Solidarity usually suggests physical proximity: goodwill spreading with hugs and cozy chatter. But when you have a crisis with social distancing as an antidote, is that a barrier to comradeship? Far from it. On social media, videos of Italian flash-mobs singing to their neighbors have been shared, as well as petitions to test British National Health Service staff and footage of the ‘Viva los Medicos’ (long live the doctors) mass shout-outs from Spanish windows. Online solidarity overcomes borders, all the more so during a global pandemic. But Europe, which has been described as the ‘epicenter’ of COVID-19, has its own particular flavor of solidarity.
It was the growing outbreak in Italy that really brought attention to coronavirus across the continent. Sadly, disaster usually has to cross the Mediterranean for Europeans to sit up and notice. European nations have a long history of attacking each other’s castles and rolling tanks over each other’s corn-fields, but the continent also has an impressive history of solidarity. Dive into the history books and you quickly find examples.
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