Egypt

The true colours of Western Media

Al Ahram Weekly (March 31st) (Link: The true colours of Western Media)

Azza Radwan Sedky

Tuesday 29 Mar 2022

The Western media’s coverage of the war in Ukraine is not playing an objective role, writes Azza Radwan Sedky

The coverage of the Ukraine war has exposed the Western media as never before, and if public opinion across the world is shaped mostly by Western media analyses, we should be quite concerned. 

In the face of crises, especially wars, the media should play an objective role, provide non-partisan information, present deescalating feedback, further rational discussion, and document the truth. Though complete objectivity is likely to be impossible, the Western media’s coverage of this particular war runs counter to these goals. 

True, the invasion of Ukraine is a terrible catastrophe, and the consequences of it will reverberate far and wide. However, the Ukraine war has received more media coverage than any other conflict around the world. 

The reasons are obvious if highly arbitrary: Ukraine is in Europe; Russia, the aggressor, is a nuclear power; and Western interests are being threatened. Just one query, though: when the US bombs other countries around the world, isn’t it a nuclear power, too? 

Let’s look at how the Western media is failing its followers around the world. First, it considers the Ukraine war to be worthy of coverage and deserving of the sympathetic ear of the public while minimal attention is spent on similar issues elsewhere. By not focusing on all the other crises, it deems them insignificant and lets the world assume they don’t exist, which sends a biased message. 

The Western media, rightly worried about Ukrainian children, reports that 4.2 million of them have been displaced, whether within Ukraine or abroad. However, 5.2 million  Yemeni children are at risk of starvation, and 85,000 have already died of hunger, but very little coverage is given in the Western media to the conflict in Yemen.

Furthermore, although 1,100 civilians have died in Ukraine, as many as 500,000 people have died from war and famine in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia over the last 16 months. But coverage of the Ethiopian War is non-existent in the Western media.

Second, the Western media has become a mouthpiece for Western views, serving as state media rather than an independent entity. The US academic and intellectual Noam Chomsky says in his book about the Western media, Manufacturing Consent, published in 1988, that “the media serve and propagandise on behalf of the powerful societal interests that control them.” 

Though the Western media hails unbiased and impartial reporting in the present war, it corroborates the Western message while downplaying the Russian side of the story whether or not it is valid. 

Russian reports are considered to be lies that do not deserve to be investigated further. The following message appears on Twitter after the Russian News Agency Tass’ reports, “this Tweet links to a Russia state-affiliated media website,” shedding doubt on what the Russian News Agency says.  

The Western media is also repeating Ukrainian propaganda without any verification of it. The Ukrainians have some right to bend the truth to encourage the allegiance they need, but the media must scrutinise what they report so that disinformation does not become the norm.

“Russia could have lost as many as 15,000 troops in Ukraine,” announces the Washington Post. “Putin humiliated, as captured bomber pilot says, ‘we have already lost this war’,” according to the UK Daily Express. The US magazine Newsweek says that “captured Russian pilot says he was ordered to hit civilians,” which, if he did indeed say this, makes us wonder if he was tortured, but this ethical aspect is not pursued.

Third, the war on Ukraine has highlighted racial prejudice in the West, which is mirrored in the Western media, exposing an odd rule of thumb – that the Ukrainians are superior to Ethiopians, Middle Easterners, and other victimised souls. Labelling the war as “Europe’s first major land war in decades,” exemplifies this bias. It means that such wars don’t happen in Europe but that they are normal elsewhere. 

The examples are numerous and are repeated daily starting with Western officials and then repeated by the Western media. Ukraine’s Deputy Chief Prosecutor David Sakvarelidze, says, “it’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed.” 

The media pursues the same tone. “These are not refugees from Syria; these are refugees from Ukraine… They’re Christian; they’re white. Then, they’re very similar [to us],” Kelly Cobiella, the US NBC News correspondent says. 

Philippe Corbe, a journalist on the most-watched French TV news channel, said that “we’re not talking here about Syrians fleeing the bombing of the Syrian regime backed by Putin; we’re talking about Europeans leaving in cars that look like ours to save their lives.” 

Daniel Hannan in the UK Daily Telegraph wrote that “war no longer happens in impoverished and remote populations.” US CBS News correspondent Charlie D’Agata said that “this isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilised, relatively European – I have to choose those words carefully, too – city where you wouldn’t expect that, or hope that it’s going to happen.” 

I wonder what he would have said if he hadn’t chosen his words carefully.

Hoda Osman, president of the New York-based Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association, in an interview with the US network CNN said that “what is sad this time is that the [offending] comments came so casually, spontaneously, and as a result revealed existing bias, something we would expect a journalist covering an international event to be above.”

The Western media’s role in misleading the Ukrainians is also pivotal. It highlights Western financial support for Ukraine, encourages Ukrainian resilience, and reports on the sanctions the West is imposing on Russia and the Western companies that are pulling out of Russia, while all the while telling the Ukrainians to stay the course regardless of warning them of what such actions could cause. 

No Western media reporter talks about de-escalation or peace in Ukraine. These are issues that are not worth tackling. Ben Sixsmith in the Washington Post says that “journalists should not massage the facts and spin narratives to make them more favourable to the Ukrainians.”

In his usual comic but logical fashion, the US TV host Jon Stewart in a podcast on media reporting in Ukraine said that the reporting is no longer about what is happening but is actually about shaping the news.

As a result, questions of the following nature are the ones that get the most attention. “Would you bomb them if they touched Poland?” “Would you bomb them if they had a drone?” “What would it take for you to bomb them?” “How about bombing them?” “We have a question for you. Bombs. What about those?” “What if Putin got killed?” “What if we killed Putin?”

Stewart doesn’t believe that the Western media has a liberal bias but thinks that it has a bias towards sensationalism and escalation and conflict. He continues that “I don’t think that journalists are sitting in the White House Press Corps saying, ‘please, please a big war.’ But they definitely know that this is an opportunity of a lifetime.”  

Journalists are not neutral. As a result, we, members of the generally uninformed public awaiting news from sources we have come to rely on, must be wary of what we are presented with and how it is presented. We must learn to sift through the information we are receiving, so that we can draw our own conclusions. 

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* The writer is the author of Cairo Rewind on the First Two Years of Egypt’s Revolution, 2011-2013.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 31 March, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.

 

 

West's double-standard coverage of Russia-Ukraine conflict hypocritical, deplorable

China Daily, Xinhua | Updated: 2022-03-18 16:52 

If people take a close look at the Western coverage on the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, they can easily see racial prejudice and double standards -- practices that Western media have often scoffed at.

"These are not refugees from Syria, these are refugees from Ukraine ... They're Christian, they're white, they're very similar (to us)," Kelly Cobiella, an NBC News correspondent based in London, recently said on video.

Since the onset of the conflict, such remarks of a racist nature have been circulating on Western media.

When numerous journalists have focused on the look, skin color, race and religion of Ukranian evacuees, and made a comparison between them and refugees from the Middle East and North Africa, their unspoken implication is that the former are superior to the latter and have less reason to suffer from any plight.

Behind the double-standard coverage is the condescending mindset and the penetration of Western-centrism in their journalism industry, which views the Western countries "more civilized" than the rest of the world.

Obsessed with preaching others on human rights and civil rights, and chanting such slogans as "all men are created equal," the United States and its allies, however, have long been holding double standards and racist bias.

A basic rule of journalism is to be sensitive to victims' feeling when reporting on any tragedy, but in fact, some in the West just associate the need of comfort to people's race.

As Andrew Mitrovica, an Al Jazeera columnist who had previously worked at several Western news organizations, has criticized, "editorial staff shaped institution-wide editorial policies that, in effect, established who and what kind of 'victims' warrant sympathy and attention and who and what kind of 'victims' do not."

"While the invasion of Iraq by the United States was considered a liberation, the operation taken by Russia is seen as a cut-throat invasion in the eyes of the Western media," Egyptian professor and writer Azza Radwan Sedky wrote in an article published on Ahram Online, the English news website of Egypt's Al-Ahram newspaper.

Moreover, while the Russia-Ukraine conflict is under the spotlight, the sufferings of people in such countries as Iraq and Afghanistan, both invaded by the United States, are receiving less coverage by Western media.

Joy Reid, an MSNBC political analyst and host, criticized the Western coverage of Ukraine, saying Americans only care about the war because Ukrainians are "white and largely Christian."

"We should also care this much for refugees and those facing occupation and war in the Middle East and Asia and Africa, too," Reid said. "But we haven't witnessed the same type of solidarity for the Yemenis as we do for the Ukranians."

Obviously, Western media have been posting contradictory narratives on similar situations, with the difference hinging on their own interest and calculation, rather than professional ethics or responsibilities. That's why they have called the U.S.-launched wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as "a liberation" and an "anti-terror" fight.

Facing a conflict, media outlets are expected to play a role in bridging understanding gaps and promoting peace, in addition to providing information and documenting what is going on.

Unfortunately, some Western media's deeds have run counter to these aims, which only tarnished their reputation and credibility, and exposed their hypocrisy and racist bias.

 

ازدواج المعايير في حرب اوكارنيا

 الاهرام ١٩ مارس ٢٠٢٢

بقلم عزة رضوان صدقي

 

الغزو هو غزو أينما كان، سواء غزو للعراق أو لأوكرانيا. لكن للأسف يتم تقييم الغزوات بشكل مختلف اعتمادًا على مكان حدوثها والقائم بها. تمهيدا لهذا النقاش يجب أن يُذكر بوضوح أن غزو دولة سيادية أمر غير مقبول، سواء كان غزو الولايات المتحدة للعراق أو غزو روسيا لأوكرانيا، ومع ذلك فإن القضية هنا هي المعيار المزدوج المطبّق في الغزوتين

غزو العراق يوضح لنا أننا لا نتعلم أبدًا من الغزوات والتداعيات التي تليها. غزت الولايات المتحدة العراق في ٢٠٠٣ بذرائع كاذبة وواهية. تداولت الولايات المتحدة فكرة أن العراق يشكل تهديدًا أمنيًا عليها، وعلى الرغم من التأكد بأن العراق ليس لديه أسلحة دمار شامل ولا علاقة له بهجمات ١١ سبتمبر ٢٠٠١، فقد حشدت الولايات المتحدة الدعم والتأييد الكافي لغزو العراق، وهو غزو لم يختلف كثيرًا عن غزو روسيا اليوم لأوكرانيا. ومع ذلك تجاهل العالم الخداع الأمريكي ووقف وراء الغزاة. ومقارنة بالضجة الحالية ضد روسيا لم تظهر إدانة للغزو الأمريكي. وحتى إن كانت أسباب الغزو الروسي واضحة إلا أن روسيا منبوذة اليوم

أدى غزو العراق إلى احتلال استمر حتى عام ٢٠١١، وكان له عواقب وخيمة حتى عام ٢٠١٧. فقد أوجد وجودًا قويًا لتنظيم القاعدة في العراق وتسبب في نشر الفتنة الطائفية وزاد من النفوذ الإيراني في المنطقة وأوقع عددًا هائلاً من القتلى وخلق أزمة إنسانية دائمة. لكن لم يتعرض قائد الغزو جورج بوش ورفيقه رئيس وزراء إنجلترا توني بلير إلى النقد الشرس أو المطالبة بإدانتهما بجرائم حرب مثلما هو الحال اليوم مع الرئيس الروسي

دعنا نقيِّم تصوير وسائل الإعلام الغربية للغزوين والنفاق الذي استتبعه.  خلال غزو العراق وقف العالم ساكنًا للحظة متخبطًا إلى حد ما، لكن سرعان ما أدار ظهره وترك العراقيين يواجهون مصيرهم البائس وحدهم. لم تكن هناك ضجة في وسائل الإعلام الغربية على غرار ما نشهده اليوم بشأن أوكرانيا، ولا دعوة لفرض عقوبات غير مسبوقة ولا تلميح إلى حرب نووية. كما لم تكن هناك دعوات لتحركات دبلوماسية لوقف الغزو، وبالتأكيد لا لإغلاق المجال الجوي للغزاة

ضلّل الإعلام الغربي العالم بقبول غزو العراق. في كتابه عن الحرب العراقية كتب مات طيبي عن تجاهل وسائل الإعلام الغربية حرب العراق قائلاً: إن الواشنطن بوست ونيويورك تايمز كانتا المحركين الرئيسيين للنزاع، وأُقيل الإذاعيان فيل دوناهو ووجيسي فينتورا بسبب شكوكهما في الحرب، كما استولى الجنرالات وأعضاء الكونجرس على شبكات البث التليفزيونية، فلمدة أسبوعين قبل الغزو ضيف واحد من بين ٢٦٧ ضيفاً على شبكات التليفزيون شكّك في الحرب. في عيون وسائل الإعلام الغربية غزو العراق من قبل الولايات المتحدة كان بمثابة تحرير، أما غزو أوكرانيا من قِبَل روسيا فهو غزو عدواني

 في سنة ٢٠١٥ في محاضرة بجامعة شيكاغو تحدث عالم السياسة الأمريكي جون ميرشايمر عن أسباب وعواقب أزمة أوكرانيا. وألقى باللوم على الغرب، ورأى أن الغرب نزع أوكرانيا من فلك روسيا دامجا إياها في الغرب، بمغزى واحد وهو جعلها حصنًا غربيًا على حدود روسيا

نظرًا لقرب أوكرانيا من روسيا يرى الرئيس الروسي فلاديمير بوتين أن مثل هذه التحركات بمثابة تهديد وجودي وقال: إن انضمام جورجيا وأوكرانيا إلى الناتو يشكل تهديدًا مباشرًا لروسيا. وقال أيضا: هل نحن بصدد نشر صواريخ على حدود الولايات المتحدة؟ لا، إن الولايات المتحدة هي التي أتت إلى منزلنا بصواريخها وهي تقف بالفعل على أعتابنا

لن يسمح الغرب أبدًا بوجود روسي في ملعبهم. كانت أزمة الصواريخ الكوبية في الستينيات مثالاً على ذلك عندما حاول الاتحاد السوفيتي إرسال قوات عسكرية إلى كوبا. يطالب بوتين بنفس التعامل اليوم: ألا تنقل الولايات المتحدة قواتها العسكرية إلى الحدود الروسية

صعّدت وسائل الإعلام الغربية من هجماتها على روسيا. لكن هذا ليس أمرًا غريبا فدائما تبث وسائل الإعلام الغربية صورة سلبية لروسيا. لماذا؟ لأنها تتصرف وفقًا للقواعد الأمريكية مركزًا الرؤية على روسيا القمعية وبوتين المتسلِّط

تقول وسائل الإعلام الغربية إن غزو أوكرانيا يفتح الطريق لمزيد من التوسع الروسي في أوروبا وإنها لن تتوقف على أوكرانيا. هذا افتراض خاطئ لأن روسيا قالت إن الغزو سينتهي فور الاستجابة لشروطها

الوضع يتفاقم بسبب الإعلام الغربي الذي لا يكل أو يمل من المبالغة والحث على الاستمرار في الحرب بدلا من التشجيع على الجلوس إلى طاولة الحوار السلمي للاتفاق على وضع يرضي جميع. يجب على وسائل الإعلام الغربية أن تقلِّل من الحدة بدلاً من المبالغة فيها حتى لا نستيقظ لنجد العالم على أبواب حرب نووية

 

The Guardian view on CIA torture, two decades on: we need the truth

The Guardian, March 15, 2022 (Link: The Guardian view on CIA torture, two decades on: we need the truth)

The systematic brutalisation of detainees was pointless as well as cruel. An honest reckoning is long overdue

A photo reportedly of Ammar al Baluchi, who suffered brain damage after he was repeatedly slammed against a wall by trainee CIA interrogators. Photograph: AP

Twenty years ago, in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks, the CIA established an international torture programme “rendering” people to secret detention facilities around the world. The full horror of what took place in these black sites is still emerging.

We already know of mock executions and sexual violence; of a detainee waterboarded 83 times in a month; of a man dying during an interrogation and another of hypothermia after being left almost naked on a bare concrete floor – on top of the regular use of pain, humiliation and sleep deprivation. This week, we learned that Ammar al-Baluchi suffered brain damage when he was repeatedly slammed against a plywood wall by trainee interrogators using him as a teaching prop. They queued up to hit his head so that the instructor “could certify them on their ability to use the technique”.

The details emerged in a damning report written by the CIA’s own inspector general in 2008, but only now released following a court filing. The “war on terror” became an end that was used to justify any means – but never openly. Torture was rebranded as “enhanced interrogation techniques”. Interrogators sought assurances that a detainee would “remain in isolation and incommunicado for the remainder of his life” before they started work. The programme was pointless as well as brutal. The inspector general noted that the detainee lied to make the torture stop – in line with the 2014 Senate intelligence committee report that found that interrogations frequently produced false testimony (while non-coercive methods elicited useful information). At least 26 of 119 detainees were wrongly held in the first place.

Mr Baluchi now faces the death penalty as one of five men at Guantanamo Bay charged with participation in the September 11 plot. The case has been in pre-trial hearings for 10 years, largely due to disputes over the admissibility of testimony obtained after torture. Last week, another Guantanamo detainee – Mohammad Ahmad al-Qahtani, who was suspected of planning to join the plot – was repatriated to Saudi Arabia for mental health treatment. The US dropped plans to try him after concluding he had been tortured at the facility.

Despite our growing knowledge, we are still very far from a full acknowledgement of what took place – let alone accountability for it. The supreme court recently blocked two psychologists who designed the programme from being called in a case in Poland, where one of the black sites was located. The 2014 Senate report has never been released in full, though there are now renewed calls for its publication. In the UK, parliament’s intelligence and security committee produced damning reports on British involvement in kidnap and torture in 2018, but the government refused to launch a judge-led inquiry into UK complicity in the programme.

On Tuesday, the UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism issued a scathing report on the failure to address the atrocities. “Not a single man who was rendered across borders, tortured, arbitrarily detained, separated from family has received an adequate remedy,” Fionnuala Ní Aoláin said. “Many who were returned home continue to live with long-term social and psychological trauma. No one was held accountable for systematic practices of torture and rendition.”

This is not only about an injustice to individuals. The rapporteur suggests that the refusal to acknowledge what happened has helped create an environment in which there appears to be impunity for states conducting mass secret detention. An honest reckoning would help to debunk the dangerous myth that torture works and claims that national security requires unfettered powers used in secrecy. It is an essential part of ensuring such crimes are not committed again.

Ukraine, spiralling down

Al Ahram Weekly and Ahram Online, by Azza Radwan Sedky

Azza Radwan Sedky

Tuesday 15 Mar 2022

Ukraine is bearing the brunt of a proxy war, with Ukrainians at risk of losing their country, writes Azza Radwan Sedky

No matter how much support and relief the West provides to Ukraine, no matter how prohibitive the sanctions on Russia are, and no matter how courageous the Ukrainians may be, the war on Ukraine will continue until the current Western agenda is scraped. 

In the meantime, Ukrainians are paying a heavy price and are being punished hard. As they flee the shelling of their country, they become refugees in adjacent countries by the million. Those who choose to remain in Ukraine face ferocious bombing and have no water, food, heating, or fuel. The injustice is incomparable. 

However, in reality, Ukraine is bearing the brunt of a proxy war. As Ukrainians extend this war, they are losing their country along with the war. Continuing to fight until the last man standing and the total destruction of Ukrainian cities is unjustified and illogical. The Ukrainian refugees will ultimately return home, only they will return to a flattened and crippled Ukraine and maybe even a split and divided homeland. Rational thinking demands a different approach.

Meanwhile, the destruction will not only hit eastern cities like Kharkiv and Mariupol, but will also extend to the west of Ukraine and areas which were originally safe and are now being shelled. A 40-mile convoy of Russian armed vehicles, which had stayed put for sometime, is now on the move, widening the Russian presence in rural as well as urban areas. Satellite images show the Russian military edging towards Kyiv while reaching into the west of the country. 

Ukrainian citizens are not being used as human shields per se, but misleading them into believing they will win this war and should continue to fight is extremely dangerous. Regardless of how much moral and financial support the West provides to Ukraine and what seems to be its genuine and wholehearted backing, the Ukrainians remain alone and are being led to believe they can stand up against Russia. 

If truth be told, no other nation will participate militarily alongside the Ukrainians. They will only supply arms and support. The West knows that participating militarily in this war will bring about World War III with the nuclear potential that goes with it. This will not happen, and thus it is clear that the Ukrainians are bound to fight this war alone. 

Maybe the Western sanctions will cripple Russia’s economy causing it to relent at some point, but this may take months, if it happens at all. The sanctions could plunge the rouble to unprecedented lows and halt the Russian economy, causing widespread inflation. But the Ukrainians must realise that Russian President Vladimir Putin will stand firm and will keep at this war because he will not let NATO and the EU infringe on Russian borders.

By standing with the Western world and corroborating its message, fanning the flames of war rather than reporting objectively, the Western media’s role in misleading the Ukrainians is pivotal. The Western media highlights Western financial support for Ukraine, encouraging Ukrainian resilience and reporting on the sanctions on Russia and the companies pulling out of Russia, all the while telling the Ukrainians to stay the course.  

The Western media disbelieves Russian reports on biological labs in Ukraine supported by the US or the study of infections spread by migrating birds. While these may be unsubstantiated claims, the Western media and social media consider them to be simply lies that do not deserve to be investigated further. 

Twitter does not accept any Russian reporting. The following message appears after the Russian News Agency Tass’s reports, “this Tweet links to a Russia state-affiliated media website,” it says, shedding doubt on whatever the Russian news agency says.  

When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses the Ukrainians, he says that “we are on our way to victory,” but that “time and patience will be needed to achieve this victory.” He does not tell them, however, how long it will take to reach that victory or what they will endure to achieve it. 

Some decades ago, former Egyptian president Anwar Al-Sadat said loud and clear that “I can’t fight America.” This meant that had Israel stood on its own and not relied entirely on the US, Egypt could have continued the war against it. But Al-Sadat made it very clear that Egypt could not fight a war against the US and that he would not lead his people into a war with such catastrophic consequences. 

Today, Ukraine should do the same. When the world powers are involved, countries such as Egypt or Ukraine should heed the potential of an unparalleled disaster. Conventional wisdom calls for saving lives, avoiding total destruction, and coming out at the other end with the least amount of damage.

The Washington Post, for once, is realistic. It says that “to explain what is happening now, you have to go back to the US move to expand NATO that began in the 1990s. In expanding that alliance and offering countries like Georgia and Ukraine the theoretical chance to join NATO, realists claim that the United States triggered a security dilemma with Russia that led to its invasions of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 and 2022.”

How will the war play out? “The guns are talking now, but the path of dialogue must always remain open,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. This is vital: negotiations and peaceful talks will lead to de-escalation; maintaining the current level of fighting may lead to the opposite: total destruction. Ukraine and Russia must negotiate a fair settlement in which it is to be hoped that Ukraine will be able to coexist peacefully with Russia and the Western countries. 

It is true that Russian demands for a ceasefire are beyond the acceptable. It calls for the “demilitarisation,” “denazification,” and “neutrality” of Ukraine, as well as “the acceptance of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and recognition of the Russia-occupied regions of Donbas as independent states.” 

But this is how the ebb and flow of negotiations go. In the end, Russia, for a faster resolution of the crisis, may give up some of its demands, though the more it gains in Ukraine, the more adamant it will remain on the concessions it expects.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that the US is looking to end the war in Ukraine and not to expand it. I truly hope that this can be fulfilled. The victims of this terrible war, the Ukrainian people, have lost so much already. 

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* The writer is the author of Cairo Rewind on the First Two Years of Egypt’s Revolution, 2011-2013.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 17 March, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.

 

نقطة التحول في الجائحة

الاهرام ٥ مارس ٢٠٢٢

بقلم عزة رضوان صدقي

لمدة عامين أو أكثر ظل قاطنو العالم في معاناة وفجع شديدين من جائحة كورونا ومن قدوم متحوِّر تلو الآخر يصدمهم ويتسبب في الشك والخوف من كل ما هو حولهم. لكن التغيير وشيك قريبا. متحوِّر أوميكرون الحالي يعد بمسار إيجابي، فقد كان نقطة تحول في حد ذاته ليس فقط لكونه شديد الانتقال، لكن أيضا لأنه أقل ضراوة من المتغيرات الأخرى متسببا في وفيات أقل وإصابات دخلت المستشفيات أقل. إن خصائص الأوميكرون ثم زيادة المناعة التي توفرها اللقاحات ستبطئ من ظهور المتغيرات المستقبلية، ومع ارتفاع المناعة في المجتمعات ستبدأ أعداد الحالات في الانخفاض لأنه ستقل الأعداد المعرَّضة للإصابة بهذا الوباء اللعين. يقول عالم الميكروبيولوجي في جامعة كاليفورنيا، شانجشين يانج، عندما ننظر إلى الوراء بعد ١٠ سنوات من الآن, أعتقد أن ظهور أوميكرون سيُعتبر حدثًا مميزًا ". ويتابع: "من المحتمل أن نرى نهاية الجائحة لتصبح وباء على الأرجح في صيف هذا العام

هنا لابد من التمييز بين الجائحة والوباء. الجائحة مرض يتفشى في العالم أجمع، أما الوباء فيتواجد في مجتمعات معينة فقط. الكورونا تعتبر جائحة لتواجدها حول العالم أما الحمى الصفراء والسل والملاريا فيتوطنان في بعض أنحاء العالم فقط. واليوم تتحول جائحة كورونا إلى وباء موجود بكثرة، لكنه ليس منتشرا في العالم أجمع. وها نحن نتساءل كيف سيتعايش العالم مع كورونا في المرحلة القادمة؟

أولا على الرغم من أننا جميعًا بحاجة إلى العودة إلى أساليبنا وطبائعنا القديمة قبيل كورونا، إلا أننا لابد أن تقبل الأمر الواقع: إن كورونا لن تختفي تماما وستبقي معنا بشكل أو بآخر لفترة زمنية طويلة، حتى وإن تحولت إلى مرض موسمي مثل الإنفلونزا مثلا، فحتى الإنفلونزا تتسبب في عشرات الآلاف من الوفيات سنويًا

لذلك، فإن الحذر حيوي وسيستمر. قال المدير العام لمنظمة الصحة العالمية قبل أسابيع قليلة فقط: "نحن قلقون من أن السرد الذي يُحكي قد يرسِّخ في عقول البعض أنه بسبب اللقاحات وانخفاض شدة أوميكرون وقابليته العالية للانتشار سننتهي من كورونا ولن يعود الحذر ضروريا. لا شيء يمكن أن يكون أبعد عن الحقيقة". ثم قال أيضا: هذا لا يعني أننا سنعود إلى الحالة الطبيعية وأن كورونا ستتحول الى مجرد ضجيج في خلفية حياتنا. سيتعين علينا أن نكون يقظين باستمرار

وستبقى بعض القطاعات على وجه الأرض أكثر عرضة للإصابة بالفيروس فالتناقض الصارخ في التلقيح بين الدول الغنية وغير الغنية سيتسبب في بؤر كثيرة ما لم يتغير أسلوب التعامل مع الوباء ثم التحصين. حتى الآن تلقى ثلثا الأشخاص في البلدان الغنية جرعة واحدة على الأقل من اللقاح، بينما تلقى ١٢ في المائة فقط من قاطني الدول منخفضة الدخل اللقاح. سيظهر الوباء في المجموعات هذه عندما يظل الكثير غير محصنين وعرضة للإصابة به

لكن دعنا نتفاءل بعض الشيء. مثال حي على معايشة الأفراد والمجتمعات مع الأوبئة موجود في مرض الإيدز. إن الإيدز لا يقل عدوى وفتكا اليوم عما كان عليه عندما ظهر قبل ٤٠ عامًا، لكن علاجه والوقاية منه قد تحسن بشكل ملحوظ حتى أن معظم شعوب العالم لا يبالي به كثيرا. ونحن على أهبة الاستعداد للتعامل مع كورونا بنفس المنطق.

تقبل العديد من الدول حول العالم هذه الحقائق وبدأت فعلا في تقليص القيود. في أوروبا مثلا أعلنت ألمانيا والنمسا وسويسرا والدانمارك ودول أخرى عديدة أنه سيتم رفع معظم القيود المتبقية قريبا، قائلة إن كورونا لم يعد تهديدًا خطيرًا. وفي الولايات المتحدة أصبحت كاليفورنيا أول ولاية تتحول رسميًا إلى نهج تسمية كورونا وباءً وليس جائحة. ووفقًا لمديرة الصحة الكندية يتعين على كندا "التعايش مع كورونا وأن كندا بحاجة إلى إيجاد طريقة أكثر استدامة للتعامل مع الوباء

مع الوقت التعايش مع كورونا سينتج عنه تغييرات أخرى في أنماط الحياة مثل التغييرات التي أتت مع الأوبئة السابقة التي أصبحنا نتقبلها بارتياح. فمثلا تساعد النوافذ السلكية في إبعاد البعوض الذي يحمي من بالداخل من الحمى الصفراء والملاريا، وساعدت أنظمة الصرف الصحي والحصول على المياه النظيفة في القضاء على وباء التيفوئيد والكوليرا. قد ينتج عن كورونا تحسينات مماثلة، على سبيل المثال قلة العناق والتقبيل وارتداء الماسك في المناطق المزدحمة وغسل الأيدي بانتظام حتى تصبح هذه الأفعال أنماطا عادية يعتنقها الجميع

لقد تعلمنا الكثير والكثير عن كورونا في السنتين الماضيتين، فحتى وإن كنا لن نتخلص تماما من الوباء إلا أننا في وضع أفضل للتعايش معه ولنكون أقل خوفًا منه

 

 

A morphed COVID-19

Having endured Covid-19 for over two years, the citizens of the world remain fatigued awaiting a turnaround anxiously. Where will Covid-19 take us at this point?  

Covid-19, together with its numerous variants, is not over yet, but change is imminent. The highly transmissible and most dominating variant, Omicron, hiked up numbers of daily cases to a whole other level, but it was a turning point in itself. Being less virulent than other variants, it caused fewer deaths and fewer hospitalizations.

Promising a positive trajectory, Omicron’s particularities and peculiarities set it apart from other variants and is slowly veering Covid-19 towards becoming endemic rather than a pandemic. This is a major change that has to be scrutinized in detail.

UCLA Health clinical microbiologist, Shangxin Yang, Ph.D., says, “When we look back 10 years from now, I think the emergence of omicron will be considered a hallmark event, because it really brings the light at the end of the tunnel.” He continues, “We potentially can see how the pandemic might end and become endemic… I’m hoping that very likely this will end this year, presumably summer.”

While a pandemic is a disease that is prevalent globally, an epidemic is one that exists in certain communities but becomes manageable as immunity builds. Covid-19 is an example of a pandemic. Yellow fever, tuberculosis, and malaria are endemic in some parts of the world; and so is seasonal flu and colds.

How will the world handle the next stage?

Though we all need to get back to some normalcy, we still need to recognize that Covid-19 has not disappeared and won’t disappear in the near future; rather it will stay with us in some form or another for a long time posing a substantial threat in vulnerable regions. And even if Covid-19 will be treated more like the flu than anything else, it can be life-threatening to some; the seasonal flu causes tens of thousands of deaths yearly.

Dr. Brewer of Fielding, the School of Public Health at UCLA, reports that “COVID-19 could follow a trajectory more like the HIV pandemic. HIV is just as deadly and no less contagious today than it was when it emerged 40 years ago, but treatment and prevention for the disease have improved dramatically.”

If this is where Covid-19 is today, then it will soon be followed by the scaling back of restrictions and the lifting of public health measures as increased immunity provided by vaccines, boosters and the highly transmissible Omicron could slow the appearance of future variants. Dr. Brewer says. “As immunity rises in the population, case numbers will begin to fall because there'll be fewer and fewer susceptible individuals for that particular variant to infect.”

Many countries around the world are accepting these facts and lifting restrictions. In Europe, Germany announced that most remaining restrictions will be lifted by March 20. Austria and Switzerland, too, will do away with most of their remaining restrictions in the near future. Denmark removed nearly all its virus restrictions, saying Covid-19 no longer poses a critical threat. And in the US, California became the first state to formally shift to an endemic approach to Covid-19; this current attitude emphasizes prevention over mandated masking and business shutdowns.

Canada, according to Canada’s Broadcasting Corporation, CBC, is shifting to “living with the virus.” Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam said that Canada needs to find a more sustainable way to deal with the pandemic, and “provincial vaccine passports, need to be re-examined.” She also said, "What we need to do going forward, as we emerge out of this Omicron wave, is recognize this virus is not going to disappear," she said. "We do need to get back to some normalcy." 

Impending changes will follow. Yonatan Grad of Harvard Public School of Health says, “Past pandemics have led to massive changes in the way we live that we’ve come to accept as normal. Screens on our doors and windows helped keep out mosquitos that carried yellow fever and malaria. Sewer systems and access to clean water helped eliminate typhoid and cholera epidemics.” Covid-19 may yield similar long-term improvements as masking in crowded areas develops into the norm, perpetual hugging and kissing are lessened, and washing hands regularly becomes a given.

Still, precaution is vital. WHO’s Director General, only a few weeks back said, “We’re concerned that a narrative has taken hold in some countries that because of vaccines, and because of Omicron’s high transmissibility and lower severity, preventing transmission is no longer possible, and no longer necessary. Nothing could be further from the truth.” He also recognized the change. "It doesn't mean we're going to go back to the state of normalcy and COVID is just going to be background noise in our lives," he said. "It means that we're constantly going to have to be vigilant."

And certain pockets which are more susceptible to the virus will remain. The stark contrast in immunization between affluent and non-affluent countries will remain a stumbling block unless attitudes change. Two thirds of people in wealthy countries had received at least one dose of vaccine as of early February while just 12 per cent had in low-income nations. Covid-19 will emerge in clusters when many remain unvaccinated and prone to get it, and there are enough susceptible individuals and enough contact among them to sustain spread.

We will not be rid of Covid-19 easily, but we have learned quite a bit in the last two years, and the citizens of the world are in a much better shape to live with it and be less fearful of it.

Double standards on Ukraine

Al Ahram Weekly

Azza Radwan Sedky

Tuesday 1 Mar 2022

An invasion is an invasion, whether of Iraq or Ukraine. But are invasions appraised differently depending on where they take place and by whom, asks Azza Radwan Sedky

In prefacing this discussion, it should be stated clearly that the invasion of a sovereign state is unacceptable and impermissible, be it the US invading Iraq or Russia invading Ukraine. However, the issue here is the double standard applied in the two invasions. 

The US got away with invading Iraq in 2003 under false pretenses, and Russia, having more reason to invade Ukraine, is now considered to be a pariah. As a deviation from the conventional wisdom, let’s take stock of how the Western media has portrayed both and the hypocrisy that this has entailed. 

Every time a sovereign state is invaded, we are perplexed and tell ourselves that such invasions cannot possibly occur, especially in the 21st century. Today, it is Ukraine’s turn to face the grim horrors of invasion. Another case in point will tell us that we never learn from the fallout of invasions. 

In 2002, then US president George W Bush used the term “axis of evil” in his state of the union address to describe North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. Bush identified the three countries as a dangerous network of terrorist states capable of threatening the US. 

However, it was ludicrous to think that Iraq posed a security threat to the US, and despite the unequivocal conclusion that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction and had nothing to do with the 11 September 2001 attacks, the US mobilised enough support to get away with an invasion of the country in 2003, one that was not much different from today’s invasion of Ukraine by Russia. 

Yet, the world ignored the deception and stood behind the invaders. In retrospect, and compared to today’s uproar against Russia, no significant condemnation emerged.

The invasion of Iraq led to the occupation of the country that lasted until 2011 and had powerful consequences until 2017. It created a powerful Al-Qaeda presence in Iraq, proliferating sectarian strife, further Iranian influence in the region, a massive death toll, and a lasting humanitarian crisis. As far as the invasion of Iraq is concerned, Bush and British prime minister Tony Blair, also a strong supporter and participant in the invasion, got away with murder, no pun intended. 

During the invasion, the world stood still for a moment, fumbled somewhat, but soon enough turned its back and let the Iraqis face their wretched destiny alone. There was no uproar in the Western media similar to what we are seeing today over Ukraine, no call for unprecedented sanctions, and no hint of a nuclear-driven war. There were also no calls for diplomatic moves to stop the invasion and definitely no closure of air space to the invader. 

The Western media misled the world into accepting the invasion, siding with the US administration. In his book, Hate, Inc., US author Matt Taibbi speaks about how the Western media sold the Iraq war and got away with it, saying that the Washington Post and New York Times were key editorial-page drivers of the conflict; MSNBC unhired anchors Phil Donahue and Jesse Ventura over their war scepticism; CNN flooded the airwaves with generals and ex-Pentagon stoolies; and broadcast outlets ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS stacked the deck even more.

 In a two-week period before the invasion, these US networks had just one American guest out of 267 who questioned the war, according to the organisation Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.

Undoubtedly, the Western media chooses its battles and sides with whomever it pleases. While the invasion of Iraq by the US was considered a liberation, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia is seen as a cut-throat invasion in the eyes of the Western media.

But in a University of Chicago lecture, astonishingly from 2015, US political scientist John J Mearsheimer spoke on the causes and consequences of the Ukraine crisis. He faulted the West for the current outcome, seeing it as peeling Ukraine from Russia’s orbit and incorporating it into the West. “Our basic aim was to make Ukraine a Western bulwark on Russia’s border,” Mearsheimer said.

Diana Johnstone in Consortium News affirms the above. “The official US line is that the Kremlin threatens Europe by its aggressive expansionism, but when the strategists talk among themselves the story is different. The goal is to use sanctions, propaganda and other measures (‘over-extension’) that the US can exploit to Russia’s detriment,” she says. 

Starting with the Clinton administration in the 1990s, the US began moving NATO eastwards towards the Russian border and integrating Ukraine economically into the West, as it had earlier integrated the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and the Baltic States. Russia, apprehensive of Ukraine’s moves towards the European Union, warned the West against such actions. 

Due to Ukraine’s proximity to Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin sees such moves as an existential threat. “Georgia and Ukraine becoming part of NATO is a direct threat to Russia,” he has said. “Are we deploying missiles near the US border? No, we are not. It is the United States that has come to our home with its missiles and is already standing on our doorstep.” 

The West would never allow a Russian presence in the Western hemisphere. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a case in point in the 1960s when the former Soviet Union tried to put military forces in Cuba. Putin is demanding the same deal today: that the US should not move its military forces to the Russian border. 

The Western media has escalated its attacks on Russia. But that is not an anomaly, as the Western media has always broadcast a negative picture of Russia. In an article appearing on the website of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), the author writes that “nobody loves Russia,” arguing that the “western media have perpetuated the myth of Putin’s ‘neo-Soviet autocracy’.” 

 “The American press has ignored all other sides of Russia by making the ‘dark side’ central to its coverage,” he says.

The Western media acts in accordance with US rules, and its narrative focuses on an oppressive Russia with Putin enjoying dictatorial powers. The invasion of Ukraine allows the Western media to continue its assault, as it focuses on an anti-Putin and anti-Russia discourse. 

It claims Russia is targeting civilians in Ukraine. But civilians are seen moving about and heading to safer ground, panicking true, but still safe enough because they are not targeted per se. Reporters are seen in the middle of streets and walkways and not in danger. Russia is bombing key infrastructure, oil terminals, and gas facilities in Ukraine. But targeting civilians is not its aim. 

The Western media has focused on the notion that the invasion opens the way for further expansion by Russian military forces into Europe. This is a far-fetched assumption that the US Harvard Gazette has reiterated. “A key step for the US and its NATO allies should be tripling combat-ready troops in the Baltics and NATO-allied eastern Europe to deter any thought of a Ukraine-style incursion there,” it says. 

It is exacerbating the situation by rubbing salt into the wound. Nataliya Gumenyuk, a Ukranian journalist, said that “I am in general critical of parachute journalism, a foreign reporting cliché with a very binary approach. It’s clear they know very little about our situation…We are not a rich country, but the usual clichés of war are there.”

It is to be hoped that diplomatic dialogue will begin immediately and that Russia, Ukraine, and the Western allies will sit together and negotiate a deal satisfying to all concerned. In the meantime, the Western media should downplay rather than overplay the intensity of the situation, so that we don’t wake up to find the world on the verge of nuclear war. 

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* The writer is the author of Cairo Rewind on the First Two Years of Egypt’s Revolution, 2011-2013.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 3 March, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.