Health

An interview with Senegalese Felwine Sarr

Dakar, May 1, EFE, (Camera: María Rodríguez).- Senegalese philosopher, economist, musician and writer Felwine Sarr believes that the pandemic has put time back at our disposal. However, we feel incapable of living it in a way other than routine overactivity. FOOTAGE OF INTERVIEW WITH FELWINE SARR (SENEGALESE PHILOSOPHER, ECONOMIST, MUSICIAN AND WRITER) TRANSLATIONS: 1: "We were in the age of acceleration and speed and with very little downtime, with time saturation and a culture of occupying it. And now we find ourselves unable to live with time differently than with over-activity and work, or what we can call established time, a time-oriented towards the production of a goal or a commodity or an end. Therefore, this forces us to slow down, a slowing down that was not our choice, and to re-learn to live a time that is available and in which certain existential questions arise.2: "This crisis makes us return to ourselves and makes this time distressing, but also potentially happy and fruitful. For those who had not learned to be with themselves, this crisis obliges them to do so, to face up to it, to meditate and reflect on the use of time, on the extras and the essential, on the purpose of human existence, existential and philosophical, spiritual, ethical and social questions that we have already dealt with but which we have delegated to others, whom we call thinkers".3: "Today, in the midst of the crisis, everyone is aware of the need for the new social and health architecture in countries like ours, but I fear that if after the crisis the social forces are not mobilized and if civil society is not mobilized, that all this will be progressively covered by oblivion and that we will return to bad habits".4: "What is interesting to note is that it is not only man who makes history. Mosquitoes, pangolin, living beings make history. The changes that are going to come to our societies are made by the animals that lead to them.5: "Yes, it would be a pity to return to the world of before, where indeed in the cities one breathes better and the water currents, the animals return, there are species that reproduce on the beaches, turtles, because the beaches are now abandoned, etc. I think that this must be put in relation to the fact that 80% of industrial pollution has been stopped, and in my opinion what is dizzying is to realise that, in fact, a large percentage of the activity will have to be reduced to get there. That is already dizzying.6: "And that means that the challenge for humanity is a cultural and civilizational revolution. And we need to put it into practice and program it, that's the question for me, it's not going to be done alone, it will be necessary to take political and economic decisions, consensual decisions and that the economic and political elites adhere to a change of culture and civilization and for me that's a huge task".