In these nearly three months, fear, ignorance and insecurity have led us all to lockdown, but the time we have spent in lockdown has not been in vain. Seeing what we see in the era of confinement and on the road to the “new normality” that we are living now, and learning what we have learned, more and more of us think that we do not have to return to the “normal situation” of before.

It is clear that the coronavirus has not been created by capitalism, because it is natural, but there is no doubt that capitalism has created the conditions for the coronavirus to become a great global pandemic. It is patriarchal capitalism that turns many diseases into pandemics.

We've seen and learned that the real TAV has been the trade flow that capitalism has organized worldwide to turn the coronavirus into a pandemic. What was created in China quickly spread through trade relations to the European Union and Asia. From there to the United States. From United States to South America and Oceania. And finally, the world's poorest area, Africa.

And in all those places, we've seen and learned that the most affected, the poorest social classes, the poor, the migrants, the workers and the women have been the most disadvantaged. Geographically and socially, the class perspective is what gives us the real picture of the massacre of the pandemic. But all of this is hidden from us by the powerful media that the capitalists control.

We have also seen and learned that the current socio-economic model that does not put life and nature at the centre, and the political class that leads it, has no real capacity to manage the crisis properly. The management of the health crisis has been and is, of course, being regrettable.

We have been condemned to a lockdown of almost three months as it is better for us. We have been closed schedules, limited mobility and condemned to leave those we love alone on the eve of death. And we've passed everything without big protests. Finally, if these measures have not been complied with, the imposition of hard fines has also been approved. In lockdown, we've seen and learned where obedience leads us.

And how did they do that? First, because we've been led to believe a big lie. We were told that the coronavirus struck us all equally, the rich, the workers and the poor, both in Asia and in Europe or America. And as a result, we were led to believe that we had to face each other together. And as if it was a natural thing in the world, in these three months we have joined the path that they impose on us.

But after three months, what we see is different. We have seen and learned that the pandemic has hit very differently all social classes and the different development situations of the world. How can we carry out containment and hygiene, for example, in misery, homelessness or work, without clean and potable water, among the more than two billion people who have suffered the coronavirus attack in the world? How do you get into the street to eat something every day in the lockdown and landfill, millions of people who have to go out and get food? Rich families can be nicely refined in their large houses or chalets, but many working-class families have seen faces and the poorest have repaid the strategy of the rich.

And now what?

We are increasingly convinced that the economic crisis ahead of us is going to be much more damaging to the workers and to the grass-roots classes than we have experienced. The 2008 crisis was a financial economic crisis. This is, however, a crisis of the real economy, of production and of consumption, not of speculation, which leads us to the new financial crisis.

If we saw and learned something in 2008, it was that if we don't organize for the fight, the workers will repay the bill. And it's that the coronavirus isn't going to end capitalism. We, the workers and the public sector, will have to throw away. But to do so, we're going to have to radically change the behavior we've had so far. We must abandon obedience to capital and start a disobedient rebellion.

We must not forget that all the measures taken by states to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the destruction of social, civil and political freedoms, are designed and taken to deal with the social protests that may result from the economic crisis ahead of us. States are preparing their future, that is, they are already taking steps to renew the Shock Doctrine of Naomi Klein.

It is to be assumed that the global crisis of the globalized world had already weakened them in several states, some believed that the missing class struggle would take a measure that no one expected in the coming months, putting in place a multiplier effect at the global level. Remember the principle of pinpilinpauxa globalisation. We must not forget that in the five years before the coronavirus the revolt was on the way to revitalization in many parts of the world.

First of all, States and international entities have implemented various economic programmes with billions of investment in productive sectors. Through these economic programmes, in addition to replenishing public money to the private sectors, work is being done, above all, to defend oneself. States are trying to "save" jobs from their territories, such as jobs, to alleviate the crisis and prevent social revolt from erupting. The right has opted for the same route, as the principle of self-regulation of the market without state intervention would aggravate the current situation.

And yet, despite the investment of billions of euros, many companies will be ruined in the coming months and unemployment and precariousness will grow all over the world, along with declining consumption. Millions of jobs will be lost in the world.

All this will strengthen in the near future the need for protest and rebellion of the workers and popular sectors, which, in addition to its assistance character, should entail the articulation of a popular power of a transformative and revolutionary character.

Faced with this reality, political and economic decision-makers around the world are concerned. “We’re at war,” they said. They have not forgotten the one-year riots of Jaka Haus in the French State or the gigantic social protests that until recently were in force in other countries of the world.

In Euskal Herria, as in the whole world, the working class, youth, women, pensioners, ecologists, migrants… we have all started again. We've lost our fear and we've started to get out on the street. We have abandoned obedience to the strategy marked by capital and have set ourselves on the path to further progress on the path of disobedience. So that we can decide our future, we are igniting new struggles for the sovereigns.

We do not want to return to the “old normality” or the “new normality” offered by the capitalists. We want a different world that puts life and nature at the center. Between brutality and socialism, our choice is that of socialism, in the Basque Country and in the world. We have a thousand doubts about the future, but we have long learned that what is lost is what is not fought. Fortunately, the lockdown has not blinded us.

*Joseba Álvarez, member of the left abertzale