In a matter of weeks, suddenly, the Corona-virus epidemic descended upon the world, from Asia to Europe, America, and Africa, as "simultaneous and sudden as cluster bombs", casting a shadow of fear of death or causing others' deaths, over all human societies, all people, rich or poor, black or white, male or female, ruling or subject, all over the world's almost eight billion population. In a short few weeks, suddenly, the streets of the world's most populous, most developed and busy capitals, became quarantined and turned into a "ghost town!" Images of medieval Europe, the era of the plague and the "Black Death" are slowly being dredged up in people's minds!

The shock of this epidemic has totally stunned the lower classes in the developed world, those who, despite all the criticism and objections that they have against their governments and systems, are historically accustomed to trusting their own governments in the face of such "trivial" crisis!; while the upper layers and the governments seem more embarrassed, confused and frightened! Apparently, no one has a decisive "action plan" for steering through the "Corona Crisis"!

The most obvious strategy of the ruling governments is to let us fall gradually into the "whirlpool of the crisis". They say: let's "buy some time" and try to slow down the mortality rate, until the "system capabilities" keep up with the spread rate of the virus. For how long?! Unknown! This is the action plan that the most powerful and "civilised" governments present to their own subjugated people! This is besides Iran, with an officially medieval government! Besides the Islamic regime, which is the most incongruous and unappealing historical slur on human societies. A country in which people have no trust whatsoever in the rotten religious government that has no legitimacy among them. A state that for over forty years, has abused 80 million Iranians as its  "slaves", "hostages" and “herds,” in all its political-military, security and economic dealings; a state for whom protecting the environment for human beings, animals and plants is nothing but an ironic joke!

The Corona "crisis", even though its victims are mostly from the poor and religion stricken communities like Iran and other marginalised regions, is a crisis of the "civilised" continent! It is a "crisis" of the countries in which the "heart" of today's conventional societies beats; countries where the "spirit" of the needs of the dragon of global economy rules; countries where the seeds of the future fourth and fifth industrial revolutions are sown, and where the modern and current policies govern. Societies in which people presumably have left their control over their "destiny" to their own "elected" civilised governments of the 21st century.

The Corona Crisis is a crisis of societies where famine, migration, hunger and dying of simple diseases such as "cholera" and "malaria" are unheard of for decennia! It is the crisis of civilised societies where astronomical distances were felt with other secluded parts of the world, in which different controllable epidemics took victims easily. It is the crisis of societies that felt responsible for helping the hungry, the sick, and the famine stricken people in this and that part of the world, by generously donating their "humanitarian" aids to less "prosperous" human beings! It is the crisis of societies in which the rulers and governments are “non-totalitarian” and “non-regressive,” but “pro-human rights” and “democratic."

In these societies, in circumstances that not only common sense, but also all scientific and pharmacological sources verify that the modern-day humans were able to cope with this "very simple" epidemic, what could be the responses of the people's "elected" representatives and the ruling governments, who have had total control over human societies for centuries under pretexts of "protecting people's interests" and "preserving their safety and health"? In circumstances in which "masters" and "slavers" of the civilised world, in their "sunny days", when productivity and profitability soared astronomically, didn't save up anything, not even as much as their slave-master forefathers had for their slaves' health and well-being during the "rainy days". They say that hospitals are short of beds! That there not adequate oxygen ventilators, and nor had producing them been considered as urgent; that they didn't spend anything on training medical and healthcare personnel, research and medicine development! that now it takes months and maybe years for even a simple test to be carried out, and have allowed this epidemic to prey on the more vulnerable populations such as those already ill and the elderly; until the system is able to catch up with the rate of spread of this epidemic.

This crisis, which is not biological but political and economic, cannot be easily survived for those sitting on their Godly thrones; not by discovering a vaccine, nor by producing a medicine. What worries the governments in Western countries is not the devastating effects of the virus and the victimization of the people, but its consequences and the Post-Corona world.

The speed of the massive spread of the Corona virus is across a planet that already had no sign of peace, prosperity, welfare and security whatsoever, but was rather caught up in a whirlpool of catastrophes and crisis, one after another, and was already burning in the tumult of significant, historic, and decisive "changes"! Changes such as finding a way to deal with the dangerous environmental crisis, resisting against the consequences of "Brexit" and the economic crisis, the successive austerity measures, the escape of millions from the hells of the Middle East and the "refugee crisis", the economic sanctions on Iran and its fatal consequences for the people on the one hand, and the explosion of grassroots uprisings in Iran, and the hope of the fall of Islamic terrorism in Iran and the region, along with putting an end to the US state terrorism, the rise of popular uprisings in France, Chile, Lebanon and Iraq, … all of which are just the "tip of the iceberg" of a melting down world. The addition of the "Corona crisis" to this scene takes the transformation of the political and economic situation of the world to a much higher and more complex level.

In the Western societies, the people who are accustomed to not using catastrophes and natural disasters "politically", and initially try not to put pressure on their governments regarding the " Corona crisis",  will wake up after experiencing initial shocks and relying on common sense, that this epidemic was not and is not a natural disaster but an absolutely preventable and controllable situation. Strong signs of awakening can already be seen among them. They have already put pressure on their governments by patiently publishing information and raising awareness. But this patience is not permanent and will end quickly. The ruling powers are well aware of this! Citizens of Italy, Spain, Britain, France and the US ask themselves why they are so defenceless against a simple epidemic! Why are there "military and economic" infrastructures, capital, money, banks and accumulation, but there is not - and has never been - any "infrastructure" for people’s health and the environment! Why is there absolutely nothing stored up in the "sunny days" for these "rainy days"?! People know God is not in charge! If in the Middle Ages, the era of ignorance, the master (lord) could store up a few bags of grain for winter and "rainy days", how come in the era of the fourth Industrial Revolution, there are no hospital beds, infirmaries, medicines and oxygen ventilators put aside? This fundamental loss of trust in the "elected governments" is more fatal for the ruling powers than the Corona itself!

It is said that the impacts of Corona on the history and political structure and order of the world are unpredictable. Nine eleven, and the 2008 financial and global crisis are not comparable to this Corona crisis. It is said that, as the plague epidemic in the Middle Ages changed Europe and subsequently the world, discredited the Church, changed the work force and the working population demographically and caused the Renaissance, and also changed the economic, political and ideological structure of human societies, the world after Corona can evolve into the same dimensions! The ruling class and its representatives in power are now feeling the weight of the genie born out of the "Corona Crisis".

They are trying to prepare themselves to face the Post-Corona world. Stupefying people and concealing their system's inability to meet the community's minimum health-related requirements will not work for them anymore. The wiser and more forethoughtful strata of the ruling class, in the states where they have little or no control over the market's uncontrollable behavior, declare that we must change our "lifestyles"! Which actually means "we may have to lower our profitability so that the environment and the labour force would survive in order to guarantee exploitation and also in order to keep our class in power". They say "we need to learn from our mistakes." Which means "we'd better, like our forefathers, act with a little providence in terms of treating our slaves.". It is said that - for the reasons mentioned - we may "have to" limit and sacrifice "democracy" and "freedoms" a little bit! Which means "we have to curb the unconditional "freedom" of "destroying the environment. We may have to restrict the absolute liberty of turning everything and everyone into commodity; from labour force to human body tissues, water, air, health, sanitation and people's lives and security, and sending them all into the market to be bargained and make profit from it. For the bourgeoisie, restricting these freedoms, especially in the post-Cold War and the current multi-polar world, and the absolute rule of the "free market" can, however, be a big gamble, as dangerous as a suicide attack! The wheel of history does not turn backwards!

After the Corona crisis, the return to the "Welfare Societies" and Western "Social Democracy" - which were by-products of the workers' revolutions and particularly of the October Revolution - will only be an impossibility, a nostalgic dream for the bourgeois governments, who have assumed minimum responsibility regarding people. In addition to this historical truth, any "change in the lifestyle" in the current capitalist system and applying "the lessons learnt from the Corona crisis", will not be taking place in vacuum! The change in the way of life, the change in the order of society, for bringing about social justice, will also bring around and activate other forces!

Any retreat or compromise by the bourgeois states, in the face of the expectations of the people, will strengthen the oppressed. The "Corona crisis" has already brought together a world of citizens, who are not responsible for turning this "simple epidemic" into a catastrophe for humans and a global crisis. It has given them a feeling of being fellow-sufferers and a feeling of being defenceless against the ruling class. Humanity will rise up as a unified solid body beyond all national, racial and religious boundaries, in the face of this monstrous, greedy and avaricious god - this time it can rise from the heart of the civilised societies.

If in the Middle Ages, the Church failed to respond to the people who had abandoned God, and eventually the plague and the Black Death made decisive blows to the superstition of the Church and the religious establishment, and along with changes in the structure of the labour force, paved the way for the rapid transition from the old rotten system, presently the "Corona Crisis" has been attacking today's superstitions, today's God, and the states which safeguard the anti-humane system of profit and capital. It has exposed the "superstition" of the civilised and modern world of the 21st century that the state, in the cradle of democracy, does not represent all people, nor that it serves each and everyone! It has become clear that the "evilness", irresponsibility and the abandonment of human health and life, the absence of adequate facilities and provisions, are not unique to the underdeveloped countries and "totalitarian" states! Democracy and parliament, the right of the people, and the inalienable human rights as well as the responsibilities of the states, are all as absurd and superstitious as believing in the medieval god and the punishments of witches to combat people's sufferings! The burning of witches of the Middle East, brandings of "axis of evil", and sacrificing the weaker links in the farthest parts of the world by the gods and missionaries of the civilised world's superstitions, will only save them just as much as it did save the medieval systems!

The veil of deception of the civilised world in the 21st-century will be completely removed in the course of the "Corona crisis". Then the glimpses of the "post-Corona world" can be seen. What has brought panic to the states of the developed countries, and turned the world's largest and most advanced capitals into ghost towns, is not the inability of human beings to confront this virus, but the uncertainty of the future of the post-Corona system. The civilised people in these societies is observing these, and that they can overthrow this god just like the medieval ones.

The end of the Corona pandemic could be the end of the authority of the gods of this century. It can be the start of an Age of Enlightenment for humans, from Asia to Africa, from Europe to America, who despite all the false divisions and differentiations, sympathises for and feels solidarity with each other in the midst of this "crisis". Human beings have no choice but to combat this system whose every second of existence is against them.

Soraya Shahaby

March 20, 2020