The present is ‘haunted’ by the past and the past is modeled, invented, reinvented, and reconstructed by the present. – Jan Assmann
History, they say have a habit of repeating herself or another way to understand it is, Historians, find the comparative parallels from past to explain the conundrums of the present. Then, what is in the past to explain the callous rise of the corona pandemic? The memory of the humankind takes us to 1918 when the Spanish Flu wreaked havoc of an extent that no country was spared from it, the terror and panic of Influenza had gripped the western societies while orientals might not have even know what hit them. Influenza came in the years of war and germs would kill more people than bullets. By the time the pathogen halted, the world had lost 3-5 % of its population. A pandemic of lesser fatality, but probably even bigger magnitude has hit us and there are some lessons in the political system that 1918 taught us. Lessons that we have forgotten or probably never learned.
What is in the name? Apparently a lot, more so in a world of perceptions and narrative. As China objects the western society's use of the term 'Chinese Virus', the advent of the name 'Spanish Flu' tells us the grim reality that an ultra-nationalist press can have on the spread of the pandemic. Influenza of 1918 chose the most opportune moment a pathogen can choose to attack. America was at war, so were other democracies, Britain, and France. Spain was different, it was neutral, and as Spanish Press vigorously reported flu cases the world considered Spain as ground zero of the pandemic. when the King of Spain in May 1918 caught the flu, the name went viral. However, in December of 1917 the Army camps at Boston, Kanas, and Devens were reporting deaths of sailors and personnel and despite this none of the American newspapers talked about the Flu. Nothing was more important than making a strong chorus of war. Boys have to reach France or else Allied power could have lost confidence; Newspapers talked about german spies, Influenza came unnoticed. Then the disease jumped to the civilians and newspaper had Vicks Vapourup ads saying, 'it is nothing more than or less than an old fashioned grippe'. Influenza spread like a wildfire, from the US to France, and from Europe to India and China, it was unstoppable. Underreporting costs us then, underreporting costs us today.
The first symptoms of Corona were detected in China on December 1, 2019, and by the second week of December, doctors understood about human to human transmission, but cases were not reported at all. China is an interesting society, but the Chinese communist party is always at War. We don't need to quote press freedom index to tell where china stands on press freedom and more so particularly after Xi Jinping assumed Mao like power. Underreporting of Corona cases in Wuhan lead to this terrible situation, something very akin to 1918 happened. Whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang warned of SARS-like disease but was thrown behind the jail and was released on the precondition that he will not talk about the new disease. China's suppression of the Corona Virus case before 23rd January lead to a rapid geographical spread according to a report in Science magazine. Much to the shock of the world, even WHO was complicit as they tweeted on 14 Jan 2020 that there is no evidence of Human to Human transmission. CCP controlled Chinese media was much like the US media of 1918 in war. In the name of the Chinese claim of hegemony and Jinping's status of an infallible world leader, Coronavirus was allowed to leap the great wall and when the virus jumped the wall, thanks to the Chinese propaganda, the world was unprepared and at the mercy of its virulence.
When judging the role of the state in the case of a pandemic, the general trend has been to analyze the public health system and infrastructure of the state and make a call on its performance. But pandemics can spread for many more reasons, a lot of those can be found in epidemiology and genetics but one reason is in political science as well. Can the nature of a political system contribute to the spread of the pandemic? Yes. War has been considered to be a hotbed of epidemics and medical academicians have consistently argued that war provides a very good broth for the confluence of agents and hosts which leads to pathogens tearing down the society. However, a lot can be understood by the process of political decision making and more so of the states which are the source of pandemics.
In 1917-18 the USA was democracy at war with fascist regimes and one feature of the war has always been fading away the checks and balances particularly on the executive. In normal days for liberal democracy, Courts and legislators along with Press play this role. WW I faded away these checks and balances as no one questioned the government lest bring out issues concerning disease outbreak from Boston to Philidelphia. The results were glaring and much before the ill-fated 28 September 1918 World War 1 parade of Philadelphia, influenza was hitting sailors in various Army Camps in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. What then prevented the Public health services of the United States from acting decisively? Denial. The US forces were leading the war and President Wilson was in no mood of losing the steam and so he never acknowledged the threat of the enemy in his own backyard. Suo Motu was not known to the American Courts those days and the press had reduced the black death to normal flu. Checks and balances can play a major role in calling out to those denials very early and catch the disease in time.
Eerily, China's incumbent political system bears an ugly resemblance to world war I democracies. Checks and balances are present in every institution until someone decides to be a supreme leader. A competitor, a challenger who is criticizing and questioning the incumbent keeps the institution healthy. Before Xi Jinping, such checks and balances were indeed present in China and communist party leaders would indeed be critical of the presidential governance. The pre-Xi era was times were people within the party could be critical of the president. Some of the public intellectuals have called Hu Jintao's 10 years as the lost decade and the term 'wuwei' or inaction was a frequently-used term in both Chinese blogs and daily conversations in the country. Even party mouthpiece like global times criticized Ren Jianyu an activist's detention as murdering of dissent. Shanghai Gang or elitist faction was a check on the power of Hu Jintao and his Communist Youth League(CYL). Xi's ascension was also marked with reducing the power of CYL as people close to Hu were systemically weeded out and in states as well as in the Congress Xi's men were brought. While restrains like age limit and term limit have already been chopped off in china to keep Xi in power, the putsch of Communist Youth league has ensured that check on Xi's power by the virtue of Collective leadership has completely failed. With the Party general secretary and presidency being occupied by the same person the role of Politburo has been cut short. The party and the state everything belongs to Xi. Francis Fukuyama, the much-celebrated American Philosopher pointed out at the time of Xi's ascension the problem of a bad king. Unchecked leader's policy to a situation is akin to being a bad king and that commonality is to be found in WWI democracies and Xi's China.
What is common between China's role in the COVID-19 pandemic with United States of 1918 is outright denial that the disease existed or was getting transmitted human to human. Strong executive and her unchecked powers lead us to the same situation which existed 100 years ago. Though people can make a case that, Covid-19 yet again proves the mettle of the Democratic model of governance, I have a different point to make and especially to Communist Youth league. (I know none will ever read it though) Democracy might not be the model that the Chinese are willing to accept, but China has an institutional history of keeping a check on Bad Kings through its meritocratic aristocracy. The stymied intra-party democracy has demanded absolute fealty to Xi and the meritocracy check on his power has not only gone but has lead to the problem of alternative facts and illusory construction of what’s actually happening on the ground. In a normal democratic society, the onus squarely lies with the people to check such power, but in China, that onus lies with CYL or the rival faction, and the people of China must back them in time. China does not need to become democratic to ensure that no more horrors flow from her land, she just needs to be pragmatic. Checks and balances must be restored and Emperor must be called out for his failures, else bad will become worst.
History, they say have a habit of repeating herself or another way to understand it is, Historians, find the comparative parallels from past to explain the conundrums of the present. Then, what is in the past to explain the callous rise of the corona pandemic? The memory of the humankind takes us to 1918 when the Spanish Flu wreaked havoc of an extent that no country was spared from it, the terror and panic of Influenza had gripped the western societies while orientals might not have even know what hit them. Influenza came in the years of war and germs would kill more people than bullets. By the time the pathogen halted, the world had lost 3-5 % of its population. A pandemic of lesser fatality, but probably even bigger magnitude has hit us and there are some lessons in the political system that 1918 taught us. Lessons that we have forgotten or probably never learned.
What is in the name? Apparently a lot, more so in a world of perceptions and narrative. As China objects the western society's use of the term 'Chinese Virus', the advent of the name 'Spanish Flu' tells us the grim reality that an ultra-nationalist press can have on the spread of the pandemic. Influenza of 1918 chose the most opportune moment a pathogen can choose to attack. America was at war, so were other democracies, Britain, and France. Spain was different, it was neutral, and as Spanish Press vigorously reported flu cases the world considered Spain as ground zero of the pandemic. when the King of Spain in May 1918 caught the flu, the name went viral. However, in December of 1917 the Army camps at Boston, Kanas, and Devens were reporting deaths of sailors and personnel and despite this none of the American newspapers talked about the Flu. Nothing was more important than making a strong chorus of war. Boys have to reach France or else Allied power could have lost confidence; Newspapers talked about german spies, Influenza came unnoticed. Then the disease jumped to the civilians and newspaper had Vicks Vapourup ads saying, 'it is nothing more than or less than an old fashioned grippe'. Influenza spread like a wildfire, from the US to France, and from Europe to India and China, it was unstoppable. Underreporting costs us then, underreporting costs us today.
The first symptoms of Corona were detected in China on December 1, 2019, and by the second week of December, doctors understood about human to human transmission, but cases were not reported at all. China is an interesting society, but the Chinese communist party is always at War. We don't need to quote press freedom index to tell where china stands on press freedom and more so particularly after Xi Jinping assumed Mao like power. Underreporting of Corona cases in Wuhan lead to this terrible situation, something very akin to 1918 happened. Whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang warned of SARS-like disease but was thrown behind the jail and was released on the precondition that he will not talk about the new disease. China's suppression of the Corona Virus case before 23rd January lead to a rapid geographical spread according to a report in Science magazine. Much to the shock of the world, even WHO was complicit as they tweeted on 14 Jan 2020 that there is no evidence of Human to Human transmission. CCP controlled Chinese media was much like the US media of 1918 in war. In the name of the Chinese claim of hegemony and Jinping's status of an infallible world leader, Coronavirus was allowed to leap the great wall and when the virus jumped the wall, thanks to the Chinese propaganda, the world was unprepared and at the mercy of its virulence.
When judging the role of the state in the case of a pandemic, the general trend has been to analyze the public health system and infrastructure of the state and make a call on its performance. But pandemics can spread for many more reasons, a lot of those can be found in epidemiology and genetics but one reason is in political science as well. Can the nature of a political system contribute to the spread of the pandemic? Yes. War has been considered to be a hotbed of epidemics and medical academicians have consistently argued that war provides a very good broth for the confluence of agents and hosts which leads to pathogens tearing down the society. However, a lot can be understood by the process of political decision making and more so of the states which are the source of pandemics.
In 1917-18 the USA was democracy at war with fascist regimes and one feature of the war has always been fading away the checks and balances particularly on the executive. In normal days for liberal democracy, Courts and legislators along with Press play this role. WW I faded away these checks and balances as no one questioned the government lest bring out issues concerning disease outbreak from Boston to Philidelphia. The results were glaring and much before the ill-fated 28 September 1918 World War 1 parade of Philadelphia, influenza was hitting sailors in various Army Camps in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. What then prevented the Public health services of the United States from acting decisively? Denial. The US forces were leading the war and President Wilson was in no mood of losing the steam and so he never acknowledged the threat of the enemy in his own backyard. Suo Motu was not known to the American Courts those days and the press had reduced the black death to normal flu. Checks and balances can play a major role in calling out to those denials very early and catch the disease in time.
Eerily, China's incumbent political system bears an ugly resemblance to world war I democracies. Checks and balances are present in every institution until someone decides to be a supreme leader. A competitor, a challenger who is criticizing and questioning the incumbent keeps the institution healthy. Before Xi Jinping, such checks and balances were indeed present in China and communist party leaders would indeed be critical of the presidential governance. The pre-Xi era was times were people within the party could be critical of the president. Some of the public intellectuals have called Hu Jintao's 10 years as the lost decade and the term 'wuwei' or inaction was a frequently-used term in both Chinese blogs and daily conversations in the country. Even party mouthpiece like global times criticized Ren Jianyu an activist's detention as murdering of dissent. Shanghai Gang or elitist faction was a check on the power of Hu Jintao and his Communist Youth League(CYL). Xi's ascension was also marked with reducing the power of CYL as people close to Hu were systemically weeded out and in states as well as in the Congress Xi's men were brought. While restrains like age limit and term limit have already been chopped off in china to keep Xi in power, the putsch of Communist Youth league has ensured that check on Xi's power by the virtue of Collective leadership has completely failed. With the Party general secretary and presidency being occupied by the same person the role of Politburo has been cut short. The party and the state everything belongs to Xi. Francis Fukuyama, the much-celebrated American Philosopher pointed out at the time of Xi's ascension the problem of a bad king. Unchecked leader's policy to a situation is akin to being a bad king and that commonality is to be found in WWI democracies and Xi's China.
What is common between China's role in the COVID-19 pandemic with United States of 1918 is outright denial that the disease existed or was getting transmitted human to human. Strong executive and her unchecked powers lead us to the same situation which existed 100 years ago. Though people can make a case that, Covid-19 yet again proves the mettle of the Democratic model of governance, I have a different point to make and especially to Communist Youth league. (I know none will ever read it though) Democracy might not be the model that the Chinese are willing to accept, but China has an institutional history of keeping a check on Bad Kings through its meritocratic aristocracy. The stymied intra-party democracy has demanded absolute fealty to Xi and the meritocracy check on his power has not only gone but has lead to the problem of alternative facts and illusory construction of what’s actually happening on the ground. In a normal democratic society, the onus squarely lies with the people to check such power, but in China, that onus lies with CYL or the rival faction, and the people of China must back them in time. China does not need to become democratic to ensure that no more horrors flow from her land, she just needs to be pragmatic. Checks and balances must be restored and Emperor must be called out for his failures, else bad will become worst.
No comments:
Post a Comment