While we might feel small, separate and all alone, Our people have never been more closely tethered The question isn't if we can weather this unknown, But how we will weather this unknown together. —Amanda Gorman, “The Miracle of Morning” In a sweeping stroke, the onslaught of the COVID-19 virus turned the world upside down. People faced a natural phenomenon from antiquity,11 This essay is not considering the possibility of a lab-created virus. Investigation of the Wuhan lab in China is ongoing, and conclusions are not definitive. a virus seeking human hosts, particularly those weakened by ill health and low immunity, and conditions worsened by contemporary societal inequalities and failed political responses.22 I have published several pieces and made Zoom presentations in international conferences bringing up the possible roles of these variables. COVID-19 relentlessly pursued its goal of survival by rapidly changing (variants and mutations) to enhance its inherent transmissibility among bewildered folk. The effectiveness and success of the (unintelligent) virus mutating rapidly and prevailing over (intelligent) human resources resembled the stuff of fiction. Most people could not comprehend the fact that the virus acted naturally as an organism and that it is not a new phenomenon. Its efficiency and speed were outside easy reach of familiar political, medical, technological, and financial solutions. They were facing an invisible life-threatening organism of a seemingly enigmatic nature. The difficulty was how to deal with science. Scientifically reliable facts are slow to produce and difficult to understand. Rigor is a process, and science takes time. The pace of systematic research is too slow to satisfy a public's anxious need to know. It is far easier to deal with facts. Politicians were scapegoated as they fumbled to balance public health safety and maintain the economy. As reliable data gradually appeared, evolving technologies expedited instant communication, radiating the information out to national health centers and on social media, which made it instantly accessible to people. The World Health Organization (WHO) acted as a global hub, instantly reaching anxious folk around the world. In my initial analysis of the pandemic, I had noted an omission of what I considered a compelling yet grossly overlooked aspect (El Guindi 2020a, 2020c). The pandemic, I argue, unmasked hidden realities about society, which perhaps politicians chose to deprioritize—poverty, poor health services, homelessness, neglect of the elderly population, racist inequalities, unemployment, unequal access to health care, and poor quality of food, which are all conditions already present in affluent countries but neglected in favor of other priorities. Slowly, as social scientists began to focus on these factors, rigorous publications on these issues began to appear in peer-reviewed publications (Andrasfay and Goldman 2021; Schmelz and Bowles 2021). In this essay, I identify some overlooked pandemic patterns that merit consideration. I also analyze approaches taken by some countries in dealing with development, examples that provide insight into what might work better in today's world, particularly in dealing with global-scale crises. The proposed approach is rooted in notions traditionally central to the field of economic anthropology, such as the concept of exchange and “the gift,” in a way that conceptually centers the concept of value and the ideal of socio-moral justice. A rethinking is proposed to deal with today's “world closely tethered.” Business was no more “as usual.” The shock from the pandemic onslaught led to nonlinear, multidirectional changes in many realms—business, work, travel, school, family, politics, health, social life, and more. For example, the interruption of international travel, which brought big losses to multinational airline corporations, turned international conferences into virtual meetings. Domestically and internationally, people were meeting online. This brought the world closer more safely, but in a different and unfamiliar way. Access to the internet had facilitated webinar meetings as an option prior to the pandemic, but with the crisis, it became a necessity, used more frequently and more widely around the world. Instead of experiencing jet lag at meetings and conferences, participants were able to cross oceans, borders, and time zones, exponentially expanding worldwide connections while remaining stationary. Missing in these connections was face-to-face interaction. In the sphere of world politics and economics, globalization was proceeding on a path toward eliminating borders and replacing nation-states with a global world order. There was an “Infinite War on Terror” with no vision but with its sight set on other nations' natural resources, to be acquired by “constructive chaos.” The rise of terror groups like ISIS, secured by proxy and mercenary threats, brought about violence and an influx of “refugees” escaping war and poverty and seeking livelihoods in Europe and the United States. The world saw growing global instability and insecurity. Arresting the process of openness, the pandemic forced a decision of border closures. The nation-state reemerged as the most effective mode for reaching local communities, protecting human security, and providing safety from terror and the spread of the pandemic infection. It was the channel through which measures proposed by the WHO were carried out on the ground. The WHO became a global observer of national behaviors, exposing selfish attempts to hog vaccines or claim primacy in their production. “Vaccine nationalism” was criticized. This was reminiscent of the selfish behavior of hoarding toilet paper by individuals at the onset of the pandemic. Whether to consider such greed an element of cultural tradition or a behavioral response to a crisis was addressed in a recent study that reexamines early ethnographic portrayals of the Ik of northern Uganda as “greedy and mean … [with a] culture of selfishness [in the face of] … chronic scarcity” (Townsend et al. 2021, 1). The study suggests a more complex relationship between hardship and human generosity, stressing a distinction between cultural tradition and certain behavioral responses; the study suggests a consideration of behavioral (individual or group) responses to major crises. Egypt, for example, was thrust into a violent confrontation in Sinai against militias. This is at a time when Egypt was coming out of two revolutions that ousted two presidents. Eighteen years after my op-ed had appeared in the Los Angeles Times (El Guindi 1993), in which I critiqued former president Mubarak's rule of Egypt, the Egyptian people led a revolution in two phases (2011–13), shouting “irhal” (Arabic for “depart” or “leave”) from the street as millions of Egyptians revolted until they removed first Mubarak, the author of “amoral business,” and a year later Morsi, the author of “amoral religion” weaponized to destabilize (Foda, Rizk, and Abdul-Karim [1987] 2005).33 This is a now famous critic of the Muslim Brotherhood who critiques the notion of Islam as religion and state. In his work, he stresses the notion of “national” unity. Note that the model proposed here is grounded in a civilizational identity of a people that does lead to national unity, but they must be dealt with separately in analysis. To confront the terror within its borders, Egypt had to act as a nation and a state. It was not buying in to the “War on Terror” paradigm. Using the principle of tafwid,44 The Arabic term tafwid was deployed in Egypt to describe the direct authorization by the people from the street to select their leadership; the word ranges in etymological meanings from authorize to empower to delegate to invest with authority to entrust—all leading to direct investiture with authority by the people. the people directly called on Abdul Fattah El-Sisi to become president, thus authorizing authority for governance from the street.55 A striking call from the street when Sisi mentioned the constitution and elections was “we just invested you with authority, don't waste time in such procedures”—a new direct democracy form was born. With the leadership of their choice in place, Egypt began to build and move forward. The vision was of countering the “War on Terror” with an alternative: a three-pronged approach of protecting its national security, rebuilding its state institutions and economy, and engaging partnerships around the world using “strategic cooperation.” One core element in this paradigm was the reaffirmation of the Egyptian identity, firmly anchoring it in ancient Egyptian history and values, while recognizing the broader sides of Egypt's identity formed out of its geopolitical centrality. Anchored in its Egyptian heritage, Egypt had a Mediterranean, African, Arab, Islamic, and Christian multifaceted identity. No room was left for intolerant ideologies of exclusion. Unifying these aspects of identity, already integral to the Egyptian deep historical/cultural formation, reaffirms how Egyptians already view themselves—more as one fabric than in quantified terms as majority/minority, for example. This in turn worked to catalyze their response to the state's emergency management of the pandemic crisis. In the realm of education during the pandemic, we saw a worldwide shift away from in-person teaching to virtual classrooms. Aspects of distance learning and relevant technologies were already in place and being partially used. But the pandemic resulted in a sudden and total shift from in-person teaching to prevent person-to-person contact. This involved major parental adjustments and a reset in teaching mode. Most teachers had to learn how to teach without direct contact with students. Although students with physical challenges found distance learning to be more suitable for them, many students were confronted with challenges to their individual abilities to rely on new technologies and to conform to learning expectations without the “learning environment” to which they were accustomed. Realignment of work, children's school, and home posed big challenges. For me, an interesting cross-cultural perspective was played out in a telephone conversation with a colleague from Qatar University.66 I had been invited to Qatar University as Distinguished Professor, 2006–15, to build the social sciences as part of Education Reform Project. I remain in contact with some colleagues of both sexes. As I asked how Qatari faculty were coping with distance teaching technology, my colleague swiftly responded, “Women teachers love it; they teach while in their nightgowns from home” (personal communication, April 29, 2020) (privacy for women demands voice-only communication). But there was a rising concern about a decline in student performance and attendance, recently expressed in an opinion essay by the editorial board of the New York Times (August 21, 2021) about learning setbacks from public school closures in the United States since March 2020, particularly among vulnerable populations. There have also been concerns raised by UNESCO and UNICEF regarding the welfare of children due to resorting to shutdowns instead of considering alternative paths. There was no turning back. The old normal was perceived as a breeding ground for the crisis itself. New modes were being created. “Back-to-normal” thinking turned into hybrid modes. Why can't some jobs be accomplished partially out of the home? Why can't meetings be held virtually by Zoom? Why can't services be delivered to the home? Although home delivery was already in process as a convenience prior to the pandemic, the pandemic widened delivery services of food, goods, and medicine as it became a necessity, not an option of convenience (Oka 2021). Interestingly, this trend of home delivery of services was already in place decades earlier in the countries of the Middle East, not for public health safety, but for cultural reasons of privacy (for a detailed ethnographic account of the notion and practice of privacy in Arab culture, see El Guindi [1999] 2003, 2016). As pointed out earlier, the instant response to the crisis worldwide was how the pandemic would adversely affect the world economy. National and local politicians, particularly in the West, strongly expressed concern about local business. This rapidly colluded with the reality that the threat was faced by both businesses and people. Ordinary people were directly affected by the overwhelming virus spread. They suffered from infection and watched from a distance as their relatives died in isolation. The elderly died alone. Families could not visit. Overall, people were anxious and lived in fear. No wonder they were seeking satisfying and rapid official responses about the medical aspect of the virus. But information trickled in slowly, and politicians stumbled in attempts to balance the issue of public health and matters adversely affecting the economy. Some were reduced to recitations in press conferences of daily infection and death rates. To people, it was life and death, and to politicians, it was survival in office. Politicians behaved as if running for office and dealt with the people as voters. True measures for health safety, particularly mandates for isolation and physical distance, were leading to losses of income for small businesses and working people. In the United States, by virtue of its decentralized governance structure, decisions were made and unmade by governors and mayors, which led to loss of confidence and trust. The pandemic altered the social environment. Distancing and face-masking turned human interactions into cold transactions devoid of smile and touch, connecting without direct contact. Italians longed for belonging and, invoking cultural identity, sang opera on their balconies. New Yorkers yelled at copycats to shut up. New York is not Italy. Culture does matter. Public health officials could not keep Egyptians from rushing to infected relatives in a nearby village. The former were concerned with public health safety, the latter with emotional support and hugs for sick relatives. Clearly the pandemic revealed not only governance and economic problems but, more relevant to people's lives, a very human dimension. It allowed people to rediscover their humanness, which was gradually being lost to a robotized world. Older notions of trade based on exchange and trust turned into market and profit, and the element of “value” lost its human dimension of honor and morality. Business became amoral, with values centered on the individual, and technology, despite all romanticized efforts to humanize it, dehumanized life and social interactions. It is interesting that as communication by telephone began to replace face-to-face contact, the youth of today moved rapidly away from communicating by telephone toward “texting,” a mode devoid of both physical presence and human voice. As a substitute, “emojis” and “emoticons” were to add “human” expression, becoming an industry conveying the illusion of humanizing dehumanized interactions. The global world into which the virus threat penetrated was already becoming a menace: instability, insecurity, religious and ideological extremism, daily violence, humans trafficked for their organs and for sexual pleasure. Going back to normal after the pandemic was itself questioned (El Guindi 2020b). Therefore one aspect I stress here is how the pandemic “unmasked” existing but hidden social conditions and societal flaws. This point was not immediately visible, but eventually, overlooked societal problems were being considered—issues of unemployment, homelessness, racial inequality, unequal access to health services and education privileges. Vulnerable groups were more likely to suffer health problems and become infected by the virus. The irony here is that attention to these problems was not necessarily due to a change of outlook but owed more to self-protection, because viral transmission makes everybody vulnerable. It evens out the plane. If one is vulnerable, all are vulnerable; thus the only path to take was equality. What the pandemic has clearly revealed is that humans' unique cognitive capacity to organize, create, communicate, and imagine has provided them with a quality shown to be much needed in the face of such a global crisis. This quality, I contend, is flexibility. I propose flexibility, rather than the more commonly suggested resilience, to be the key to most effectively dealing with the crisis. It is flexibility that is invoked when rejecting a “return to normal” or for business becoming “not as usual.” It is flexibility that enabled nations to seek an alternative to the destabilizing “War on Terror” playing out in Egypt and around the world. From observations on the trajectory Egypt has carved for itself, I see a viable approach to bringing stability around the world that would enable nations to deal with global crises. The elements of the emerging approach turn self-interest into mutual benefit, shift the sight of natural resources exploiting other nations into a vision of cooperation and sharing, and substitute coalitions for war into alliances for developing sovereign nations. This is not unlike the “kula ring” studied by Bronisław Malinowski, except for the kind of value inherent to the objects of exchange. In lieu of the intrinsic value of the objects exchanged for the purpose of developing links among groups, it is an exchange of services with extrinsic value directly relevant to sustainable development in nations. No ideology is involved, no violation of national sovereignty, no dominance hierarchy. Building a “global ring of mutual alliances” based on cooperation interlocks nations by mutual benefits ranging from the economy to agriculture, security, military, tourism, transportation, and more. This analysis invokes principles from traditional economic anthropology, such as the study by Malinowski (1922) of the kula ring and the gift as a basis for exchange by Marcel Mauss (1967), entwined with the Batesonian (1979) dance of interactive parts (see also Ferguson 1985). Two current events tell us something interesting about the paradigm shift. First, the recent US pullout from Afghanistan marks the end of the “War on Terror” framework. The Baghdad Summit that followed, with the theme of cooperation and sustainable development, hosted by Iraq and attended by Arab and European heads of state or high-ranking officials (including Iran), marked the beginning of the activation of the proposed paradigm. The pandemic has allowed a window for flexibly, considering new ways to build rings of cooperation among nations, and, I argue, will not only bind states politically and economically in sustainable ways but can also serve as bedrock for global cooperation in facing future crises. I thank Economic Anthropology for the invitation to submit an essay on the topic of the pandemic for its symposium, which provides the opportunity to think “outside the box” and bring new, even experimental, ideas into anthropology. Essays seek a less specialized wider public readership. The three anonymous reviewers no doubt contributed to the improvement of this essay.