From the first moments of the outbreak of the pandemic a huge global manipulative attempt begun to convince us that the new “invisible enemy” called COVID19, is equally affecting the rich and the poor. The Coronavirus is a classless enemy, which is not considering the economic situation, material living conditions and racial characteristics.
As if to say that the CARREFOUR cashier in Saint-Denis, France, the 52-year-old Aisha, who lost her life because the company did not allow the workers to wear masks so as not to frighten the customers, was equal to those who paid $ 2000 per night at a Swiss hotel company, for special apartments to pass the quarantine with all the amenities, completely protected from the deadly virus.
As if to say that the workers in northern Italy industries are equal to their employers, who demanded not to stop the production of their factories, indifferent to how many workers would die every day due to the pandemic.
They even tried to convince us that the size of the pandemic is such that no health system, even the most advanced, could handle it. That is why they resorted to quarantine, with strict government surveillance imposed on all the lengths and breadths of the planet, in the name of “our protection.” The reality, however, is that the health systems in all the countries of “existing capitalism” have shrunk greatly due to the underfunding of recent years, in the name of reducing the cost of public spending. Because this is what the model of modern capitalism demands.
After all, even personal protective products, such as masks, gloves and antiseptics, have become products of unscrupulous speculation in the free market we live in, where the prevailing view is “your death, my life.”
They are trying to convince us that the size of the pandemic is to blame, and not that there are not enough ICUs and respirators to deal with the incidents when they are massive. Thus, even countries such as Sweden, which is considered a model country of health and social policy in the modern capitalist world, have come to choose which patients will go to the ICU based on their biological characteristics: age, life expectancy, if any underlying disease exists etc.
The global fear that has been methodically spread through the media, this global terrorism, in order to cover up the weakness of this rotten system, has brought to the surface the wildest and most conservative instincts of many people who sought to find the cause elsewhere, and not in the system itself that created the problem.
So we watched racist demonstrations, such as white Americans harassing their Asian compatriots as those responsible for spreading the virus, or residents of the Spanish town of La Linea blocking a bus with elder people coming from a nursing home of another city with COVID19 cases, believing that they will infect their “clean” city.
But for the international class-oriented movement, which brings together front-line people, workers and farmers, students and retirees, women and men, whites and blacks, Christians and Muslims, the situation is clear. The basic condition for the survival of the mankind is the communication and solidarity of the peoples. And the main criterion is the class and no other features. On this basis, solidarity and humanity are developing.
As the Cuban doctors did, by going to Italy to offer their help, despite the risks involved, when the European Union abandoned Italy and when Germany blocked medical supplies such as masks and antiseptic, because it wanted them only for its own.
As the workers all over the world did , by standing in solidarity with the strike of Italian workers, when they demanded to stop the operation of the Northern industries amid the pandemic and hundreds dead people every day.
As the WFTU has been doing for 75 years now, fighting for a society that gives priority to the man who produces the wealth and not to the one who usurps it.
A society where the health system will be public, free and universal, vaccines and medicines will not be a benefit of some rich states, nor a product that will lead to the super-profits of large multinationals.
But the most important task of the World Federation of Trade Unions is that steadily and unwaveringly, for 75 years now it has been trying to shed light on the causes of inequality and help with its actions, the working class and the popular strata to find the real culprit and not looking for scapegoats among themselves.
The Coronavirus and the pandemic caused, simply came to confirm this.
Cali Patouna
WFTU Central Offices Special Counselor
