Homo homini lupus est, a Latin phrase from Plautus meaning "man is a wolf to man." In these troubled times, it would be reasonable to believe that this phrase still holds true today. However, those who see human beings as nothing but selfish manipulators will struggle to grasp the greatness of soul shown by those who prove to us just how capable of improvement we all are. There is good in each of us. Solidarity and empathy are innate human reflexes, confirmed by science, and small daily gestures are enough to awaken them.
The year 2019 had started well, and started strong. The overall mood was tense. Everyday life had never felt so bleak: a dizzying drop in the national currency, an unprecedented decline in purchasing power, a race to the bottom. The recurring strikes by public school teachers were also met with total incomprehension from parents whose children were, in effect, held hostage.
Let's admit that "leadership by example" leaves something to be desired in this country. Quite a few esteemed officials are much alike, and worth very little. This observation is a sad one, and the words to describe it are harsh. Yet concrete, unique solutions do exist. These solutions lie within us. Within each of us.
There are two realities clashing today. The first is imposed on us by people driven by the love of power. The second is offered to us by people driven by the power of love.
The broken window hypothesis: an environment that shapes our behavior
Over eight years, this hypothesis has taken shape before our eyes and has since been shaping our daily lives. The theory was born in the United States in the 1930s and developed further during the 1980s and 90s. It establishes a causal link between the deterioration of public spaces and a broader breakdown in the human situations that result from it.
If a human community is made to live in a run-down space, general behavior tends toward disorder. And if there's one thing that has characterized our public space in recent years, it's precisely this visible decay: piles of waste, severe environmental unsanitariness, and a notorious absence of law enforcement.
While municipal responsibility is undeniable, we should also examine our own individual responsibilities. Let's constantly ask ourselves: "What can I do to make things better?"
From experience, all it takes is starting a positive action to inspire those around us to do the same. A dynamic very often kicks in instantly. Don't wait for municipal workers to come by before cleaning up your surroundings, picking up the little scraps of paper and other wrappers that litter our streets and alleys.
I'd particularly like to draw the attention of those who clean their house courtyards using large amounts of water. I won't dwell on how far from eco-friendly this cleaning method is, especially in a country threatened by growing water stress. However, I will point out the lack of hygiene that comes with the dirty, often stagnant water that ends up in the streets and in front of house fences.
This gesture, forgivable in our grandmothers' time, makes no sense today. And yet we keep repeating it, without even realizing that the very least we could do is pick up the debris that comes along with this water meant to purify our homes.
In fact, it's enough to start small. Let's tell ourselves that the sum of small actions will eventually bring about the changes we'd like to see happen.
Generosity, kindness, and gratitude: the pillars of solidarity
Tunisians are generous. That's undeniable, and it's actually their finest quality. Yet generosity alone isn't enough. We share our resources, we give food, we financially support someone in need. But we do so with a certain emotional reserve.
We give our money without any trouble, but we don't give enough of ourselves. We don't give our time, we don't give our smile, our affection, our warmth, our courtesy, our kindness.
To remedy this, we would need not only to multiply our good deeds but also to practice gratitude. Gratitude, let's remember, is one of the keys to happiness, even when living in hostile circumstances. We stop comparing ourselves to others, we become less aggressive because we feel fortunate, and we develop our self-esteem and our empathy.
If we had to start somewhere, gratitude is where we should start.
Empathy, an innate trait to encourage in order to strengthen solidarity
Scientific discoveries have proven that human beings are an empathetic species. In 1996 in Parma, human physiology professor Giacomo Rizzolatti's team revealed that "mirror neurons" activate in the same way whether people are feeling an emotion themselves or watching someone else feel it.
So we can perceive other people's emotions as if they were our own. Psychology researchers Felix Warneken and Michael Tomasello studied the spontaneous kindness of 18-month-old children. They observed that these children would interrupt their play to spontaneously help an adult who asked them, for example, to move something.
Magnetic resonance imaging reveals that acts of cooperation activate the same pleasure zones in the brain as when we eat a treat. Competition, on the other hand, stimulates the zones associated with disgust.
According to an American study, people who volunteer score higher than average on measures of happiness, self-esteem, and quality of life. These people, generally less prone to depression, also seem to be less affected by Alzheimer's disease, live longer, and enjoy better health.
So be kind — it's good for you too!
Solidarity at the heart of the collective response
Just remember the extraordinary wave of solidarity in the wake of the fall of Ben Ali's regime in Tunisia. Think of the caravans that regularly travel across the country to reach underprivileged regions, or the support given to Libyan refugees during the war.
The association Maram Solidarité shows this generosity in action: in 2017 it raised 1,257,882 DT to build a special unit within Tunis's bone marrow transplant center for children with cancer. More recently, the help Tunisians gave to residents of regions hit by the latest floods, as well as the opening of the Jbel Semmama arts and crafts cultural center by the Rambourg foundation in the Kasserine governorate, bear witness to that same spirit of solidarity.
There are countless examples, coming from both individual initiatives and actions organized within associations, collectives, or foundations. Mutual aid networks flourish not only here, but also everywhere else in the world (in the USA, more than five hundred thousand have been counted).
Human beings are inclined to cooperate with others, whenever given the opportunity, for the sheer pleasure of contributing to the common good.
Empathy and solidarity in the digital age
Online, donation websites are proliferating, and people give perfect strangers objects they no longer use. Initiatives promoting mutual aid and kindness are multiplying. Seventeen countries around the world now hold an annual day of kindness. Not to mention those famous free hugs sessions, or all those clips called random acts of kindness.
Models of cooperation are multiplying online. Thousands of internet users share their knowledge on Wikipedia. Teachers provide tutoring to younger students, without being paid for it. They create pages, post their lessons, set exercises, and provide the answer keys. High school students preparing for their baccalaureate exams can certainly attest to this.
Studies have shown that online interactions, far from encouraging people to withdraw into themselves, actually foster greater sociability in everyday life. Millennials prove the point: the millennium generation, some two billion young people who grew up with the internet.
This generation, also nicknamed "Generation G," unlike Generation X (people born in the 60s and 70s) and Generation Y (born in the 80s), is made up of individuals who are both consumers and citizens.
For them, generosity, exchange, and attention paid to others are sources of personal satisfaction. Simple consumption isn't, in their eyes, a social value in itself, but rather a responsible, civic-minded behavior.
Web culture, built by people who give, exchange, and collaborate, has gotten them used to the notions of sharing and generosity. One direct consequence of this phenomenon is a habit of expecting things for free. This leads them to favor bartering and recycling over buying.
Living through a context of crisis, Generation G pays close attention to prices, looks for fast services, and prefers socially responsible brands. In fact, a brand's commitment to a cause is a purchase trigger: when faced with competing products at equal prices, people favor the brand that stands for something.
Acting now to cultivate solidarity and empathy
Today, we're facing a unique set of circumstances. But this situation is nothing exceptional. Every human generation has, at some point, had to face a similar question: how do we live under hostile conditions?
Can you imagine if our hunter-gatherer ancestors had waited for large carnivores to grow tired of the taste of human flesh in order to ensure their survival, instead of showing ingenuity to adapt to the situation and overcome the difficulties?
You see, there's always a way through. All it takes is not being a devout believer in fatalism, and deciding to take matters into your own hands and act.
