Trump has said on Twitter that he will temporarily suspend immigration into the USA
Worse to come
“Covid-19 is potentially catastrophic for millions who are already hanging by a thread,” said Dr Arif Husain, chief economist at the World Food Programme. “It is a hammer blow for millions more who can only eat if they earn a wage. Lockdowns and global economic recession have already decimated their nest eggs. It only takes one more shock – like Covid-19 – to push them over the edge. We must collectively act now to mitigate the impact of this global catastrophe.”
The coronavirus crisis will push more than a quarter of a billion people to the brink of starvation unless swift action is taken to provide food and humanitarian relief to the most at-risk regions, the UN and other experts have warned.
About 265 million people around the world are forecast to be facing acute food insecurity by the end of this year, a doubling of the 130 million estimated to suffer severe food shortages last year.
Global hunger could become the next big impact of the pandemic, warns the Global Report on Food Crises, by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, the World Food Programme and 14 other organisations, published on Tuesday. Some of the poorest countries may face the choice of trying to save people stricken by the virus only for them to fall prey to hunger.
Multinational food companies also recently warned that the number of people in chronic hunger could double to more than 1.6 billion as a result of the pandemic.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/21/global-hunger-could-be-next-big-impact-of-coronavirus-pandemic
Never again?
COVID–19 is reshaping the world and some may even become permanent. The pandemic has revealed more starkly the way society is divided and how the poor invariably end up bearing the brunt of crises, deepening poverty and widening of the gap between the rich and the poor. COVID–19 may have brought forward the debate on future of how society is organised. Without exception, COVID 19 people a lot poorer and living standards a lot lower. People are losing their lives and their jobs and for some the mood is one of despondency and hopelessness as a major economic catastrophe looms ahead. People now face a prolonged period of uncertainty. The continuing despair and distrust with the existing political and economic arrangements has made many unlikely to accept a return to business-as-usual. They now question the wisdom of free–market capitalism and profiteering. The pandemic reveals another ugly aspect capitalism’s gross inequality where the mega rich harbour little or no empathy for the less fortunate at a time when working people are going without tests and treatments and when hospitals are struggling to find even the basic facilities like protective gears, ventilators etc. Their message overall has been how quickly normal service is resumed and return to normal where the opportunity now arises to plunder and pillage of the wealth of rival businesses. The insidious root of the problem is that the market simply does not work.
The American $2.2 trillion the CARES Act signed into law by Trump gave a lot away to the biggest corporations, banks and the wealthy — both through a gigantic bailout fund, and also numerous tax credits and deductions. Also the biggest companies got themselves exempted from the requirement in the second related bill from the requirement to provide workers with paid sick leave. The average Americans come out with the short end of the stick. $1,200 per adult won’t take anybody very far given that the typical American spends about $1,000 a week on food, rent, mortgage, et cetera. It’s become very clear that the super-rich have managed to escape to The Hamptons or yachts or wherever and still get concierge healthcare, including, apparently, tests for the virus when they wish. Everybody else is either in limbo or in danger. The pandemic vividly reveals the class structure in America as well as elsewhere. So-called essential workers are not college educated. They are being put into harm’s way, often without adequate equipment or protection. Twice as many Blacks and Latinos are dying in New York than whites. What is so apparent and so obvious is the gaping gap in privilege and wealth and power. We might see more awakening among particularly the working class. The best way to help is to show people what’s been happening.
In the United States, the sociopathic right-wing oligarchs have mobilised their base to protest against lockdowns and quarantines and to advocate the return to work, risking workers to exposure to the virus for the sake of Wall St and the share-holders. Capitalism cannot operate without the labour-power of workers, and with the pandemic, the profits of the capitalist class are in danger.
Fearing he would be blamed for the extent of the pandemic, Trump has sought to lay blame on China and the World Health Organization and those on the Right easily led to believe that the Chinese and U.N. are culpable and Trump is being successful with many Americans at laying blame on the UN and China. Meanwhile Trump awaits to become the saviour of humanity with his promotion of the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19
The pandemic has been bring home to many thatthe promises of normalcy will never deliver security. Workers now sense their own power, aware that they can act without waiting for yesterday’s leaders. Let’s build an a society that inspires. Let’s offer people hope that they can believe in the future. There must not be a regression to former inequalities. Post–pandemic we will need to fight for a green and just world. We must be pushing forward alternatives to the status quo, because those are the ideas that will be the solutions to tomorrow’s deepening crises.
“Rise like lions after slumber,” said Shelley. There is plenty to do, but we have to do it fast.
The American $2.2 trillion the CARES Act signed into law by Trump gave a lot away to the biggest corporations, banks and the wealthy — both through a gigantic bailout fund, and also numerous tax credits and deductions. Also the biggest companies got themselves exempted from the requirement in the second related bill from the requirement to provide workers with paid sick leave. The average Americans come out with the short end of the stick. $1,200 per adult won’t take anybody very far given that the typical American spends about $1,000 a week on food, rent, mortgage, et cetera. It’s become very clear that the super-rich have managed to escape to The Hamptons or yachts or wherever and still get concierge healthcare, including, apparently, tests for the virus when they wish. Everybody else is either in limbo or in danger. The pandemic vividly reveals the class structure in America as well as elsewhere. So-called essential workers are not college educated. They are being put into harm’s way, often without adequate equipment or protection. Twice as many Blacks and Latinos are dying in New York than whites. What is so apparent and so obvious is the gaping gap in privilege and wealth and power. We might see more awakening among particularly the working class. The best way to help is to show people what’s been happening.
In the United States, the sociopathic right-wing oligarchs have mobilised their base to protest against lockdowns and quarantines and to advocate the return to work, risking workers to exposure to the virus for the sake of Wall St and the share-holders. Capitalism cannot operate without the labour-power of workers, and with the pandemic, the profits of the capitalist class are in danger.
Fearing he would be blamed for the extent of the pandemic, Trump has sought to lay blame on China and the World Health Organization and those on the Right easily led to believe that the Chinese and U.N. are culpable and Trump is being successful with many Americans at laying blame on the UN and China. Meanwhile Trump awaits to become the saviour of humanity with his promotion of the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19
The pandemic has been bring home to many thatthe promises of normalcy will never deliver security. Workers now sense their own power, aware that they can act without waiting for yesterday’s leaders. Let’s build an a society that inspires. Let’s offer people hope that they can believe in the future. There must not be a regression to former inequalities. Post–pandemic we will need to fight for a green and just world. We must be pushing forward alternatives to the status quo, because those are the ideas that will be the solutions to tomorrow’s deepening crises.
“Rise like lions after slumber,” said Shelley. There is plenty to do, but we have to do it fast.
UK Migrants’ Help
Thousands of EU migrants are working on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic in the United Kingdom, as doctors, nurses, carers, porters and cleaners.
Others are still out every day, stocking supermarket shelves, driving buses.
A points-based immigration system announced earlier this year sets a minimum salary threshold at 23,040 pounds ($28,755) – meaning low-paid “key workers” would be unable to stay.
The average salary of a care worker, a sector that relies heavily on migrants, is well under 20,000 pounds; hospital porters and cleaners earn even less.
Valued workers or not?
More than half of social care workers putting their health at risk during the coronavirus outbreak are paid below the real cost of living, according to an analysis of their working conditions. Staff are also four times more likely to be on a zero-hours contract than the average worker.
With care workers battling to help the vulnerable, there are renewed demands for a rethink of their pay. The Resolution Foundation think tank said that about half of frontline care workers, some 1 million people, were paid less than the real living wage of £10.75 an hour in London and £9.30 an hour across the rest of Britain. The figure, set by the Living Wage Foundation, is based on everyday living costs in the UK. Among the lowest rung roles in private care companies in England, as many as 90% of workers were paid below the real living wage last year. Tens of thousands also appear to be being paid illegally below the national minimum wage.
“Clapping is welcome, but care workers will value better pay and conditions even more,” the analysis states. “Better pay in care should have long been a priority given the vital role care workers play in protecting the vulnerable – delivering it now is the least we can do.”
Many care workers and providers were continuing to experience shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) and access to testing this weekend, amid concerns in local government over the extent of the pandemic.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/19/half-of-frontline-care-workers-paid-less-than-living-wage
With care workers battling to help the vulnerable, there are renewed demands for a rethink of their pay. The Resolution Foundation think tank said that about half of frontline care workers, some 1 million people, were paid less than the real living wage of £10.75 an hour in London and £9.30 an hour across the rest of Britain. The figure, set by the Living Wage Foundation, is based on everyday living costs in the UK. Among the lowest rung roles in private care companies in England, as many as 90% of workers were paid below the real living wage last year. Tens of thousands also appear to be being paid illegally below the national minimum wage.
“Clapping is welcome, but care workers will value better pay and conditions even more,” the analysis states. “Better pay in care should have long been a priority given the vital role care workers play in protecting the vulnerable – delivering it now is the least we can do.”
Many care workers and providers were continuing to experience shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) and access to testing this weekend, amid concerns in local government over the extent of the pandemic.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/19/half-of-frontline-care-workers-paid-less-than-living-wage
Black Lung and COVID-19
Scarring of the lungs caused by years of coal dust inhalation, more formally known as coal workers’ pneumoconiosis or black lung, leaves miners at high risk of developing serious complications from COVID-19. Now the mining industry is trying to cut its payments to the fund that supports those affected.
While miners with black lung struggle during the pandemic, the coal industry is seeking to use the crisis to its advantage, cutting pay-outs to the federal black lung funds.
Last month the National Mining Association asked Congress to decrease the excise tax that coal companies pay toward the fund by 55%. The federal black lung program, which pays out benefits to former coal miners diagnosed with the condition , has already faced financial problems in recent years in part due to coal companies filing for bankruptcy and shifting millions of dollars in liabilities onto the government.
Some 25,000 former coal miners in the US currently rely on black lung benefits, and hundreds of former miners will die trying to obtain their benefits, leaving their widows with nothing.
At least one in 10 US coal miners who worked in mines for 25 years or more are diagnosed with black lung. In Appalachia, those rates climb to as many as one out of every five. Appalachia experienced a surge in black lung cases in recent years, as US cases hit a 25-year high in 2018.
Black lung clinics across Appalachia have shut down due to coronavirus, with doctors insisting patients stay at home and conduct check-ups by phone or internet. New claims for federal black lung benefits and state exams have been put on hold.
“This extra impairment would be enough to kill them which is why we’re trying to be so careful in not having them in the clinic and encouraging them to stay at home, stay away from people so they don’t get it because it would be much more difficult for someone like that to recuperate, if it’s even possible,” said Debbi Wills, a black lung clinic coordinator in West Virginia.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/19/ive-already-got-infected-lungs-for-sick-coal-miners-covid-19-is-a-death-sentence
While miners with black lung struggle during the pandemic, the coal industry is seeking to use the crisis to its advantage, cutting pay-outs to the federal black lung funds.
Last month the National Mining Association asked Congress to decrease the excise tax that coal companies pay toward the fund by 55%. The federal black lung program, which pays out benefits to former coal miners diagnosed with the condition , has already faced financial problems in recent years in part due to coal companies filing for bankruptcy and shifting millions of dollars in liabilities onto the government.
Some 25,000 former coal miners in the US currently rely on black lung benefits, and hundreds of former miners will die trying to obtain their benefits, leaving their widows with nothing.
At least one in 10 US coal miners who worked in mines for 25 years or more are diagnosed with black lung. In Appalachia, those rates climb to as many as one out of every five. Appalachia experienced a surge in black lung cases in recent years, as US cases hit a 25-year high in 2018.
Black lung clinics across Appalachia have shut down due to coronavirus, with doctors insisting patients stay at home and conduct check-ups by phone or internet. New claims for federal black lung benefits and state exams have been put on hold.
“This extra impairment would be enough to kill them which is why we’re trying to be so careful in not having them in the clinic and encouraging them to stay at home, stay away from people so they don’t get it because it would be much more difficult for someone like that to recuperate, if it’s even possible,” said Debbi Wills, a black lung clinic coordinator in West Virginia.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/19/ive-already-got-infected-lungs-for-sick-coal-miners-covid-19-is-a-death-sentence
Can Covid-19 Change Society?
COVID-19 is revealing and exacerbating pre–existing social and racial inequalities, and laying bare the inadequacies of capitalism’s welfare states safety nets.
It was not profitable for capitalists within the medical-industrial complexes of modern capitalism to produce or stockpile the medical supplies needed to properly manage a viral pandemic.
We are living through a failure of capitalism. It failed to prepare adequately for the coronavirus pandemic (delayed and insufficient production, stockpiling, and distribution of vital medical supplies and services). We live on a crisis-prone planet where we are struggling to survive.
The legitimacy of capitalism is in doubt. We cannot rely on capitalism and its profit motive to serve our most basic social needs. Capitalists prioritise profits as their bottom line.
Governments defer to the pursuit of profit in markets as if that guaranteed meeting basic social needs. It does not; it never did. Many social needs fail to be met when and because they get subordinated to the profit goals of capitalists. It was not profitable for capitalists within the medical-industrial complexes of capitalism to produce or stockpile the medical supplies needed to properly manage a viral pandemic. Because they depend heavily on the support and donations of capitalists, most governments are enthusiastically complicit with their leading capitalists.
The cracks in the capitalism system should present socialists opportunities to pose a threat to the status quo and demand no return to normal. Why should we try to resuscitate the capitalist system that constantly produces poverty. Only two or three paycheques separates us from becoming paupers. Capitalism is built upon inequities, contradictions and crises. Billions live under the most depressing and violent of systems, where the line between wage-slavery, and survival blurs.
Capitalism presents “more capitalism” as a solution. The ruling classes are simply unable to accommodate any change or offer political solutions that only deepen our misery. Under capitalism, and in the current pandemic most of us deprived of property, deprived of liberty and deprived of a livelihood, we are at the mercy of the very system responsible for our pain. Our wages are little reward for the denial of our humanity.
The pandemic has spread in more than 210 countries and disrupted social and economic life across the globe. It has changed the way we live and our working lives. Lockdown has been imposed on more than 3.5 billion people around the world.The human cost of Coronavirus pandemic immeasurable but it offers us an opportunity to completely destroy capitalism as a system. Let this pandemic be a catalyst for human emancipation from all forms of illness promoted by capitalism as a social, economic and political system. We should talk about solutions beyond wage labour, beyond more of the same.
It was not profitable for capitalists within the medical-industrial complexes of modern capitalism to produce or stockpile the medical supplies needed to properly manage a viral pandemic.
We are living through a failure of capitalism. It failed to prepare adequately for the coronavirus pandemic (delayed and insufficient production, stockpiling, and distribution of vital medical supplies and services). We live on a crisis-prone planet where we are struggling to survive.
The legitimacy of capitalism is in doubt. We cannot rely on capitalism and its profit motive to serve our most basic social needs. Capitalists prioritise profits as their bottom line.
Governments defer to the pursuit of profit in markets as if that guaranteed meeting basic social needs. It does not; it never did. Many social needs fail to be met when and because they get subordinated to the profit goals of capitalists. It was not profitable for capitalists within the medical-industrial complexes of capitalism to produce or stockpile the medical supplies needed to properly manage a viral pandemic. Because they depend heavily on the support and donations of capitalists, most governments are enthusiastically complicit with their leading capitalists.
The cracks in the capitalism system should present socialists opportunities to pose a threat to the status quo and demand no return to normal. Why should we try to resuscitate the capitalist system that constantly produces poverty. Only two or three paycheques separates us from becoming paupers. Capitalism is built upon inequities, contradictions and crises. Billions live under the most depressing and violent of systems, where the line between wage-slavery, and survival blurs.
Capitalism presents “more capitalism” as a solution. The ruling classes are simply unable to accommodate any change or offer political solutions that only deepen our misery. Under capitalism, and in the current pandemic most of us deprived of property, deprived of liberty and deprived of a livelihood, we are at the mercy of the very system responsible for our pain. Our wages are little reward for the denial of our humanity.
The pandemic has spread in more than 210 countries and disrupted social and economic life across the globe. It has changed the way we live and our working lives. Lockdown has been imposed on more than 3.5 billion people around the world.The human cost of Coronavirus pandemic immeasurable but it offers us an opportunity to completely destroy capitalism as a system. Let this pandemic be a catalyst for human emancipation from all forms of illness promoted by capitalism as a social, economic and political system. We should talk about solutions beyond wage labour, beyond more of the same.
An Imminent Food Crisis?
British farmers are warning they have been forced to throw millions of gallons of milk down the drain because it no longer has a buyer, cheesemakers are binning artisan cheese and meat processors have an overabundance of sirloin, rib-eye steaks and prime roasting joints.
Britain’s food supplies are set to come under increasing strain as lockdown is extended for at least another three weeks and could go on for much longer.
The problem is not that there is not enough food but that the well-established routes that supply it have been upended so abruptly.
the primary cause of empty supermarket was not inconsiderate stockpile hoarders, as some government ministers claimed, but the fact that a massive part of the food industry had been shut down overnight without a plan in place for how hundreds of millions of meals would be redirected.
In normal times, 35 per cent of the food we eat – around 70 million meals every day – is prepared outside our homes, by restaurants and caterers, in cafes and school canteens. Because restaurants’ needs are very different to those of people cooking at home, billions of pounds of produce was suddenly left without a buyer.
Redistributing a third of Britain’s food is an impossible task without full national co-ordination. For farmers, who cannot quickly change the crops they grow or the animals they rear to suit the new reality, the problems are building up.
Tim Lang, professor of food policy, at London’s City University, argues that the coronavirus pandemic has exposed the fragility of our food system; a system which stretches out over thousands of miles, dozens of countries, and is reliant on migrant labour and air freight. That system has been reshaped, according to Professor Lang’s analysis, largely to suit the interests of nine companies which sell 90 per cent of the food we buy. Supermarkets have been happy to rely on sprawling supply chains that are left exposed during a crisis, as long as the price is right and the product sells.
As a nation, we import half of our food from abroad and, according to some analysts, the true figure could be as high as 80 per cent. Known as “the Hungry Gap” which stretches from the end of the winter season and the start of the summer in late May or sometimes even early June. Historically, it is the leanest part of the year for Britons, when the carrots, onions, potatoes and swede stored through the winter have run out but asparagus – the first sign of summer, in vegetable terms at least – has not yet fully grown. For several decades now, it is the period when we are most reliant on imported food. This year the countries we source much of our food from, notably Spain and Italy, experience their own problems getting enough labour onto farms and seeds in the ground.
“Coronavirus has really highlighted the vulnerability of our current food system and that’s only going to get worse,” says Ashley Wheeler, a small-holder, who points to delays planting crops in Southern Europe that could lead to problems in a few months.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation forecasts that the Covid-19 pandemic will cause shortages of some crops this year. In that scenario, producer countries are likely to prioritise their home markets over exports, increasing the onus on British producers to supply this country’s needs.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/coronavirus-lockdown-uk-food-supplies-strain-supermarkets-a9469476.html
Britain’s food supplies are set to come under increasing strain as lockdown is extended for at least another three weeks and could go on for much longer.
The problem is not that there is not enough food but that the well-established routes that supply it have been upended so abruptly.
the primary cause of empty supermarket was not inconsiderate stockpile hoarders, as some government ministers claimed, but the fact that a massive part of the food industry had been shut down overnight without a plan in place for how hundreds of millions of meals would be redirected.
In normal times, 35 per cent of the food we eat – around 70 million meals every day – is prepared outside our homes, by restaurants and caterers, in cafes and school canteens. Because restaurants’ needs are very different to those of people cooking at home, billions of pounds of produce was suddenly left without a buyer.
Redistributing a third of Britain’s food is an impossible task without full national co-ordination. For farmers, who cannot quickly change the crops they grow or the animals they rear to suit the new reality, the problems are building up.
Tim Lang, professor of food policy, at London’s City University, argues that the coronavirus pandemic has exposed the fragility of our food system; a system which stretches out over thousands of miles, dozens of countries, and is reliant on migrant labour and air freight. That system has been reshaped, according to Professor Lang’s analysis, largely to suit the interests of nine companies which sell 90 per cent of the food we buy. Supermarkets have been happy to rely on sprawling supply chains that are left exposed during a crisis, as long as the price is right and the product sells.
As a nation, we import half of our food from abroad and, according to some analysts, the true figure could be as high as 80 per cent. Known as “the Hungry Gap” which stretches from the end of the winter season and the start of the summer in late May or sometimes even early June. Historically, it is the leanest part of the year for Britons, when the carrots, onions, potatoes and swede stored through the winter have run out but asparagus – the first sign of summer, in vegetable terms at least – has not yet fully grown. For several decades now, it is the period when we are most reliant on imported food. This year the countries we source much of our food from, notably Spain and Italy, experience their own problems getting enough labour onto farms and seeds in the ground.
“Coronavirus has really highlighted the vulnerability of our current food system and that’s only going to get worse,” says Ashley Wheeler, a small-holder, who points to delays planting crops in Southern Europe that could lead to problems in a few months.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation forecasts that the Covid-19 pandemic will cause shortages of some crops this year. In that scenario, producer countries are likely to prioritise their home markets over exports, increasing the onus on British producers to supply this country’s needs.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/coronavirus-lockdown-uk-food-supplies-strain-supermarkets-a9469476.html
The Hostile Environment Still Deters Migrants
Undocumented migrants are dying from Covid-19 because they are too afraid to seek help, charities have warned amid renewed calls for the Home Office to suspend NHS immigration checks.
In one case, a Filipino man died from suspected coronavirus last week after not accessing healthcare for fears of being reported to the Home Office. The man is said to have died in his home on 8 April after suffering from a fever and a cough for two weeks. He was too afraid to go to the hospital for fear that he would be charged for his treatment, which he could not afford, and that he would be reported to immigration authorities. His wife, also an undocumented Filipino national, is currently suffering with similar symptoms but is also too afraid to access healthcare. Before he fell ill, the man who had been in the UK for about 10 years, was working as a cleaner and sending money back to his family in the Philippines. His wife, a domestic worker, was reportedly in their home with her husband’s body for 24 hours before an undertaker arrived to take his body away.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-undocumented-migrants-deaths-cases-nhs-matt-hancock-a9470581.html
In one case, a Filipino man died from suspected coronavirus last week after not accessing healthcare for fears of being reported to the Home Office. The man is said to have died in his home on 8 April after suffering from a fever and a cough for two weeks. He was too afraid to go to the hospital for fear that he would be charged for his treatment, which he could not afford, and that he would be reported to immigration authorities. His wife, also an undocumented Filipino national, is currently suffering with similar symptoms but is also too afraid to access healthcare. Before he fell ill, the man who had been in the UK for about 10 years, was working as a cleaner and sending money back to his family in the Philippines. His wife, a domestic worker, was reportedly in their home with her husband’s body for 24 hours before an undertaker arrived to take his body away.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-undocumented-migrants-deaths-cases-nhs-matt-hancock-a9470581.html
The peril and the promise of the pandemic
COVID-19 has fed the right-wing and nationalism espousing the politics of paranoia, stoking fear against foreigners. There has been well documented outbreaks of xenophobia. It may be a symptom of the pandemic which may well endure as the virus dissipates.
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán declared “There is a logical connection between the two [migration and coronavirus] as both spread with movement.” While Trump plays the same blame game calling the disease the “Chinese virus”
But Trump’s been here before. On the campaign trail in 2015, he was asserting that “ tremendous infectious disease is pouring across the border” because of migrants crossing the Mexican border.
Right-wing protesters, including militia members brandishing firearms, have begun taking to the streets to urge the end of the stay-at-home restrictions.
In Brazil, right populist Jair Bolsonaro has painted himself as a protector of the poor. “We cannot harm the neediest – they have no way of staying at home for very long without going out to seek their sustenance.” In India, Hindu nationalists have been touting cow urine as a cure for Covid-19 and accusing Muslims of spreading COVID-19 through their mosques.
Indian author and political commentator, Arundhati Roy, is one of many who recognises both the peril and the promise of the moment.
“I think what has happened is COVID-19 has exposed things about India that all of us knew,” Roy said. “We are suffering, not just from COVID, but from a crisis of hatred, from a crisis of hunger.” She accused the Indian government of exploiting the coronavirus outbreak to inflame tensions between Hindus and Muslims. She said that this alleged strategy on the part of the Hindu nationalist government would “dovetail with this illness to create something which the world should really keep its eyes on.”
She went as far to say that: “The situation is approaching genocidal” explaining that “The whole of the organization, the RSS to which Modi belongs, which is the mother ship of the BJP, has long said that India should be a Hindu nation. Its ideologues have likened the Muslims of India to the Jews of Germany. And if you look at the way in which they are using COVID, it was very much like typhus was used against the Jews to get ghettoize them, to stigmatize them.”
She further explained, “…coronavirus has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could. Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to ‘normality’, trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture. But the rupture exists. And in the midst of this terrible despair, it offers us a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality. Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.”
It is now necessary to use best practice and to wisely apply science and technology to survive. It is time to contemplate a social change. It is time for socialism.
.png){kind=link}