” Goran doesn’t tweet. You won’t find him on Facebook or Instagram. His social network consists of family and friends. He takes the coronavirus very seriously—because of the tragic war experience in which his family lost a close relative to a shell explosion outside the Bosnian presidency building.

“If you want to stay alive, you have to be careful,” he told me. “But if you want to stay human, you have to overcome fear.” These words might be the best guide for the times we’re living through. Let’s stop behaving as if the first excludes the second. Or vice versa.

The coronavirus is a test of our individual and collective responsibility, solidarity, and character. On an individual level, we’re learning a lot about ourselves and those around us. We’re being tested on our human qualities. Are we capable of empathy? Are we willing to give up some comfort and routine to protect others? To help those most at risk?

This is what guided my communication with colleagues. Even though I (still) can’t force anyone to work from home, I made it clear that I expect everyone to do so—except in exceptional cases tied to workflow, not personal preferences. This is a matter of social responsibility.

The battle against the coronavirus is like the epic Yugoslav WWII film the Battle of Sutjeska—a battle to save the wounded. Though in the sequel, the hero is not Richard Burton but Elizabeth Taylor, barricaded on Sveti Stefan.

The health crisis will eventually end—but the economic and social consequences will be deep and lasting. The way we respond to them will critically shape the world we live in afterward. We have an opportunity to make it a better one than before.

Are we mature and rational enough to recognize the importance of solidarity and cooperation in addressing global, regional, and local challenges? Will we understand just how small, fragile, and interdependent this world really is? Will we see how dangerous it is, in the face of a global threat, to rely on populism and mock science and experts? Will we appreciate the importance of international solidarity, multilateral cooperation, and global governance—which has lately become a favorite target of nationalists, whose power depends on convincing you that every threat comes from outside?

There are no guarantees that we’ll get the right answers to these questions after the crisis. Threats like this breed fear, and fear drives irrationality, panic, division, and hatred.

And yet—I haven’t lost hope. What other choice do we have?

Without cynicism, I say this: Too many of us will survive for us to ignore the fact that the coronavirus threatens not only our health but the very kind of society in which we can live with dignity—not merely survive. If at all.