A POX ON YOUR NEW WORLD

ENGLISH: (Türkçe için bkz.: "Pandemiler Götürsün Yeni Dünyanızı")

Sketchbook drawing from the early days of the pandemic.

I am writing this on my smartphone, obeying the government's instructions to stay off the streets. I don't have my computer with me, so I will have to make do with what I have. The world is living through nightmarish times that feel apocalyptic, facing a calamity that science fiction has been warning us about for decades: a pandemic that spreads like flash across the surface of a highly interconnected world.

The earliest time I remember seeing a film about such a horrendous pandemic  was in the early 70's: the 1970 British-American production No Blade of Grass. But it was certainly not the first one made; there is the 1962 French short La Jetée which in turn inspired the 1995 US production Twelve Monkeys. The US film Pandemic was released as late as 2016 and the South Korean TV series from 2018 My Secret, Terrius from 2018 even pronounces the dreaded name: "corona virus". (Season 1, part 10, 53rd minute if you want to verify, available on Netflix.)

From Idées Noires by André Franquin,
dating from the late 70's.

So we were certainly forewarned. Earlier epidemics going as far back as the Plague and recent ones such as Ebola, SARS, MERS and the like are there in the collective memory. In a "Ted Talk" speech in 2015 Bill Gates emphasized the importance of readiness for just such a fast-spreading potentially deadly disease. Gates was also involved with another pandemic warning: Event 201, a "high level pandemic exercise" held by the John Hopkins institute in October 2019. 

So how is it that the world was caught so unprepared? The newest mutation of the Corona virus, dubbed COVID-19, made its apprearance in the city of Wuhan in December 2019, just two months after the Event 201 exercise.

The earliest reactions seemed to target China rather than the virus and seeing as the outbreak came at a time when China was challenging the US in economic and military terms, it seemed possible that this new mutation was a biological weapon created in a laboratory. It is no secret that such laboratories exist. Conspiracy theorists quickly pointed out that the outbreak was preceded by the Wuhan Military World Games, 18 to 27 October 2019, with 140 nations participating (including the US, in case you're wondering).

By the end of January the virus had arrived in Italy. At the time Europe was more concerned with new waves of refugees coming from the East: with conflict flaring up in Idlib, driving more desperate refugees in Syria towards Turkey, President Erdoğan announced his country would no longer restrain those who wished to move on towards Europe. A wave of refugees, not content with thieir circumstances in Turkey, set out westward to the border at Edirne or the Aegan coast, aiming for Greece (curiously not Bulgaria), the ultimate destination being mostly Germany. The main concern of the European states at the time was to keep the refugees out even as they piled up in the no-man's land between the border lines and were left stranded at sea. All the while the invisible threat that was the virus was making inroads into Europe and was soon to wreak havoc on the affluent and free lifestyle the Europeans were so unwilling to share.

Unwanted refugees at the Turkish-Greek border,
late February 2020.
(Image from the media.) 

Turkey's Erdoğan was rattling sabres, ready to take on Assad, and MHP leader Bahçeli (supposed second opposition leader) was going even further, urging we march on to Damascus! The grounds for Turkey's military presence in Syria had been to provide a safe haven for refugees that would be outside of Turkey and to keep the Kurdish militants from carving out an independent state fom Syria that would border on our country. In the Kurdish case Turkey was working against US intentions: the US has always favored the creation of just such a state, which would certainly aim to expand and include Turkey's southeast. The clash of interests had been pushing NATO member Turkey ever closer to Russia which was in Syria supporting Assad. 
Then in course of the fight for Idlib advancing Syrian forces encircled some Turkish military outposts and some 38 Turkish soldiers were killed by Syrian fire. Suddenly, it was all about revenge, and bringing Assad down. Not only did this new agenda have nothing to do with Turkey's original strategic aims, it also meant an unequal showdown with Russia. The US could hardly contain its glee and immediately promised support. (For more on that see: "Old Habits Die Hard", 27 February/Şubat 2020.) 

At the time the US was also flexing its muscles against Russia on the European continent, having launched the Defender Europe 20 military exercise, the first equipment arriving in Bremerhaven on February 21st 2020. 20 000 US military personnel were due to  participate, and were arriving steadily. 

Large scale military exercises in Europe, Erdoğan's shift in objectives in Syria towards a position more in line with US strategies are clues to heightened US activity around the globe. Since the US

had so much to gain from destabilizing China, it was easy to suspect foul play in the Covid-19 breakout. But then the virus hit Europe. So was it a tactic to bring the EU in line, a kind of bacteriological Ergenekon? But the Defender Europe exercises were canceled by March 13th; only 6000 of the planned 20 000 US troops ever arrived. So the US never had anything to do with the virus, or did something go terribly wrong? And then it hit the US, and that much harder than any other country. Was it a case of the villain being destroyed by the demon he had summoned?

Makeshift hospital tents in New York's Central park.
(Image from the media.) 

But there was another conspiracy theory making the rounds, placing the strings in the hands of puppetmasters that are even further in the shadows: a plan to "reset" the world societies and economies for a new digital age with digital transactions, digital shopping, and digital money as in "bitcoin", a world of total transparency of the citizen and total control by... by who? The state? A foreign power? The Illuminati? The elite of the One World? Some speak of malicious intent in Bill Gates' vaccine program, incorporating a kind of ID tracking technique ostensibly to keep track of who has been vaccinated and who hasn't , some fear the new smartphone apps that can track you and warn you if you have come close to an infected person (didn't totally understand how that's supposed to work), early steps towards a society where we will have to live with microchip implants! A far fetched conspiracy theory you say? Microchip implantation is already being done in Sweden, and exported abroad! Check out this Guardian article. Reminds me of the 1967 film The President's Analyst where it turns out towards the end that the telephone company is planning to place microchips in people's brains to make its network more efficient! 

Jowan Österlund of Biohax, Sweden holding microchip implant in 2017.
(Image from the media.) 

All the while the myth of the bat-eating Chinese continues to be propagated- even though doctors tell us the virus will not survive in the stomach! Why the insistence? Given that bats carry this virus, they could just as well have bit someone? Should we take this insistence on a negative image of the Chinese as another indication of malevolece towards them? Chinese-bashing was expanded to include cats and dogs. Yes, they are known to eat them, but drawing cats and  dogs into a topic regarding viral infection allegedly from bats (or pangolins, also cited) seems calculated to infuriate pet owners in affluent societies, especially in the essentially lonely West! It's a bit ironic that in the pet-loving West, unadopted animals are simply put down, but they get worked up anyway! (Here in Turkey house pets are less common, but strays are not only tolerated, they are pampered by the neighbourhood.)

Then another theory popped up. 

Apparently there is a virology research center in Wuhan, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in the vicinity of the fish market, the area cited as the epicenter of the epidemic, and there were studies being conducted on bats at time. How come nobody notice that right off the bat? (Excuse the pun!) There is even the story of a couple assigned to collect bats from nature, and the wife being bit by one! Why was there all this culinary discussion?

Not that WIV is a secret base for Chinese biological warfare: Wikipedia reports it has close ties with Galveston National Laboratory of the University of Texas and the Canada National Microbiology Laboratory. 

The Wuhan Institute of Virology; the source of our worries?
(Image from the media.)

At the end of the day we are all stuck with it and scared. Whether the invisible monster was a natural mutation or man-made and unleashed, it can and will be used by the unscrupulous and the greedy. Even if they had nothing to do with it, the powers running the US would not fail to take advantage of a calamity that strikes an economic and strategic rival. Those wishing a new world order, "one world", with digital money and implanted chips, children learning "coding" from six years up, and transparent citizens under total control will make use of the prevailing conditions whether they planned this or not. (We can't even hit the streets to protest!) For decades banks have been raining credit cards on us, even if we never asked for them. The banks initially tried to motivate us to use cash dispensers and on-line banking, adding charges if we insisted on going to the teller. Then little by little the use of cash dispensers and online banking became compulsory, first for this transaction, then that, first at this bank, then the other. With the a pandemic the policy spread to all banks for most transactions while business hours were reduced. Supermarkets had been trying to get us to use self-service counters, understaffing the regular ones while getting somone to help us use the self-service option, just to get us used to it; now scared shoppers flock to them to avoid contact. We are urged to use credit cards rather than cash, preferably "non-contact" ones where you don't even have to punch in a PIN number. Implants will be handy when they come! Closed stores try to continue business through internet shopping, students are taught over the computer, those who able to so work from home in the same way. We are being educated for life and survival in a New World. Those unable to adapt will be obsolete, eliminated from the System. Covid-19 is picking off the elderly anyway.

So this is the new millenium! 

Some have taken this time-out from ordinary life to reflect on the human condition, our uneasy relationship with nature, and our lack of empathy towards our fellow men. The only reason this pandemic is such a calamity is that it hit the most affluent and powerful countries the hardest. Had it decimated a few third world countries it would have been relegated to the back pages, if mentioned at all! There is still hunger in Africa, it's not as if we don't know about it! The Middle East has been war torn for years, thousands, even millions are bombed out, displaced, hungry and terrrorized. The prime concern of affluent Europe and the powerful US has been to keep the misery and destituon outside while taking full advantage of the cheap labor and raw materials the unequal arrangement of the world makes possible. Having left inner-European conflicts behind, EU citizens could travel through their continent from end to end without having to deal with bothersome and costly visas or even a passport. Now they can't even leave their homes!

Paris in lockdown. No tourists, no protesters either.
(Image from the media.)

We in Turkey are also guilty of selfishness, of haughtiness, and of that materialism that is the hallmark of the new age. We have been dwelling too much on the 'unfairness" of Europe for not letting us enter their club, but could be as arrogant and unfeeling when it came to refugees escaping from the carnage in Syria- none so much as the supporters of the "social democrat" CHP!

One positive outcome of the epidemic was the unity it engendered in the population- the nation forgetting its differences and coming together in the face of a common enemy. The truce even extended to the political sphere- for a while. Then the bickering started again. When President Erdoğan launched a fund-raising campaign, announcing he would contribute "seven month's worth of his own salary", the opposition CHP raised a big fuss about "the state begging for money from it's own citizens"! The social media was inundated with gags ridiculing the campaign. Reciprocally, the government imposed restrictions on municipal administrations that endeavoured to launch such campaigns locally, making it mandatory to obtain permission from the regional governor. The government's unfathomable insistence on going ahead with the costly and nonsensical Kanal Istanbul project got the criticism it deserved though I suspect bigger players than Erdoğan are behind such an insane enterprise! 

The government evaluating bids for the relocation of two bridges as a first step
of the Kanal Istanbul project, March 26th 2020.
(Image from the media.)

I began this year with an article about conflict, divisions, provokations- a curse on the region and our country- and the need to put an end to these. (See: "2020- Unprovoked", 20 December- Aralık 2019.) We all need to resist rising to the bait at the slightest temptation. That article was rather optimistic as far our own society was was concerned. The next one expressed my worries about the sudden surge of discord in our country, almost as if some people somewhere are bothered by any sign of social stability here, and by extension, also elsewhere! (See: "Old Habits Die Hard", 27 February 2020.) 

If there has ever been a time when we need to bury our hatchets, it is now- both at home and abroad. Along with the rest of the world we are facing a potentially deadly disease that spreads like wildfire and remains not fully understood. There is no place to run; the prospect of escaping to Europe or America brings no relief as they are worse off than we are. Sadly, our politicians are already going back to their cockfight, seeking to damage each other while collecting points for themselves, all in anticipation a time after the emergency when the political duel will take off again in earnest. It is a dangerous game that may damage the solidarity of the people when it is most needed! 

First survive, then resist!