In light of the early warning signs and red lights flashing concerning the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), there is a moral to the pandemic that is wreaking havoc: military spending, investment in weapon technology, and building walls will not keep you secure.
How does the quote below tweeted by Natalia del Cid sound like?
“So much investment in weapons due to the threat of war and a virus is screwing us because we did not invest in science, health care, and education.”
Imagine, for a moment, that instead of spending vast sums of money on what US President Dwight Eisenhower called the industrial-military complex, we’d spend it on global well-being?
Like so many others before and after him, Eisenhower sounded the alarm: “So is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
We should also tell the profiteers and fat-cat billionaire capitalists at the service of war that the only land they can rightfully claim as their own is the soil that covers their coffin.
Coronavirus is a new calling for humanity, a second chance, possibly.
Separation or divorce from a partner can be an especially trying matter in Finland if you are a foreigner and a man. We have learned of a new case that was brought to our attention.
This is how it usually how events pan out: A foreigner gets married to a Finnish woman, they have a child and then divorce. The man does not get a residence permit. He is forced to leave the country or get deported.
Below is a decision in 2018 by the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) to reject Abul’s* residence permit on family grounds.
Ardian* is a 24-year-old Albanian who moved to Finland a bit over three years ago. He came to Finland to find work. He met a Russian woman, got married, had a child, and separated.
“I have been waiting for three years to get my residence permit,” he said. “Even if I have a child in Finland, Migri, has turned down my requests.”
He said that he is appealing Migri’s decision in court and expects a decision soon, probably in April.
Ardian,* who lives in Vantaa, said that he has always worked (today in construction) in Finland, paid taxes and never asked for a cent of social welfare.
He said that he even moved to a construction site in Kittlä in Lapland and works today on top of a 39-meter tower. He said that if he refused to work in such high places, his boss would fire him.
Ardian claims that foreign construction workers do work that Finns would not normally do.
Since he does not have a residence permit, he can work legally but does not have any rights from Kela (Social Insurance Institution of Finland), even if given sick leave.
“I once fractured two fingers at work and the doctor gave me two-month sick leave,” he said. “I had to return back to work and could not stay at home because I wasn’t making any money. Kela refused to pay me any support.”
Apart from working with few rights, his daughter is one of the main reasons he wants to remain in Finland.
“It’s so unjust! If I could, I’d ask the Finnish authorities why I am being treated in this way,” Ardian continued. “I have a daughter, which I love very much but am not allowed to see. Don’t I have a right to stay in this country?”
Ardian cited “differences in lifestyle” for his divorce with his wife.
“My ex-wife wanted us to live off Kela but I refused to,” he said without providing any further explanation.
Ardian said that returning to Albania was not an option for him.
“That whole country is so corrupt and there is a lot of crime there,” he concluded. “I cannot also go back because my daughter is here. She loves me very much.”
* The name of the person was changed to protect his identity.
If we look at the raw economic numbers, world trade is expected to plunge in 2020 by between 13% and 32%, according to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
While the WTO does not mention a word about the Great Depression (1929-1939) or how global economies contracted during that period, a 32% contraction would be on par with the plunge in trade during 1929-1932, according to The Guardian.
“The unavoidable declines in trade and output will have painful consequences for households and businesses,” WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo said, “on top of the human suffering caused by the disease itself.”
While it is still too early to predict if we will see a second Great Depression (1929-1939) since such an eventuality hinges on what policies governments instigate like protectionism, it’s clear that economic hard times will not treat migrants and minorities nicely.
Even during periods of economic growth like in the European Union during this century, we still have not succeeded at eradicating social ills like Islamophobia and the shameful treatment and persecution of the Romany minority.
The size of the minority does not matter when it comes to ethnic persecution. In 1933, when Hitler took power in Germany, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates there were 505,000 Jews out of a total population of 67 million. Half a million Jews accounted for less than 0.75% of Germany’s population.
The rise of fascism during the worst economic contraction in the history of the industrialized world did not foster ethnic understanding and respect but led to a terrible world war and the wholesale slaughter of an estimated six million Jews during the Holocaust that included half a million Roma.
Even if the historical context of the present coronavirus crisis is different from what happened in Germany and led to Hitler’s rise to power, why wouldn’t a severe economic downturn and draconian protectionist measures bring out again the monster in us?
In an interview with CNN in March, historian and professor Yuval Noah Harari stated that the lack of trust, closing borders and isolating oneself, are the most significant threats posed by the COVID-19 pandemic
There is also another reason, in my opinion, why matters are going to get worse in Europe as our economies contract and knee-jerk nationalist reactions: We have failed to slay the same monsters of xenophobia and petty nationalism that gave us World War 2 in our eyes.
If we have failed at ridding racism from our societies during good economic timers, why would we succeed at such a challenging task during poor economic times?
If there is an image that evokes the challenges we face ahead, it is the four horsemen of the apocalypse, a Biblical reference appearing in the New Testament’s final book of Revelation. The four horsemen charging at us represent pestilence, famine, war, and death.
We have two choices today and tomorrow: to unite and rebuild or succumb to the four horsemen.
The closure of hundreds of schools, theaters, gymnasiums, and restaurants as well as the closing off of the Province of Uusimaa very much gives the appearance that the government is serious about doing everything it can to protect the country from the COVID-19 epidemic sweeping the world.
It seems to show a willingness to take hard decisions in the interests of public safety and go beyond political convenience. I chanced the other day to meet a friend from Afghanistan who I had me through volunteering at church and we got to speaking about his friend in a similar situation. I asked if they were still meeting up.
“No, he was moved further north to a reception center in Central Finland”.
I was surprised to hear this in light of current deteriorating epidemic when people are being encouraged to stay where they are currently living. It also led me to enquire further into the situation regarding Refugee Reception Centers in general. There are over 4 000 persons living in crowded circumstances in 50 such centers all over Finland.
I sent a message to Interior Minister Marja Ohisalo to ask if something was being done to keep these crowded facilities from becoming hotbeds to spread the epidemic which has already killed 40 people in Finland. There was no answer.
The problem has been noticed and measures taken in other countries but not in Finland. In Greece two refugee reception centers were recently placed under special quarantine restrictions. This was after COVID-19 cases had been diagnosed among residents. Portugal has taken a more proactive measure by issuing temporary resident permits to all asylum seekers until the summer to allow them to try and find safe work and accommodations and to escape high-risk institutionalization.
The government has been issuing all kinds of directions to keep people away from crowded environments. Why has it not closed refugee reception centers or at least taken steps to make them less crowded? It would seem to be quite easy to do this as the cost to keep a person in the reception center is on average 55 euros a day. There are certainly many landlords who would rent a room to someone for much less than 1650 euros a month, even in high rent locations such as Helsinki not to mention hostels and B n B’s. This would likely incur enough savings to arrange counselling and nursing services offsite.
These refugee centers have become identified with suicidal behaviour and other mental health problems and there is no need to allow things to get even worse by making them locations for spreading the epidemic as well. Improving the living situation of asylum seekers would not only benefit the residents but protect the society as a whole as well.
While we are on the subject of protecting people during the epidemic and particularly old people who are the group most at risk there have been other measures taken by the government involving non-citizens which put this into question. The ban on travel between Estonia and Finland comes to mind here. At the same time travel for work reasons between Sweden and Finland was allowed to continue. The latter mainly involves travel by Finns to work in Sweden.
The travel for work reasons between Finland and Estonia mainly involved Estonians coming to work in Finland. Many Estonians work in personal care services for seniors living alone at home as will as in homes providing care to the elderly. This situation has developed because it is hard to find workers in this field in Finland. Now many elderly persons are left without adequate care or have been placed in the hands of inexperienced Finnish substitutes. This situation could probably have been avoided by taking sensible precautionary measures such as testing the returning Estonians as there has continuously been unused testing capacity.
As the epidemic continues the whole idea of closing borders will seem more and more xenophobic. Persons who have recovered from the disease and developed immunity, as well as those tested as healthy, could be admitted as well as allowed to travel abroad to carry out important business to help the economy to recover.
We will need international cooperation more than ever after this epidemic to address the many-facted environmental crises facing everyone, of which this epidemic is only one manifestation.
My great grandfather Dante Tessieri and his future wife, Aida Guaimonti, sailed from Italy in the 1890s to Brazil. Dante was a learned man, a physicist, and an anarchist that housed strong political opinions. He was forced to leave Italy, like many millions of his countrymen, because of political reasons.
Of all my great grandparents, Dante is the one that I admire the most. I admire his courage so much that I gave one of my sons his name.
While I cannot confirm it, he was allegedly part of a plot to assassinate King Humbert. After being detained and jailed, he escaped and skipped the country moving to Brazil, where my grandfather, Nemo, was born.
In the late-1800s, about 20% of the Italian population knew how to write. Dante, and his father Serafino Tessieri, were one of the fortunate few who could read and write. This coupon above was found by chance on eBay. Dante is the lighthouse keeper of the island of Pantelleria. Note Dante’s beautiful handwriting.
Millions of Europeans emigrated from Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. They escaped strife, war, famine, economic hardship and political persecution.
The Finns were no different from the Italians. They too emigrated en mass as the illustration below shows.
It is for that reason
Finland is a country of emigration. Before World War 2, the majority (about 370,000) emigrated to North America and after World War 2 (550,000) to Sweden. Source: Migration Institute.
While moving from the United States was a wise decision forty years ago, I have my doubts today about Europe being a safe haven. Are those same factors that forced Dante and millions of other Europeans to flee these shores arriving to haunt us once again? If not Europe or the United States, where could one flee to safety today?
The rise of fascism and populism in Europe during this century clearly shows that we have failed to do away with such ills, which .are still very much alive and kicking, waiting to resuscitate, like today.
Time will tell what happens. Even so, I am a bit apprehension about the future, and if we will end up again on those slippery slopes that led us to war.
I hope I am wrong.
Evey know and then I hear my great grandfather turning in his grave and stating sei pazzo!
The two French doctors, Jean-Paul Mira and Camille Locht said on television that Africans could be used as guinea pigs to find a COVID-19 vaccine. The suggestion by the two medics unleashed a storm of protests.
African footballers Samuel Eto’o, Didier Drogba and Demba Ba have some words they would like to share with these two medics.
Many of the problems that the EU faces, for example, its broken asylum policy, are symptomatic to our feelings of ethnic superiority and racism.
Two French doctors suggest on live TV to carry on experiments for Covid-19 vaccine in Africa
• Eto’o: You sons of b*tches • Drogba: Africa isn’t a testing lab • Demba Ba: Welcome to the West, where white people believe themselves to be so superiorpic.twitter.com/mp4wiFVfXg
There is no better example of how the coronavirus (COVID-19) has exposed our misguided senses of security and our mistaken way of life that has given way to endless military spending and wars, tax breaks for the wealthy, disinvestment in our well-being through growing inequality.
Sometimes our fears and lust for power cause us to commit genocide as we saw during the colonial period and in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.
Is there a connection between COVID-19 and modern genocide? Who are the most vulnerable people and countries facing this pandemic and what will happen to them?
Let’s take Africa, for example, ravaged by postcolonialism and white European domination. Irrespective of such a disgraceful history, two French medics stated that Africans should be guinea pigs for the COVID-19 cure.
Sometimes our fears turn into genocide as we saw during the colonial period and in Nazi Germany with the horrors of the Holocaust.
Is there a connection between COVID-19 and modern genocide? Who are the most vulnerable people and countries facing this pandemic? What fate awaits them?
Writes EyeGambia: “In a viral video clip shared on social media on Thursday, the two were filmed on set suggesting that a newly discovered possible COVID-19 vaccine should be tested in Africa the same way experimental treatment for aids was done on prostitutes. According to the journalist interviewing the doctors, the vaccine should be first tested on vulnerable Africans who have no mask, no treatment before using it to treat European citizens.”
If some medics are talking about using Africans as guinea pigs, US President Donald Trump downplayed the coronavirus threat initially and promised a vaccine for COVID-19 would be ready in a few months.
Trump’s promise and statements show the same disregard for human life that white colonists unleashed on Africans and other vulnerable groups.
A documentary below on the Holocaust offers some sobering advice during these trying times. States Noa Mkayton of the International School for Holocaust Studies, Yad Vashem, about the problem with labeling Nazis evil monsters.
“[We wash our hand and conveniently state] they were Nazis, but I am not. And from here, it is only a small step, to conclude, that there is very little to learn from the phenomenon. It is fundamentally essential to recall that the Holocaust is a historical event, carried out by humans and suffered by humans.”
The COVID-19 pandemic, which exposes our false sense of security, racism and our propensity to commit genocide, is also a historical event caused by humans and suffered by humans.
Any person familiar with the Holocaust will ask “How civilized people could support and even carry out genocide?”
How did we end up in this pandemic? How did we end up creating a world where a minority controls almost all the wealth? Why are we fighting wars and investing so much on weapons and building walls and not investing on our well-being? How have we learned to shut our eyes and deafen our ears to so much injustice and barbarity?
The coronavirus offers us a good and serious opportunity to confront these questions and find answers and, subsequently, a plan of action to set the world on a different course.
The European Court of Human Rights has accepted two appeals from Finland. One of these is of a Sunni Muslim from Iraq whose asylum application was turned down by the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri). The second one is of a Somali national living in Finland who was refused a work permit.
Miro Del Gaudio, attorney-at-law and founder of Lex Gaudius, said that the decision to accept Abdulahi Awad’s appeal against Migri shows that the world still has a sense of justice in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Awad’s case [which we are representing] exposes the vicious cycles of asylum seekers,” said Del Gaudio. “The Somali was forced to give up his permanent job because he was not granted by Migri a work permit.”
In order for Awad to get a work permit, he would have needed a valid identification to get an alien’s passport. The only identification he had was from Somalia, which is not recognized by the Finnish authorities.
“No valid identification means no alien’s passport, which in turn led to him giving up his permanent job,” concluded Del Gaudio.
If the learn-Finnish-and-you’re-integrated promise is misleading, so are many others spread by people who should know better.
“The best way to eliminate racism is to get people to know each other,” goes the affirmation. It is like the claim that traveling opens your eyes to the world.
After we do all these things, will we kiss and make up and live in a post-racial society?
Dead wrong.
What we are doing with the argument is what Robin DiAngelo points in her white fragility argument, or how to keep race off the table.
“All of those narratives function to get race off the table close the exploration [and] exempt the person from any further engagement and protect the racial hierarchy in a white position.”
When we mention things like more contact, traveling, learn the language, we are also taking race, or precisely the solution, off the table.
In order to tackle racism in society, we need to understand how we form part of the racist hierarchy and the role of power and privilege in such a social ill
Like traveling, contact with people can reinforce making you even more racist and hateful of other ethnic groups.
Traveling and living in different lands can have the same toxic impact and blunt our efforts to find credible solutions to winning racism.
During these trying times of coronavirus, we need to make sure there is no return to the order of things before the pandemic hits us. A quote by Bertolt Brecht 1898-1956 offers us a social road map.
Will we finally make the world a better place for all of us on this planet?
We can but it up to us now, isn’t it?
“Men” could be substituted in the quote with “people.”
