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<font size="1"><a href="https://www.thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/18-2020-god-of-plague/?utm_source=Tricontinental+subscribers+single+list&utm_campaign=666719923d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_04_29_08_47&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bb06a786c7-666719923d-190726266">https://www.thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/18-2020-god-of-plague/?utm_source=Tricontinental+subscribers+single+list&utm_campaign=666719923d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_04_29_08_47&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bb06a786c7-666719923d-190726266</a>
</font><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Farewell to the God of Plague: The Eighteenth Newsletter (2020).</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">April 30, 2020<span class="gmail-adr"><a href="mailto:vijay@thetricontinental.org" class="gmail-rcmContactAddress" title="vijay@thetricontinental.org"> - Vijay Prashad</a></span>
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<div id="gmail-attachment_18580" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img src="https://www.thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/%EF%BC%95%EF%BC%95%EF%BC%8E%E3%80%8A%E6%8A%AB%E6%88%98%E8%A2%8D%E6%96%A9%E7%97%85%E9%AD%94%E3%80%8B180X98cm-%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E7%94%BB-%E6%9D%8E%E9%92%9F-9-1.jpg" alt="Li Zhong, Medical workers putting on their gowns to fight the ‘evil’ virus, 2020." style="margin-right: 0px;" width="255" height="467"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-18580" class="gmail-wp-caption-text"><span>Li Zhong, Medical workers putting on their gowns to fight the ‘evil’ virus, 2020.</span></p></div>
<p>Dear Friends,</p>
<p>Greetings from the <a href="http://thetricontinental.org/?utm_source=Tricontinental+subscribers+single+list&utm_campaign=666719923d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_04_29_08_47&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bb06a786c7-666719923d-" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research</a>.</p>
<p>On 30 June 1958, Mao Tse-tung read in <em>Renmin Ribao</em> (People’s
Daily) that schistosomiasis – or bilharzia – had been eradicated in
Yukiang (Jiangxi Province). He was so inspired that he wrote a <a href="https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/poems/poems25.htm?utm_source=Tricontinental+subscribers+single+list&utm_campaign=666719923d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_04_29_08_47&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bb06a786c7-666719923d-" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">poem</a> called ‘Farewell to the God of Plague’:</p>
<p><em>Hundreds of villages choked with weeds, people wasted away;</em><br>
<em>Thousands of homes deserted, ghosts chanted mournfully</em>.</p>
<p>….</p>
<p><em>We ask the God of Plague, ‘Where are you bound?’</em><br>
<em>Paper barges aflame and candlelight illuminate the sky</em>.</p>
<p>Mao grew up in Shaoshan (Hunan Province), where he knew intimately
the terrors of bilharzia and the punctual plagues that wracked rural
China for hundreds of years. Shi Daonan (1765-1792), who was killed by
the plague, wrote the powerful ‘Death of Rats’:</p>
<p><em>People resemble ghosts.</em><br>
<em>Ghosts struggle against the human spirit.</em><br>
<em>People met in the daylight are actually ghosts.</em><br>
<em>Ghosts encountered at dusk are actually people</em>.</p>
<p>The Communists were determined to eradicate disease. In the 1930s,
Mao joined the Chinese Communist Party’s Public Health Commission; in
1934, when he was in the Jiangxi Soviet, Mao placed public health at the
top of the list for party work. When the Communists were in Yan’an,
their government allocated an impressive 6 percent of their budget to
health care, which was the responsibility of the committee of public
health. The old wretched neglect of social life for the hundreds of
millions of people had to be reversed; it would require not only the
seizure of state power but also the summoning of public action.</p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_18607" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img src="https://www.thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Environmental-sanitation-of-city-residents-1952.-2.jpg" alt="Urban sanitation, 1952." style="margin-right: 0px;" width="467" height="323"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-18607" class="gmail-wp-caption-text"><span>Urban sanitation, 1952.</span></p></div>
<p>In 1950, the new Communist government of China held the First National Health Congress, which adopted four key principles:</p>
<ol><li>Health workers should serve primarily the masses of peasants and workers.</li><li>Disease prevention is key.</li><li>Traditional and modern doctors must be equally fostered.</li><li>Health work should be conducted through mass campaigns with the active participation of medical workers.</li></ol>
<p>In March 1952, the Communist Party created an epidemic prevention
committee and launched the Patriotic Public Health Campaign.
Encephalomyelitis, malaria, measles, typhoid, and bilharzia were largely
controlled or eradicated. The campaign would eventually be the basis
for the 1978 Alma Ata <a href="https://www.who.int/publications/almaata_declaration_en.pdf?utm_source=Tricontinental+subscribers+single+list&utm_campaign=666719923d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_04_29_08_47&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bb06a786c7-666719923d-" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Declaration</a> for Primary Health Care; on 5 July 2017, the World Health Organisation (WHO) <a href="http://www.chinanewsportal.com/news/2017/0705/1906/5d41861611315172fdf6bc48?utm_source=Tricontinental+subscribers+single+list&utm_campaign=666719923d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_04_29_08_47&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bb06a786c7-666719923d-" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">presented</a> the Chinese government with the Outstanding Model Award for Health Governance for that campaign.</p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_18625" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img src="https://www.thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Take-actions-to-prevent-respiratory-diseases-1970.-1.jpg" alt="Take actions to prevent respiratory diseases, 1970." style="margin-right: 0px;" width="318" height="467"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-18625" class="gmail-wp-caption-text"><span>Take actions to prevent respiratory diseases, 1970.</span></p></div>
<p>Old diseases of plague and cholera have largely been overcome in
China thanks to the improvement in the standard of living; but new
ailments have arrived, and some of these have been devastating. The
novel coronavirus is one of these, and it has been the author of the
Great Lockdown. The first real evidence of the virus came to the doctors
of Wuhan in late December; they reported it to their hospital
administrators, who then told their national health commissions; within
days, the Chinese government informed the World Health Organization.
Weeks into the outbreak, the government shut down Hubei Province,
including the city of Wuhan, and mobilised both state resources and
public action to break the chain of infection. The four principles from
the 1950 National Health Congress were in evidence as China fought the
virus.</p>
<p>The WHO warned the world of the lethality of the virus in early January and <a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2020/04/23/how-the-chinese-authorities-and-the-who-handled-the-coronavirus/?utm_source=Tricontinental+subscribers+single+list&utm_campaign=666719923d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_04_29_08_47&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bb06a786c7-666719923d-" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">declared</a> a public emergency on 30 January. On that day, US President Trump <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/30/trump-close-cooperation-china-coronavirus-109701?utm_source=Tricontinental+subscribers+single+list&utm_campaign=666719923d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_04_29_08_47&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bb06a786c7-666719923d-" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">said</a>,
‘we think we have it very well under control’. The governments of the
bourgeois order flailed about, their champions – like Trump and Brazil’s
Jair Bolsonaro – basing their decisions on the hallucinations of
fantasy rather than the cold-hard facts of science. Right through
January, February, and March, Trump minimised the threat. His twitter
feed provides all the necessary evidence. On 9 March, Trump likened the
virus to the common flu; ‘Think about that!’, he <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1237027356314869761?utm_source=Tricontinental+subscribers+single+list&utm_campaign=666719923d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_04_29_08_47&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bb06a786c7-666719923d-" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wrote</a>. Two days later, the WHO declared a global pandemic. On 13 March, Trump <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation-declaring-national-emergency-concerning-novel-coronavirus-disease-covid-19-outbreak/?utm_source=Tricontinental+subscribers+single+list&utm_campaign=666719923d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_04_29_08_47&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bb06a786c7-666719923d-" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">declared</a> a national emergency; this was six weeks after the WHO had declared a public emergency.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/20200429_CoronaShock-01_EN_TT-1.jpg" alt="" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="467" height="245"></p>
<p>And yet, Trump enflamed a dangerous reaction to the crisis – he
decided to blame China (and the WHO) for the crisis rather than the
lethal virus or the collapse of state institutions in the North Atlantic
states and the incompetence of their governments.</p>
<p>My colleagues Weiyan Zhu, Du Xiaojun, and I closely researched how
the Chinese authorities learned about the virus, how information about
the virus went to the WHO and to the world, and how the Chinese were
able to break the chain of infection. Our research, based largely on
Chinese sources, provides an antidote to the Sinophobia of Trump and the
other governments of the bourgeois order. Central to our analysis is
the concept of CoronaShock. This is a term that refers to how a virus
struck the world with such gripping force; it refers to how the social
order in the bourgeois state crumbled, while the social order in the
socialist parts of the world appeared more resilient.</p>
<p>Please read our booklet, which you can read or download from our <a href="https://www.thetricontinental.org/studies-2-coronavirus/?utm_source=Tricontinental+subscribers+single+list&utm_campaign=666719923d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_04_29_08_47&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bb06a786c7-666719923d-" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">website</a>.</p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_18616" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img src="https://www.thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Noureddine-Daifallah.-Hommage-a%CC%80-Imam-Al-Jazouli-2014.-1.jpg" alt="Noureddine Daifallah, Hommage-à-Imam-Al-Jazouli, 2014." style="margin-right: 0px;" width="316" height="467"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-18616" class="gmail-wp-caption-text"><span>Noureddine Daifallah, Hommage-à-Imam-Al-Jazouli, 2014.</span></p></div>
<p>Abdallah El Harif, a leader of Democratic Way (Morocco), spoke to me this week about CoronaShock.</p>
<p><strong>What does Covid-19 teach us?</strong></p>
<p><em>Covid-19 reveals the failure of capitalism; the big capitalist
countries – especially the United States, Italy, France, and Spain –
have been unable to face the global pandemic. They put the interests of
capital before the lives of people. There is a loss of credibility of
the political systems of the bourgeois states: they have failed to save
people, and then are forcing the people to finance their response with
public funds and not by taxes on the richest. Following neoliberal
policy, these governments dismantled public health care and condemned
their populations to the virus. Not only this, but the virus has shown
the moral collapse of capitalism; evidence for this was the criminal way
that they have abandoned the elderly and deepened blockades against
Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela (including refusing to allow Venezuela access
to IMF aid packages).</em></p>
<p><strong>What is your sense of the Chinese response to the virus?</strong></p>
<p><em>China was able to defeat the virus because the government took
quick, efficient, and appropriate measures. They mobilised resources
because they considered human lives as their priority. The strong
Chinese public health system – which is oriented to serve the people
– played a key role. China and Cuba taught us about solidarity and
internationalism as they sent medical teams around the world to fight
the virus.</em></p>
<p>We are now witnessing the consolidation of a bipolar system. There is
the US pole, which is rooted in military force, the imposition of the
dollar as the world currency, the US control of the organisation of the
global economy and finance, and so on. On the other side, the rising
pole is represented by China, which is based on a strong, sovereign, and
yet open economy. The Chinese do not have military ambitions, and they
do not launch wars against other people; they respect international law
and strike commercial – not imperialist – deals with other countries.
The US pole sees the deterioration of its hegemony, and so it is lashing
out at China. The aims of a government such as Trump’s is to divert
domestic opinion from its own crimes in dealing with the pandemic by
putting the blame on China.</p>
<p><strong>What is your hope for the future?</strong></p>
<p><em>Humanity is at a crossroads: either we chose barbarism or
cooperation and solidarity. The scientific and technological revolution
enormously developed the productive forces; it has created the basis for
all people to be able to live with dignity, but this is squandered by
the immoral accumulation of wealth by a few capitalists. We fight to put
human beings at the centre, not capital. This requires building
political power of all forces that oppose imperialism and that wish to
build a superior human civilisation that guarantees the development of
the capacities of all human beings.</em></p>
<p><span class="gmail-caption">Roger Waters, <em>Have We Become ‘Comfortably Numb’?</em>, 29 April 2020.</span></p>
<p>In a recent conversation with me, the revolutionary musician Roger
Waters – of Pink Floyd – mirrored what Abdallah Harif said about the
dilemma humanity faces: either barbarism or cooperation. ‘We can only
move forward and save this fragile planet that we call home’, he said,
‘if we co-operate with one another, rather than fight one another.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/20200427-20200427_Li-Zhong.jpg" alt="" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="467" height="467"></p>
<p>Li Zhong, a painter in Shanghai, made 129 watercolours during his
one-and-a-half-month quarantine in honour of the workers and people of
Wuhan – more than two each day. His paintings adorn our booklet on China
and the CoronaShock (which you can read here). Tings Chak, our lead
designer, met with Li Zhong in Shanghai; their conversation is printed
at the end of the booklet. What should artists do? Tings asked Li Zhong.
‘They can reflect the situation positively’, he said. ‘They should be
true. Don’t blame other countries or spread misinformation, because the
biggest challenge is to defeat the virus, which requires our unity’.</p>
<p>Farewell to the God of Corona, we want to sing; farewell to the Great Lockdown.</p>
<p>Warmly, Vijay.</p>
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