Dr Mohammad Tamoor Azam
THE word “End” has been frequently employed in the lexical treater trove by historians, scholars to literati world in Twentieth century like End of Philosophy 1974 by Martin Heidegger, End of Ideology 1988 by Daniel Bell, End of Modernity 1991 by Gianni Vattimo, End of History 1992 by Francis Fukuyama, End of Physics 1994 by David Lindley, End of Science 1996 by John Horgan, Beginning & End of Religion 1996 by Nicholas Lash, End of Economic Man 1996 by George P Brockway to End of Democracy 2003 by Abid Ullah Jan and so on. The frequent usage of the word “End” by prolific minds implies that it is both an endogenous as well as an exogenous phenomenon. As science and technology are leaping beyond the horizons with new innovations and inventions each passing day, it also leads to debility in tackling myriad issues in its own marsupium like the unclear and unknown origin of virus in evolutionary history of life to identification of the forces through which tectonic plates move. These kind of endless theories of science may end somewhere while the end time is still unknown, but what appears to be indefinite and likely to be known is the end of the mightiest superpower in the contemporary world.
The United States of America—the greatest superpower in the written human history—is now under the yoke of world’s tiniest and mysterious entity. The world’s largest economy in nominal GDP, net wealth, especially most powerful in technological advances in the fields of computer, medical, pharmaceutical, military and aerospace with dollar having widely used currency in all international transactions, its global influence in terms of military might, technological innovation, medical advancement, and foreign political manipulation bagger all descriptions. This power and strength could meet with doom if this epidemic of Coronavirus is not dealt with an iron hand. While in reality the contemporary situation on ground is sorrowful in the United States, it seems as the current political top brass who are handling this outbreak had ascended to power through rigged electoral system because ‘Coronavirus’ per se is not really a problem rather tumultuous modus operandi of politicians is. Their false claims on a daily basis in attempting to stem the spread of the virus is merely an eloquence in the rose garden of the White House in front of foreign and domestic journalists is an evidence of their insincerity in grasping the lethal situation of virus outbreak and lack of ability to govern the country. Their super superiority complex is only damaging and taking the American economy into a dark abyss where the retrieval is seeming impossible. Pundits and experts are predicting the high death tolls, unemployment hikes, horrifying social disorder and their continuation will mount to the hilt in near future, moreover the amount of debt relative to American economy is highest since after World War 2 is icing on the cake.
The sudden lockdown in economic activity will decrease the GDP and goods and services produced at an annual rate around 40% will also add fuel in the fire. A curfew like situation and the bizarre pictures in every place give the reflection as if America is in the state of war where vehicles queued outside the malls to get limited groceries, patients waiting overnight in the hospitals for virus examinations, forceful dismissals from jobs but those with jobs have decreased in wages, people registering for unemployment benefits, heavy debts on the shoulders, reluctant to spend more because of apprehensive about the future, less or no more production in the country new costs on businesses and higher prices on consumers, hotels, restaurants, bars, theatres, entertainment venues and sport activities are closed, procession of coffins without wreaths and TV headlines only exacerbate the psychological shocks but still true facts and figures aren’t surfaced in the media in order to prevent American nation from getting panicked.
Why America is suffering much more than any country in the world while the original source and epicentre of virus was China? This is a million-dollar question for Americans to contemplate. How Chinese—so called incompetent communist party system—has contained the spread of coronavirus swiftly in a short period of time, although with mammoth economic losses and the world’s superpower miserably failed in doing so? Is communism outweighing the democracy or the answer seems to be lying in the conscience of American leadership who are taking the superpower astray. The aftermath of 1920’s Spanish flu brought hunger and financial boom to America but its leadership and nation despite being suffered has faced and fought unanimously with vigour against the outbreak a century ago, so why the current disastrous scenario heralds the nightmare of pain and suffering for Americans in future? The current state foresees the economic debacle and ignominious failure in halting the spread of virus will ultimately lead to end the saga of 50 states united by a nation. Even if businesses dare to reopen in order to rebuild the economy under what terms businesses can resume operations because there are no signs of vaccine. In short, the country’s economic jugular vein has been entangled in a web of Coronavirus and it would ultimately pave the way for the cessation of American economic hegemony in global political arena.
—The writer is a Research Analyst at Kunming University of Science & Technology China.
