The entire world shatters today at the behest of a deadly pandemic virus, the Covid-19. It had a cakewalk journey across the globe on the banner of globalization, plying hassle-free between the countries. The positive cases reached 16.5 lakhs till now, while death cases numbered up to 1 lakh. It has made a hollow impact on world economy since The Great Depression of 1929, some economists say much more than that. The collapse of stock markets and the exponential rise in unemployment has made an immense setback to most of the countries.
The Role of Trump
The World economy was continuously under tremendous pressure since the rise of Donald Trump because of his protectionist policies and trade war with China. Also, he pulled the United States from Iran Nuke deal besides imposing several sanctions on it. The United States meddled into Syria by supporting rebels against the government which created chaos and havoc in the historic country.
Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital by moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv has damaged the cause of Palestinian people and it has further created a rift. He then imposed restrictions on Muslim immigrants traveling to the US. All these factors gave rise to animosity and sent the global economy in tantrums. Trump calling out Covid-19 as ‘Chinese Virus’ was the gross racial discrimination and this antagonism was openly disseminated by the President of the most powerful country on Planet Earth.
Shia Vs Sunni Conflict
The neo proxy war between Iran and Saudi gave new heights to sectarian violence which the Arab world was slowly recuperating from devastating Arab Spring of 2011 which rattled the region. The ‘Operation Decisive Storm’ led by Saudi forces in Yemen against Iranian backed Houthi rebels turned it into most humanitarian crisis countries in the world where human rights are being grossly violated by both sides to date.
Also, the Arab Spring has changed the political equations in the MENA (the Middle East & North Africa) region. Some countries witnessed power transitions while some went into civil war. Lebanon, Syria, Sudan, etc are witnessing a new wave of Arab Spring in recent times. But due to Corona scare, most protests were called off at this moment.
The Battleground – Syria
Once a historic country, now it has become a war-torn nation from where several children died due to biological warfare and most people ran for their lives to become refugees of Europe.
It has become a battleground to test the superiority of power in the world. US, Russia, Turkey, Rebels, Syrian Government & ISIS have locked their horns and ruined it while creating instability and confusion in the region. Kurds and Yazidis were mostly affected here because of the civil war.
Islamophobia
The upswing of Right-wing governments in many countries gave ablaze to surge Islamophobia globally. The gush in divide and hate propaganda through fake news on social media made it easy to spread like wildfire across the continents. As a result, Rohingyas were massacred in Myanmar and Uighurs were put into detention centers. The disturbing Christchurch mosque shooting in New Zealand by a White supremacist (terrorist) was live-streamed on Facebook. In India, there were many mob lynchings in the last couple of years. The recent Tablighi Jamat issue was allegedly linked to the Institutionalisation of Talibanisation and they were termed as ‘super spreader’ of Coronavirus and it is unleashing social boycott of community due to fear and bitterness. The fake news and disinformation were made linked to Jamat and it was circulated on social media. Many fact-checkers like Alt News, Webqoof, etc later busted them.
The weirdest part of the Coronavirus is that it doesn’t distinguish between the religions/regions/sects/etc. It has one common enemy – Human beings and it haunts them without any mercy. It has shown us that all humans are equal and none belongs to the superior or inferior race. This is the high time that all nations irrespective of their vested interests and also by keeping their differences aside, should join hands together in this crisis period against the one common enemy, the novel Coronavirus. I hope the world will recover soon and the countries may learn well out of it.
