‘Covid-19 – Socio-Political Repercussions of Covid-19: An Analysis’ (3rd Session)

Many ideals and ideologies of the modern world appear to
be under a threat today in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic, and even the most
vendible system like Capitalism, which was widely seen as a driving force
behind everything from development to democracy in the contemporary world, now
seems to be failing in the aftermath of the novel Coronavirus spread.

These thoughts were reflected by senior UK-based
journalist Murtaza Shibli in a session titled ‘Socio-Political Repercussions of
Covid-19: An Analysis’. Held on April 16, 2020 as part of IPS’ webinar series
‘COVID-19: Global Challenge, National Response’, the session was chaired by
senior analyst and IPS associate Syed Mohammad Ali, and comprised EP-IPS Khalid
Rahman, GM-IPS Naufil Shahrukh and the Institute’s research faculty in the
discussion panel.

Analyzing different socio-political repercussions of the
Coronavirus spread, Shibli said that everything pertaining to capitalism today
– including the banking industry, aviation industry, tourism industry,
supply-chain management, etc. – was failing in the post Covid19 world, whereas
the only help they could hope to get now was from the socialist model where the
government steps up to bail them out. He said that the capitalism, which was
taught for long as being the best mechanism to run the world and a best
solution to solve global problems, was today on its knees, exhibiting how
fragile the system, its ideology, its mechanisms, and the whole infrastructure
actually was.

Speaking of the fast-reshaping international scenario,
the speaker said that the world of today already seems to be heading towards
re-tribulizing. The Euro bloc, which was seen as the most prominent success
story of regionalism in recent past, has faltered bad in the current crisis,
whereas the local responses of the Western countries from the US to Europe have
exposed capitalism inside out as none of them had any potent mechanism to deal
with the pandemic. He pointed that there have been some pandemics in the West
in past as well, but even while dealing with them their focus remained on
profit generation all along. The defense industry in these country for instance
had developed overwhelmingly, but the health industry did not enjoy much
attention baring the pharmaceutical industry for obvious reasons. As a result
of all that, today we see that the health infrastructure in the whole of the West
has been completely exposed.

Speaking on the role of global as well as Pakistani media
in reference to Covid19 reporting, Shibli said that the international media was
generally much responsible and rational in its handling of the crisis. Despite
facing deteriorating business conditions itself, it duly supported their
respective governments in preventing the spread of anarchy by holding informed
and constructive discussions with relevant field experts and specialist.

The role of Pakistani media on the other hand, he said,
was somewhat contrary and tinted at times. Instead of realizing its influential
role and its consequent responsibility to bind people together by adopting a
re-conciliatory approach in this time of need, it was seen promoting uncertainty
and anxiety, playing a role of a dividing factor instead of being a uniting
force.

The intellectual saw an urgent need of bringing
substantial reforms in the media industry of Pakistan by training and bringing
those journalists to the fore who know the intricacies of emergency situations
and understand the requirements of a health or economic crisis, as well as the
interventions being made in its response.

Ali endorsed Shibli’s viewpoint maintaining that the role
of media in such situations should be managed strategically. He stressed on the
need of developing guidelines and adopting best practices in the national
communication and information domain for the purpose, with the Ministry of
Information taking a central role while taking different health-related
departments on board in order to impart correct information using different
platforms of communication.

Concluding the session, Ali expressed his apprehensions
over the present phenomenon of fear that has seen the whole world coming down
to a halt. He said that the prevailing pandemic fear is generating massive
behavioral change worldwide, as a result of which a mono-culture is being
developed in which we are being restrained to a certain shell.  It is a
shell in which we are starting to base our activities, our transactions, and in
turn all our life on technology. Doing this, we could risk giving up the
controls on our lives, even giving up our personal autonomy. We could end up
living in a world where we will be traceable at every step and everything we do
would be recorded. It will be critical to recover from this present phenomenon
of prevailing fear as early as possible and the media will have an important
role to play in this regard.