Ever Donné: the ship stuck in the Suez Canal that caused the outcry from the networks

March 31, 20214:30 p.m.

The news of the ship called Never given, who was stuck for several days in the Suez Canal hampering business operations for tens of billions of dollars, it has been greeted enthusiastically on social media. On the one hand, it was a change of scene: something unexpected that took us out of the litany of cases, infections, vaccines, strains and intensive care beds that the Covid hegemonizes in the field of information. On the other, it was an instant metaphor. The image of the huge ship crossed diagonally preventing the normal flow of ships to come and go with their goods, worked without much nuance. It was enough to give the ship the name of your hypothesis as to why everyone, or Argentina or the world, was not performing well and the thing was going on its own.

The truth is, what started out as a colorful note was gaining space in news services and ended up being recognized as a phenomenal headache for the global economy, already frowned upon by the pandemic. If the personal data Never given (400 meters long, 200 thousand tons of weight, 20 thousand containers) were impressive, those of the impatient boats queuing, either at the mouth of the canal on the Mediterranean, or in the Red Sea, were energetic: “The Most are bulk carriers (98) and container ships (96); In addition, 35 tankers storing crude oil, 26 chemical tankers, 24 general cargo ships, 22 vehicle cargo ships, 16 LNG liquefied natural gas tankers, 14 refined tankers, 11 cattle ships are also waiting to resume navigation. , 10 LPG liquefied gas tankers and 15 ships that load other types of cargo, ”according to the notes on the subject.

Of course, there were plenty of notes that used the episode to point out the limits of capitalism and / or globalization. It is a line of thinking that continues the one in which the pandemic was signaled as a call for nature’s attention to globalization. Most likely, these notes coexist with others that indicate the speed with which very reasonably effective vaccines were obtained and the need for their worldwide distribution.

Every possible advantage was used to make jokes.

In the first place, let us underline those of Lacanian influence who wisely used the polysemy of the word “channel” and the ambiguity of the images.

Then came the interpretations on what could be represented with the disproportion between the obstacle and the tools to remove it:

One of the big mysteries was where the scrambling came from – how someone can cross a boat diagonally in a channel that is obviously designed to flow in a straight line.

The answer seems to be that of particularly strong winds that caused Ever Given to lose control. According to some, these were not unexpected winds, but came from the bottom of history.

Another way to find its charm in the accident – which escapes both the express metaphor and the insensitive joke – is to appreciate that it allows, after having been so long immersed in virtuality, to rediscover the idea of ​​physics. We tend to think of items that arrive at our home via delivery as dots on a map that travel to our door and come to life as the doorbell rings. The episode made us realize that every toilet paper that travels from Asia to Europe, every garment made in China that is consumed in the West, every electronic gadget, has to travel physically, cross distances and borders by different means of transport. , including ships. , which we had forgotten.

The images of the thousands of containers transported by Ever Given were shocking: one way or another, the human being loads and houses things of different sizes in these gigantic cages and manages to bring them in the direction indicated, a feat no less than genomic sequencing or the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. The bad maneuver of Ever Given has shown humanity that this path has pitfalls, difficulties and all kinds of difficulties. We went back to find maps, to see what the Red Sea was, what role the Suez Canal played, how it compared to the Panama Canal. We imagine real objects moving in space with all the difficulties that this implies. It was in a way the return of the real.

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