بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Coronavirus and Baseless Conspiracy Theories
US President Trump signed a 2.2 trillion financial aid bill for American economy this Friday to counter intensifying coronavirus epidemic Government’s financial aid for now exceeds all previous assignments like 9/11 crisis, 2008 financial crisis and natural disasters. (Source: https://zn.ua/WORLD/tramp-podpisal-paket-stimulov-dlya-ekonomiki-na-2-2trln349367_.html)
Since first reports about new coronavirus outbreak in China, many versions raised about causes and initiators of this. At first it was popular to say that China itself initiated this hysteria about a new virus and aimed to buy back foreign private portions in its companies.
When the virus ruined China’s economy but still not reached Europe and US, a new idea began to spread among people. It was said that US plunged the world in mass antivirus hysteria in order to strength its iron grip in other states and particularly counter China.
When on March 24th US President Trump announced that he will cancel quarantine measures, people who support the idea that “The US is behind the virus” said: That is a confession from US president that the hysteria around COVID-19 is exaggerated by the US in order to reach its interests. It was assumed that Trump reached his aim, particularly lowered FFR interest rate and therefore he reduces hysteria around coronavirus.
Moreover, the following information circulated in internet:
Coronavirus tests infect with this disease, so you should avoid them.
Unfortunately such conspiracy theories and versions also spread among Muslims, where many of them reposted such information in their social network pages.
Some Muslims spread fake news that 20 million Chinese came to Islam being afraid of coronavirus. Similar news about mass acceptance of Islam were said about Italy. In the shade of abovementioned, it is important to mark some milestones that would be useful for Muslims in studying and understanding events related with coronavirus, and any other political events that happen in modern world.
Firstly, no one among Muslims has illusions about Capitalist states, everyone knows about their greediness, and that they have no human or moral values in their struggle with each other. Nevertheless, this does not allow for Muslims to replicate in social network false or even not confirmed information. Allah (swt) says in the Quran:
[وَإِذَا جَاءَهُمْ أَمْرٌ مِنَ الْأَمْنِ أَوِ الْخَوْفِ أَذَاعُوا بِهِ وَلَوْ رَدُّوهُ إِلَى الرَّسُولِ وَإِلَىٰ أُولِي الْأَمْرِ مِنْهُمْ لَعَلِمَهُ الَّذِينَ يَسْتَنْبِطُونَهُ مِنْهُمْ]
“When there comes to them some matter touching (public) safety or fear, they make it known (among the people), if only they had referred it to the Messenger or to those charged with authority among them, the proper investigators would have understood it from them (directly)”. [4:83].
Famous Muffasir Ibn Kathir says in his tafseer to this ayah the followings:
[وَإِذَا جَآءَهُمْ أَمْرٌ مِّنَ الْأَمْنِ أَوِ الْخَوْفِ أَذَاعُواْ بِهِ]
“And when there comes to them a matter of security or fear, they spread it...” This ayah tells us that hearsay should not be repeated without prior investigation into its credibility. Thus, in a hadeeth, the Prophet (saw) said,«كفى بالمرء أن يحدث بكل ما سمع» “For a man to be a liar, it is enough that he repeats everything he hears without first verifying its truth.” He (saw) prohibited irrelevant talk. Thus, Muslims are responsible for inauthenticity of information that they spread.
Secondly, in their reflections on coronavirus crisis, Muslims should lean on reliable information and statistics, considering that today everyone has access to them via internet. It is a very important point for nowadays as the coronavirus crisis in origin was medical problem and only after reasonable apprehensions that the virus will cause other problems and particularly collapse of health system, this problem gained its political and economic dimensions.
Therefore, the situation with COVID-19 differs from ordinary political events, where it is enough to learn positions of states, statements of officials and to learn information about events that happened before.
Thus, the correct view on nowadays crisis cannot be reached without taking in consideration of such terms and issues as transmissibility, pathogenicity, mortality, incubation period, simulation of epidemic spread, and also examining whether such viruses can be designed or whether humans are able to manage such epidemics.
Exactly, neglecting these important initial conceptions leads to the idea that the US stays behind COVID-19 pandemic. Supporters of this idea were studying this issue only in the shade of economical struggle between China and US that we witness during the last years.
Thirdly, when a person analyzes political events, he must widen his vision by making it contain every political action undertaken by any great power. When the politician examines political actions, he must not divest them from their own circumstances and nor generalise them. He must rather link every action with the circumstances that surround it and the environment that encloses it. So, it is invalid that he takes the action detached from its conditions and circumstances. And it is not proper to generalise the issue, compare other actions with this action or dispose actions in a logical order to conclude logical results. He must rather avoid that and stay away from it, because logic and analogy are very dangerous to political understanding. This is because actions in life differ from each other and do not resemble each other. Rather every action has its own conditions and circumstances. Therefore, the politician must link the action with its related political information, and he must examine it within its own circumstances and surroundings. Then he can reach the most possible correct understanding of it.
Neglecting this important rule lead those who blamed the US in exaggeration of coronavirus crisis to the wrong interpretation of Trump’s words about his will to stop quarantine; due to these people being influenced by prejudice and analogy. They insisted that the US is behind coronavirus crisis and so Trump cancels quarantine in America since they consider this problem as artificially exaggerated.
Although if you analyze Trump's words entirely without prejudice and analogy, it becomes clear that the US was largely effected by that pandemics crisis. Trump in particular declared: “And you know, you can destroy a country this way, by closing it down, ... we had the best economy in the history of our country three weeks ago. And then all of a sudden, we're supposed to shut it down.”
Besides, macroeconomic statistics show that the US economics reduces 1.8 billion per day.
Thus, the real cause of desires to cancel quarantine is not considering coronavirus as a threat for US or their intention to stop this crisis since they reached initial aims. The real cause is the fact that US government values macroeconomic figures more than own people lives.
Fourthly, coronavirus, and initiated by it the world's economic and political crisis, proved to everyone how fragile and unprotected the world economy and the world order are in front of any challenges.
Invisible to the eye, a virus that drove all the world's economies into a corner and paralyzed all superpowers without any exception. States have deployed army units, military hospitals and roadblocks.
Governments toss about between two alternative extreme positions:
Apply quarantine measures and minimize virus mortality or save macroeconomic figures by cost of human lives.
It can be assumed that the economic problems that were initiated by this virus will become forerunner of reestablishment of Second Righteous Khilafah (Caliphate) on the method of Prophethood, since they give Muslims a chance to get rid of Western hegemony and agent-rulers and return to this world a pious government that will protect the world from such viruses, and criminal dilemmas that force people to choose between saving human life or saving macroeconomic figures.
Indeed, all that occurs today is best evidence for the helplessness of Capitalism and democracy that are, besides their supporters, compared in Quran with a spider and his flimsy dwelling.
[مَثَلُ الَّذِينَ اتَّخَذُوا مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ أَوْلِيَاءَ كَمَثَلِ الْعَنْكَبُوتِ اتَّخَذَتْ بَيْتًا وَإِنَّ أَوْهَنَ الْبُيُوتِ لَبَيْتُ الْعَنْكَبُوتِ لَوْ كَانُوا يَعْلَمُونَ]
“The likeness of those who take Auliya’ (protectors and helpers) other than Allah is as the likeness of a spider, who builds (for itself) a house, but verily, the frailest (weakest) of houses is the spider’s house; if they but knew.”! [29:41]
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Fazil Amzaev
Head of the Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Ukraine
#كورونا | #Covid19 | #Korona