pandemic 2

PANDEMIC!
their place should be not in presidential palaces but the
International Criminal Court in the Hague.
Now we can see how the combination of three storms
makes a perfect storm: a new wave of refugees organized
by Turkey can have catastrophic consequences in this time
of the coronavirus epidemic. Up until now, one of the few
good things about the epidemic, alongside the basic fact
that it has made us sharply aware of the need for global
cooperation, has been that is has not been attributed to
immigrants and refugees—racism was at work mostly
in perceiving the threat as originating from the Oriental
Other. But if the two issues get mixed together, if refugees
are perceived as linked to the spread of the epidemic
(and of course there are likely to be widespread infection
of coronavirus among refugees given the conditions in
the crowded camps they occupy), then populist racists
will have their heyday: they will be able to justify their
exclusion of foreigners with “scientific” medical reasons.
Sympathetic policies allowing the influx of refugees could
easily trigger a reaction of panic and fear. As prime minister
Viktor Orban claimed in a recent speech, Hungary
could effectively become the model for all Europe to
follow.
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