The world after the pandemic

by Thierry Meyssan

The political reactions to the Covid-19 pandemic reveal surprising weaknesses in Western democracies: prejudice and ignorance. On the contrary, China and Cuba appear more capable of facing the future.

The abrupt and widespread closure of borders and, in many countries, of schools, universities, businesses and public services, as well as the ban on gatherings, are profoundly changing societies. In a few months they will no longer be what they were before the pandemic.

Above all, this reality is changing our understanding of Freedom; a concept that the United States was founded on. According to their interpretation - which only the United States supports - it knows no bounds. On the contrary, all the other states in the world recognize that there is no Freedom without Responsibility; therefore, they affirm that one cannot exercise freedom without defining its limits. Today, US culture has a decisive influence all over the world. It has just been contradicted by the pandemic.

More fully open society

For the philosopher Karl Popper, freedom in a society is measured by its openness. It goes without saying that the free movement of people, goods and capital is the hallmark of modernity. This view prevailed during the refugee crisis of 2015. Of course, some have long pointed out that this discourse allows speculators like George Soros to exploit workers in the poorest countries. It advocates the disappearance of borders and thus of states now in favour of a future supranational global government.

The fight against the pandemic has suddenly reminded us that states are there to protect their citizens. In the post-Covid-19 world, "NGOs without borders" should therefore gradually disappear and supporters of political liberalism should remember that without a state, "Man is but a wolf to man", in the words of Thomas Hobbes. It will follow, for example, that the International Criminal Court will appear to be an absurdity under international law.

President Emmanuel Macron’s 180-degree turnaround illustrates this realization. Until recently, he denounced the "nationalist leprosy" that he associated with the "torments of populism"; today he glorifies the Nation, the only legitimate framework for collective mobilization.

General interest

The notion of General Interest, which Anglo-Saxon culture has been contesting since the traumatic experience of Oliver Cromwell, is essential to protect itself from a pandemic.

In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is struggling to decree authoritarian measures for a health imperative, his people only admitting this form of authority in the event of war. In the United States, Federal President Donald Trump does not have the power to order the confinement of the population throughout his territory, as this is strictly a state matter. He is obliged to bend the texts, including the famous Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act.

Infinite freedom of entrepreneurship

Economically, it will no longer be possible to follow Adam Smith’s "laissez-faire, laissez-faire" theory after authoritatively closing all kinds of businesses, from restaurants to football stadiums. We will have to admit limits to the sacrosanct free enterprise.

The fight against the pandemic has reminded us that the general interest can justify questioning any human activity.

Malfunctions

During this crisis, we also perceive the malfunctioning of our societies. For example, the whole world is aware that the pandemic was first experienced in China, but that this country has brought it under control and has lifted the authoritarian measures it took at the beginning. Yet few people know how the Chinese defeated Covid-19.

The international press ignored President Xi Jinping’s thanks to his Cuban counterpart, Miguel Díaz-Canel, on 28 February. It therefore did not mention the role of Interferon Alfa 2B (IFNrec). Instead, it mentioned the use of chloroquine phosphate, which is already being used against malaria. There was also no mention of the state of vaccine research. China should be in a position to carry out the first human trials at the end of April, the laboratory at the Institute for Vaccine and Serum Research in St Petersburg has already developed five prototype vaccines.

The reason for these oversights is the navel-gazing of the major news agencies. While we believe we live in a "global village" (Marshall McLuhan), we are only informed about the Western microcosm.

This lack of knowledge is exploited by large Western laboratories that compete fiercely for vaccines and drugs. It’s just like in the 1980s. At the time, an epidemic of "gay pneumonia", identified in 1983 as AIDS, was causing a hecatomb in gay circles in San Francisco and New York City. When it appeared in Europe, French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius delayed the use of the US screening test so that the Pasteur Institute would have time to develop its own system and patent it. This big-money affair caused thousands more deaths.

Geopolitics after the pandemic

The epidemic of hysteria that accompanies that of Covid-19 masks the political news. When the crisis is over and the people recover their spirit, the world may be a very different place. Last week we spoke of the existential threat that the Pentagon was making to Saudi Arabia and Turkey, both destined to disappear [1] The response of both was to threaten the United States with the worst calamities - the collapse of the shale oil industry for the former, a war with Russia for the latter; two very risky bets. These threats are so serious that they must be answered quickly and will probably not wait three months.

Thierry Meyssan

Translation 

Roger Lagassé

Read more:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article209489.html

Read from top... Tim Blair is ignorant and prejudiced but proud of it...

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn

No doubt there is political motive behind US President Donald Trump labeling the novel coronavirus as the "Chinese virus". Especially, since he insists on using it despite the advice of the World Health Organization not to do so. Eventually, he softened his tone on Monday under domestic pressure.

Misnaming things is not a minor act, especially when there is no agreement between what we want to name and the definition or identity determined by a word. The concern for consistency in language is essentially the source of thoughts both in the West and East. A discourse on the meaning of words and, consequently, about their non-correspondence with the concepts they denote was first put forward by Plato in his Cratylus, which reproduces a dialogue between Socrates and his disciples.

In The Analects of Confucius, the ancient Chinese philosopher refers to the subject when addressing zhen ming－it is the rectification of names when they are not wise or lack legitimacy. Perhaps, neither the US president nor his immediate advisers are aware of these cultural roots.

US officials ignore advice against use of racist term

There is a reason why US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has on several occasions referred to the novel coronavirus as the "Wuhan virus" ignoring the advice of Beijing and global health officials to avoid using terms that could incite xenophobia.

Xenophobes are everywhere. This was confirmed when a Filipino girl riding a bus in Paris was blamed for the spread of the virus and attacked, and the harsh treatment of Chinese store owners in neighborhoods in Madrid and Buenos Aires. In mid-February, Judy Chu, a Democrat member of the House of Representative from California, stressed that the epidemic not be called the "Chinese coronavirus". Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar agreed, but other officials in the Trump administration ignored it.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202003/25/WS5e7a97bda310128217281b43.html

For the first time since the coronavirus epidemic spiraled out of control in the metropolis of 11 million, Wuhan reported zero new infections on Tuesday, according to the state-run China Daily newspaper. The city’s revival comes as authorities in Beijing look to scale back a sweeping lockdown on Hubei province – of which Wuhan is the capital – allowing 60 million citizens to return to work and go about their lives.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/484011-wuhan-zero-cases-coronavirus/

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