In "The Future Begins Today", a video by Boaventura De Sousa Santos, he explores the pandemic as a symbol of globalisation, where although the north and south are equally involved, it is not on equal terms. He calls this the "abyssal line", that divides humanity into two parts that don't see each other. This inequity has only been reinforced by the pandemic, he argues, exposing the "open veins of the world" and uninsurable dangers, created by the arrogance of a capitalist, colonialist and patriarchal global system.

While laying out the stark choices that lie before us, Santos sees the pandemic as inviting us into a new conversation, an epistemological break to a more diverse landscape of knowledges beyond Eurocentrism. This would include the wisdom of the popular knowledges of the world, and the epistemologies of the south. Santos argues that we need to radically change our concept of nature and our system of democracy, in order to make the transition that is needed to a post-capitalist, post-colonial and post-patriarchal society.

Boaventura de Sousa Santos is Professor of Sociology and Emeritus Director of the Centre for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, and legal scholar of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is one of the rare public intellectuals to challenge the inequity between the global north and south, inherent to the current globalised order.