Will we ultimately adjust our lives to this new abnormal?

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com

Twenty years ago, I went to Macedonia to cover the impact of the civil war in Kosovo. The whole border area right into the capital, Skopje, had been turned into massive refugee camps. As the weeks went into months, you could see people who had been turfed out of their homes get used to the new reality.

Two years ago, I was in Ethiopia, a country that has over one million refugees. Most of the camps are run by humanitarian organisations and the truth is that they have better living conditions there than if they were to try to fare for themselves in the very poor countryside around them.

Some of them have been living there for more than a decade and the refugee camps now have permanent structures. There are schools and shops and massive food distribution centres.

It looks more like a shabby town than a canvas city these days, although the vast majority are dependent on hand-outs.

The net message is that people adjust to the conditions – to the reality that confronts them. Perhaps they bargain that it’s not forever; perhaps they get used to what is called the ‘new normal’.

You go out now and everybody is wearing a mask. When it first happened, it seemed like a curiosity.

Other things take longer to get used to; the absence of sports, for one. How many hundreds of thousands of people used to go to matches at weekends or in the long summer evenings to see their local parish or club participate?

Sure – it will be on television but it’s a lesser form.

The All-Ireland series will be truncated. And with the virus worsening in Dublin, it’s now looking like crowd numbers will remain severely restricted.

It’s also difficult for teenagers and people in their twenties – because when it comes to hormones versus the virus, hormones win every time.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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