The coronavirus is spreading all over the world, and the epicentre is now no longer China, but Europe. Especially Italy, where the number of cases is skyrocketing, and there are new records continually set for the most deaths in a single day. Of course, just wait until it spreads in the Subcontinent.
India has strenuously condemned Pakistan for playing politics by dragging in the Kashmir lockdown during Indian PM Narendra Modi’s teleconference on concerting measures. But that’s ridiculous. After the coronavirus, there are no internal affairs, just as there are no borders. The lockdown since August may have been a violation of human rights, but now the lockdown threatens the lives not just of those in lockdown, but those around them.
And while we’re at it, what about the conditions in refugee camps? If Pakistan is home to Afghan refugees, Bangladesh is home to Rohingya. Disappointingly for Modi, the coronavirus has shown no signs of distinguishing between followers of any religion.
And even though US President Donald Trump is said to have tried to convince a German firm to provide a cure that would only work on Americans, no nationality is safe. Of course, the rich have it a little better. You need to afford social distancing and self-isolation. Of course, you can’t have social distancing in mosques, where the only excuse is the collective prayers for us staying healthy and for them to catch the bug.
It’s a particularly resilient bug, it seems, as bad as Modi. Look, Imran Khan made a great speech at the UN General Assembly last year, but Modi did not run out of Kashmir, yelling for his mommy. Similarly, Imran made a fine speech to the nation, in which he told us d despite the speech, ghabrana nahin (don’t worry).
I’m sure he would have told us that Jazba hona chahiye (the spirit should be there). That is the formula that our cricket seems to function on. And the method on which the PTI seems to work. And the virus did not run yelping from Pakistan, tail between the legs.
Instead, infections had reached 534 cases, and three people have actually died. I must say, the coronavirus is as much of a killjoy as any khateeb. England has closed its pubs and France its restaurants, and both their discos. Catch us closing the places we go for fun, like mosques. And we’ve cancelled the PSL. And the PCB is stomping on poor Umar Akmal for match-fixing. He gets his kicks by dropping his pants, though, and I don’t think that has been forbidden as spreading the coronavirus.
The epidemic should make us familiar with a new word, ‘zoonotic’, which means the transmission of an animal illness to humans, because the virus is only recently supposed to have made the transition from pangolins to humans in a market in Wuhan. An earlier theory was that it was bats and snakes. That’s bit like how the dengue outbreak brought back the word ‘anopheles’ to the vocabulary.
Dengue is carried by the anopheles mosquito, you see, hence all of those efforts to kill mosquito larvae. A long time go, anopheles mosquitoes carried malaria. One of the things about the disease is that it is harder on those over 60. That is false, because that would mean our Prime Minister would be at risk, even though we know that he won the last election because the youth voted for him as one of their own, and will vote for him in 2023 (when he turns 70) because they want one of their own as PM.
The USA is also following the formula of young people preferring the oldest candidate around. The younger Democrat voter gravitates to Bernie Sanders, who is 78. The man more likely to win the nomination is Joe Biden, who is 77. And the incumbent, Donald Trump, turns 74 in June. It’s a little risky, though. The next shift of epicentre will probably take it to the USA. Trump must find the coronavirus satisfactory. First, as he likes to remind anyone who will listen it’s a Chinese virus. Is it a sort of substitute for the trade war he had with it? Second, it has let him take action against Mexico. But maybe he should remember that the Great Wall didn’t stop the barbarians flooding over. The Indian border fence has not stopped the microbe either. Will suspending the courts? That has other consequences. Imran has said that courts should adjourn, but the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Mr Justice Gulzar Ahmad, has not just nixed the proposal, but pooh-poohed it. Seems he wants to keep the Accountability Courts open, even though shutting them would have not meant any corrupt elements in custody escaping trial. The real deal-breaker wold be shutting down NAB. That would mean corrupt elements could run wild and openly oppose Imran in his mission to give Pakistan a clean government. In fact, the virus was probably let loose by devious anti-Imran corrupt elements to stop his crusade against corruption.
But as the Beegees once reminded us, there are other things some might prefer to fighting corruption.
