Xenophobic hate tsunami

In the midst of the myriad tragedies unfolding the world over because of the Covid-19 pandemic, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has made a heart-rending appeal (without naming specific countries) for all-out efforts to end the tsunami of hate, xenophobia, scapegoating and scaremongering that seems to have been sparked off by the coronavirus crisis. He went on to point out that anti-foreigner sentiment has surged online and on the streets. Worse still, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have spread and Covid-19-related anti-Muslim attacks have occurred. The UN Secretary-General said migrants and refugees have been vilified as a source of the virus and subsequently denied access to medical treatment. Contemptible memes have emerged, he reminded us, that suggest older people, some of the most vulnerable to the virus, are also the most expendable. Additionally, journalists, whistleblowers, health professionals, aid workers and human rights defenders are being targeted simply because they are doing their jobs at great risk to themselves. The UN chief appealed for an all-out effort to end hate speech globally, singling out educational institutions to teach digital literacy to young people, whom he called "captive and potentially despairing audiences". Guterres called on the media, especially social media, to do much more to flag and remove racist, misogynist and other harmful content.

While the UN Secretary-General's appeal comes during the pandemic and in response to some of the unacceptable behavioural trends that have emerged in this context, it must be said that it is not the Covid-19 pandemic that has given birth to them but in fact exacerbated already existing excesses of this sort. We would do well to remember that contempt and hatred for the people of conquered lands over the last four centuries or so accompanied colonialism and imperialism. Independence came to such countries partly because of their struggles for freedom from colonial occupation but also because the colonial empires weakened due to the strife between developed and developing capitalist countries in the shape of the two World Wars in the 20th century. But if anyone was optimistically hoping that the end of colonial empires would restore the respect and dignity of the erstwhile 'natives', they were in for a rude shock. Not only did contempt and hatred for the newly independent peoples of the former colonies continue, it took on new forms. One context for this was the fact that because of manpower losses in the World Wars, the developed countries faced a labour shortage. Perforce then, the gates were opened to immigrant labour, largely from Asia, Africa and Latin America, to travel to the developed countries and take up the low paying menial jobs the white 'natives' refused to do. Over time, this initial need was added to by the relatively low birth rates (two children or less per family) in the developed countries. This produced another reason for opening the gates for immigrant labour even further. One more category of immigrant labour can be added to the tally: those who manned the construction and development boom in the oil-rich Arab states. But the story does not end there. Colonialism may have been buried, but a new hydra replaced it: neo-colonialism and imperialism. This is a far more complex international system whereby powerful countries subjugate and keep under their thumb the rest of the world as part of the global surplus extractive process of modern capitalism. Recalcitrant or 'disobedient' countries in the erstwhile Third World have been the victims of regime-change oriented imperialist military interventions repeatedly. Sometimes these interventions are less direct and more through proxies. The result of all these wars, especially in recent years, has been a flood of refugees fleeing conflict, accompanied by economic migrants attempting to escape poverty at home. The sum total of these developments has been xenophobic hatred and scapegoating of such communities in the host countries. Ironically, whether immigrant labour, war refugees or economic migrants, these communities are the most vulnerable to pandemics like Covid-19 because of poverty, crowded living, menial but essential jobs, etc. So both history and current times work against them. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres may not have wanted to ruffle feathers by naming the 'guilty' societies where such xenophobic hatred is widespread, but his appeal really should be directed at them and not couched in diplomatic vagueness in the hope of arriving at a global consensus on the issue that seems, for the reasons adumbrated above, a tall ask.