Najam Comments on Post-Pandemic World
Adil Najam, Dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, was quoted in a La Tercera article exploring what a post-pandemic world may evolve into.
The article, titled “Post pandemia: ¿De regreso a los ‘locos años 20’?” (Post Pandemic: Back to the “Roaring Twenties”?), features comments from leading experts including Professor Nicholas Christakis from Yale University, author of the recent book Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live. While Christakis and others suggested that a possibility was a return to hyper-consumption and something like the “roaring twenties,” Najam feared that given what was already in train before the pandemic it is more likely that the world may be facing conditions more like the early 1910s.
In his remarks, Najam suggested that “the world was already complicated enough before the pandemic but one of the good things that COVID-19 can give us is the opportunity to reconfigure everything.” However, he also pointed out that the pandemic has effected people differently, and there are even some who have benefitted from an entirely remote lifestyle. In concluding, Najam noted the difficulty in rebuilding after the pandemic stating, “the period of time that corresponds to this pandemic and the years to come is that of a world that is trying to be born. And we know that births are always painful.”
The full article can be read on La Tercera‘s website.
Adil Najam is a global public policy expert who also served as the Vice Chancellor of the Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan. He is the Inaugural Dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and was the former Vice Chancellor of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). His research focuses on issues of global public policy, especially those related to global climate change, South Asia, Muslim countries, environment and development, and human development. Read more about Dean Najam on his faculty profile.