Covid 19: A Global Pandemic.

Sun, Apr 19, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
COVID 19: A Global Pandemic.
ICSS Members Raj Sahai and Mehmet Bayyan will discuss the global pandemic using India and Turkey as case studies.
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Corona virus came at a time when the capitalist crisis on hand had already started its devastation. The medical crisis immediately became a very convenient cover to hide the real cause, the real destruction, brought on by the capitalist devastation. However, the destruction is and will have the worst effect in the neo-colonial countries such as Turkey. The pandemic has exposed the illegitimacy of the capitalist, dependent and corrupt system as it is unable to cope with the demands of the vast number of people, let alone a medical disaster. Mehmet Bayram will discuss how Turkey is dealing with the disease, but mostly the political measures that kicked in together with the fight against the pandemic.
Mehmet Bayram is a journalist reporting on labor and community issues.
He contributes to the English language news from Turkey at https://sendika63.org/kategori/english/ and also writes and translates for the same site. Sendia.org has been closed by the Turkish government 62 times and is now publishing at its 63rd site defying the “access ban” imposed by the Turkish government.
India has been fortunate in the current Covid-19 pandemic so far in that it has been limited in scope, but now that it has attained stage two, and threatening to enter the third stage, i.e., community spread, the specter of suffering and deaths in the population looms much larger in India than it has been in other countries, which collectively has already seen over 130,000 deaths as of today (April 15,2020). The British colonialism impoverished India and left it in shambles upon being ousted in 1947, but the nationalist movement supported by the USSR helped bring about public health programs and some improvement in the lives of a substantial minority even as the poor remained poor. But the class nature of society that emerged in the period of Neoliberal "reform" launched in 1989 and the Fascist ideology of the present ruling party, the BJP, adds to the threat that this fast moving pandemic poses. In his proposed presentation titled 'Novel Corona Virus in India' Raj Sahai will attempt to outline the issues facing the working class population, which lives on a very meager material base even in the best of times.
Raj Sahai immigrated to the US from India in 1966. He visits India frequently,where he works with worker activists in struggle. He has been associated with the Institute for Critical Study of Society at the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library for the past 15 years. He can be reached at rsahai1987 [at] gmail.com