Adam Hanieh Quotes (0-)

“In the face of the COVID-19 tsunami, our lives are changing in ways that were inconceivable just a few short weeks ago. Not since the 2008–9 economic collapse has the world collectively shared an experience of this kind: a single, rapidly mutating global crisis, structuring the rhythm of our daily lives within a complex calculus of risk and competing probabilities. In response, numerous social movements have put forward demands that take seriously the potentially disastrous consequences of the virus, while also tackling the incapacity of capitalist governments to adequately address the crisis itself. These demands include questions of worker safety, the necessity of neighborhood-level organizing, income and social security, the rights of those on zero-hour contracts or in precarious employment, and the need to protect renters and those living in poverty.”

“As we have repeatedly seen over the last decade, capital frequently seizes moments of crisis as a moment of opportunity — a chance to implement radical change that was previously blocked or appeared impossible.”

“As with all so-called humanitarian crises, it is essential to remember that the social conditions found across most of the countries of the South are the direct product of how these states are inserted into the hierarchies of the world market. Historically, this included a long encounter with Western colonialism, which has continued, into contemporary times, with the subordination of poorer countries to the interests of the world’s wealthiest states and largest transnational corporations. Since the mid-1980s, repeated bouts of structural adjustment — often accompanied by Western military action, debilitating sanctions regimes, or support for authoritarian rulers — have systematically destroyed the social and economic capacities of poorer states, leaving them ill-equipped to deal with major crises such as COVID-19.”

“As with all so-called humanitarian crises, it is essential to remember that the social conditions found across most of the countries of the South are the direct product of how these states are inserted into the hierarchies of the world market. Historically, this included a long encounter with Western colonialism, which has continued, into contemporary times, with the subordination of poorer countries to the interests of the world’s wealthiest states and largest transnational corporations. Since the mid-1980s, repeated bouts of structural adjustment — often accompanied by Western military action, debilitating sanctions regimes, or support for authoritarian rulers — have systematically destroyed the social and economic capacities of poorer states, leaving them ill-equipped to deal with major crises such as COVID-19.”

“In the face of the COVID-19 tsunami, our lives are changing in ways that were inconceivable just a few short weeks ago. Not since the 2008–9 economic collapse has the world collectively shared an experience of this kind: a single, rapidly mutating global crisis, structuring the rhythm of our daily lives within a complex calculus of risk and competing probabilities. In response, numerous social movements have put forward demands that take seriously the potentially disastrous consequences of the virus, while also tackling the incapacity of capitalist governments to adequately address the crisis itself. These demands include questions of worker safety, the necessity of neighborhood-level organizing, income and social security, the rights of those on zero-hour contracts or in precarious employment, and the need to protect renters and those living in poverty.”

“In the face of the COVID-19 tsunami, our lives are changing in ways that were inconceivable just a few short weeks ago. Not since the 2008–9 economic collapse has the world collectively shared an experience of this kind: a single, rapidly mutating global crisis, structuring the rhythm of our daily lives within a complex calculus of risk and competing probabilities. In response, numerous social movements have put forward demands that take seriously the potentially disastrous consequences of the virus, while also tackling the incapacity of capitalist governments to adequately address the crisis itself. These demands include questions of worker safety, the necessity of neighborhood-level organizing, income and social security, the rights of those on zero-hour contracts or in precarious employment, and the need to protect renters and those living in poverty.”

“The imminent public health crisis facing poorer countries as a consequence of COVID-19 will be further deepened by an associated global economic downturn that is almost certain to exceed the scale of 2008. It is too early to predict the depth of this slump, but many leading financial institutions are expecting this to be the worst recession in living memory. [...] Closely connected to this are the measures put in place by governments and central banks since 2008, most notably the policies of quantitative easing and repeated interest-rate cuts. These policies aimed at propping up share prices through massively increasing the supply of ultra-cheap money to financial markets. They meant a very significant growth in all forms of debt — corporate, government, and household. [...] We are entering an alarming situation where many poorer countries will face increasingly burdensome debt repayments while simultaneously attempting to manage an unprecedented public health crisis – all in the context of a very deep global recession.”

“Foregrounding these historical and global dimensions helps make clear that the enormous scale of the current crisis is not simply a question of viral epidemiology and a lack of biological resistance to a novel pathogen. The ways that most people across Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia will experience the coming pandemic is a direct consequence of a global economy systemically structured around the exploitation of the resources and peoples of the South. In this sense, the pandemic is very much a social and human-made disaster — not simply a calamity arising from natural or biological causes. [...] The Middle East, for example, is the site of the largest forced displacement since the Second World War, with massive numbers of refugees and internally displaced people as a result of the ongoing wars in countries such as Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Iraq. Most of these people live in refugee camps or overcrowded urban spaces, and often lack the rudimentary rights to health care typically associated with citizenship. The widespread prevalence of malnutrition and other diseases (such as the reappearance of cholera in Yemen) make these displaced communities particularly susceptible to the virus itself. [...] One microcosm of this can be seen in the Gaza Strip, where over 70 percent of the population are refugees living in one of the most densely packed areas in the world. [...] Under blockade and closure for most of the past decade, Gaza has been shut to the world long before the current pandemic. The region could be the proverbial canary in the COVID-19 coalmine — foreshadowing the future path of the infection among refugee communities across the Middle East and elsewhere.”

“Debates around how best to respond to COVID-19 in Europe and the United States have illustrated the mutually reinforcing relationship between effective public health measures and conditions of labor, precarity, and poverty. Calls for people to self-isolate when sick — or the enforcement of longer periods of mandatory lockdowns — are economically impossible for the many people who cannot easily shift their work online, or those in the service sector who work in zero-hour contracts or other kinds of temporary employment. Recognizing the fundamental consequences of these work patterns for public health, many European governments have announced sweeping promises around compensation for those made unemployed or forced to stay at home during this crisis. It remains to be seen how effective these schemes will be, and to what degree they will actually meet the needs of the very large numbers of people who will lose their jobs as a result of the crisis. Nonetheless, we must recognize that such schemes will simply not exist for most of the world’s population. In countries where the majority of the labor force is engaged in informal work or depends upon unpredictable daily wages — much of the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Asia — there is no feasible way that people can choose to stay home or self-isolate. This must be viewed alongside the fact that there will almost certainly be very large increases in the “working poor” as a direct result of the crisis. [...] Without the mitigation effects offered through quarantine and isolation, the actual progress of the disease in the rest of the world will certainly be much more devastating than the harrowing scenes witnessed to date in China, Europe, and the United States. Moreover, workers involved in informal and precarious labor often live in slums and overcrowded housing — ideal conditions for the explosive spread of the virus.”