New nationalism…
… Over the COVID-19 vaccine
For two centuries we were assured that the “free market” was the way to go if we were to improve the well-being of all nations on the same timetable. Didn’t Adam Smith voice his 1776 masterpiece “Wealth of Nations” – as in “nations” – multiple? And after diverging in the mid-20th Century with all sorts of “socialist” governmental interventions “to correct market imperfections”, did we not return to market fundamentalism on the back of a neo-liberal Thatcher and Reaganite revolution in the 1980s?
Enough of all these “nationalist” nonsensical ideas that preach a country must take precedence using tariffs and other obstacles and controls !! Let the “invisible hand” of the market make all decisions. Its highly impersonal nature will ensure “fairness”. And that said, so as the anonymously named “Washington Consensus” opens up our markets for goods from the north. Well, the “free market” seems to be all well and good – once it serves the benefit of the Big Ones! We are seeing cynical moves in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. As each country reeled from the invisible viral killer, we all hunkered down separately in our homes or behind our sanitary masks and ablutions waiting for the silver bullet – vaccines. But while we do not rule out the BRICS power plants of India, Russia and China, we all knew that it would be big pharma – based in the developed countries – that would take the lead in this field.
And so said, so done and the rest of the world breathed a sigh of relief because of the logic of the free market: once we got the bucks, we’d get the shots, right? Wrong! The Great countries like the United States, Canada, Britain, etc., jumped to the top of the line and ordered enough vaccines to vaccinate their POPULAR SEXUAL TIMES !! And forbid their companies to export to other countries until their orders are filled !! This is now labeled “COVID Nationalism”. Could you imagine the chutzpah?
What happened to the mantle of “market fundamentalism” – “greed is good” – which would put profits above any other considerations? When being replaced by “look out for number 1” does not socialism return through the back door by returning the “company” as “number 1” with “country”? Even among the Big Ones, a cat fight broke out between the EU and Britain when the latter was accused of hogging their vaccine for his own citizens!
But what made the new COVID Nationalism most cynical was the developed countries’ pledge to a WHO-led COVAX initiative to allocate enough vaccines for only 20 percent of the poorest countries, this was dropped as a hot potato! Each rich country is its own and the devil takes the lower half.
Will India and China step into the crease?
… In Guyana
Mercy in politics (and sociology) facing a common enemy outside, even bitter warring factions will turn their attention on the outside. Well, the PNC certainly left us with warring factions in the two years following the NCM! We don’t have to regenerate all the dirty details – including colored bed sheets – do we?
But behold – as Granger tends to say – Maduro appeared on our western border spewing fire and brimstone. Let’s remember that it’s not just our fishing boats that have been captured. Do you remember their defeat of the Teknik Perdana operated by Anadarko from the US to conduct seismic surveys in our waters back in 2013? Maduro is an enemy that means business.
So while your Eyewitness is pleased with the PNC’s positive response to the stand by the PPP Government, they must go further. Now is not the time for political games.
All for one (Guyana) and one for all!
… In the US
The Biden Administration has certainly made a pivot on its predecessor’s Immigration (which won’t be named!). Giving a commitment to regulate the 11 million “undocumented” immigrants, many Guyanese will no longer live in fear.
