News Right Now: Social Distancing & Unrest

Assalamu Alaikum and Welcome to this Episode, “Social Distancing and Unrest”

The IMF (International Monetary Fund) released a new report this week, warning that havoc caused by the Covid-19 pandemic could spark social unrest around the world, and urged governments to take steps to prevent the disturbances. The IMF forecast the global economy to shrink 3.0% during 2020 as a result of the pandemic, but warned that its forecasts were marked by “extreme uncertainty” and outcomes could be far worse. This, in the light of recent protests over access to food aid during a Coronavirus lockdown in South Africa, where police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the crowds.

The IMF stated that protests are “more likely in countries with histories of widespread corruption, lack of transparency in public policy and poor service delivery.” Based on this “likelihood” their advice to policymakers is to communicate with affected communities and take appropriate measures to tackle the virus - and re consider insufficient funding for poorer communities as measures that favour the wealthy will not go unnoticed. Daily wage earners and those that form the informal economy in India have already slipped into food poverty, and unemployment has doubled to 14.5%. As this pattern is replicated across the globe the unequitable measures that concern the IMF will be actualised, given their own admission that global dissatisfaction over economic policies has increased in the last two years.

The irony of the IMF suddenly becoming aware of global dissatisfaction is quite twisted. This exhortation from the very institution which has meddled with the economies of hundreds of developing nations by offering structural reform packages in exchange for immediate financial help...

This “help” however has only ever weakened these economies, by withdrawing subsidies, increasing tax burden and creating free-floating currency exchange rates to drive devaluation. It has set market driven interest rates, free trade policies, privatized state enterprises, and encouraged foreign investment by relaxing conditions and has enforced favorable rules for private ownership rights.

All these IMF prescriptions carry the promise of economic recovery in the long term, but in reality have only ensured immense and immediate benefits for big business Capitalists, foreign and local. The true fears of the IMF are most likely to be behind these predictions - that widespread social unrest will be directed towards the current world order and its insidious institutions.

Chief economist Gita Gopinath stated, “previous crises and disasters had fostered solidarity, but there could be a different outcome this time. If the crisis is badly managed and it’s viewed as having been insufficient to help people, you could end up with social unrest,” she told Reuters. “Vulnerabilities are high in certain countries, especially those with high levels of unemployment and low growth,” the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Director Jihad Azour told CNBC on Tuesday. There is also a risk that the combination of disease and its economic impact will contribute to the enhanced instability and unrest.

The rapid spread of the virus threatens to overwhelm already weak healthcare systems; and in low to middle income nations like Ecuador, Haiti and Iran, protests over hikes in fuel prices are increasing every day. in Chile an increase in public transport fares has sparked social protests on much broader issues. Such protests are inevitable in countries impoverished by the decades-long policies of the IMF and World Bank. The economic stranglehold which has sustained not alleviated poverty has not fooled the masses, as the bureaucrats would like to believe. Rather since the outbreak of the pandemic the fragility of the global economic system is becoming all the more clear to those shackled by it. Built upon a virtual currency, tax and speculation, the system has convulsed at the Covid outbreak, and its principles proven to be a shambles.

The world has witnessed the fragility of Capitalism, and the utter failure of its desperate rhetoric. Every nation on earth except the western creators of the IMF who speak for the few nations it serves... have been devastated by its structural reform policies, and its weaponised use of debt. Debt is used as a tool to access people's raw materials and infrastructure on the cheapest possible terms. It has bread competition for a shrinking export market..and with fewer items to export given the lack of cash to invest with - markets eventually become saturated. Reducing the exporters income, but making huge savings for the IMF affiliates.

As Muslims, we must be savvy about the politics of those who dont fear Allah swt and who boldly uphold values and practices against the great Islamic tradition. We must forge our own destiny based on Islamic principles taken from the book of Allah and the Sunnah, which exemplify the politics of noble prophet saws.

Allah swt reminds us,

(وَلَوْ أَنَّ أَهْلَ ٱلْقُرَىٰٓ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَٱتَّقَوْا۟ لَفَتَحْنَا عَلَيْهِم بَرَكَٰتٍ مِّنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ وَلَٰكِن كَذَّبُوا۟ فَأَخَذْنَٰهُم بِمَا كَانُوا۟ يَكْسِبُونَ

“And if only the people of the cities had believed and feared Allah, We would have opened upon them blessings from the heavens and the earth.” [Al-A’raf:96]

Jazak Allahu Khayran for joining us, till next time!

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