Qamber Ali
Human beings are born with different capacities. If they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn quote brought me back to the current situation of covid-19. The question resides on what should we choose; freedom or order? For the countries with inclusive crisis and chaos, it must be noted that authoritarian states brought significant hold by reducing the deaths in the pandemic.
In clear view of the Authoritarianism in china, it has reduced the cases domestically and has brought an image of global leadership by the “mask diplomacy”. Trump foreign policy and its “Deglobalisation” policy couldn’t even get rid of the “America first” problems. The people became more jobless as compared to China’s growing job opportunities.
Surveillance capitalism has been a crucial debate in US politics by tracing the number of cases by Covid benefited in the time of the pandemic. Many individuals believe that the liberal order is going to fall. Conditionally, individual liberty and freedom hopes to sustain, but, after the pandemic when a new challengeable post-covid era will prevail with new political discourse. But what certain measures should countries take to prevent the deadly virus politically and economical? The liberal problems of the American political system and its huge masses of protests brought another issue when the public went through a crisis of racism. The epidemic brought the political will of different movements and intersectionality which could benefit themselves from the Covid.
For China, Authoritarians have won the race in the catastrophic pandemic. The Western and American politics have lost ground while countering the public in the pandemic. The world’s largest democracies were unable to counter it. It is difficult to ponder an opinion about the leadership of America or the European politics which may take years to formulate a strategy for surveillance and to grow new aspects for global leadership while countering liberal freedom in difficult situations.
To glance on the domestic problems during the pandemic in Pakistan, the mass movements in particular Balochistan by different students and doctors in the pandemic shows us the failures of the past governments by not providing them the infrastructures which were required. The health system was broken and the virtualization also failed to continue in the province. It is rare to come to conclusions in the middle of a pandemic because the current government strategies were good to provide every important measure in the hospitals and providing
PPEs in Pakistan. On the other hand, the government was unable to provide internet facilities for virtual learning due to many reasons. For example: the pandemic has already been giving safe haven to different separatists and militants in the world. For conflictual zones, it is really an important notice. Virtual learning, deprivation of the provinces are the clear explanation of failures that our government didn’t have focused on. These problems must have been solved in the past and the current pandemic already showed us how our health system collapsed.
Since major democratic governments in the world are unable to counter the global catastrophe and, in fact, individual liberty and freedom has made another outbreak in global politics. Yuval Noah Harari’s concept of human nature and its history is true and yet, we are late to graduate high school. It is, because, wearing masks, following PPEs were only sharp notices on social media and were never followed by people in different movements. It should be noted that unless the virus remains a threat to economy and politics, it remains a mark in every failure. For humans, to get the virus liberally washed, it is important to follow the safety measures and keep distances from street movements and act against the global deadly virus.
Otherwise, the vaccine will take years to reach to every individual and will be another inclusive political disorder.
The writer is a student of Political Science at GCU Lahore.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article are those of the author and Balochistan Voices not necessarily agrees with them.
Share your comments!
