By Flo Osrainik.
While people, due to the “measures”, have nothing more to eat, the ZeroCovid initiative spreads hygiene extremism.
Plato defined oligarchy as the lawless rule of the rich, who act only out of self-interest. After decades of globally increasing oligarchy as well as lots of double standards, we are in an extremely critical situation. Thousands of people starve to death every day, and probably many more get sick. Due to the restrictive corona measures of governments, which lead to a fusion of state and corporate power, the deadly hunger virus is now spreading extremely fast across the planet, plunging millions of people into poverty. Authoritarian restrictions violate fundamental and human rights: they exacerbate systemic suffering and wipe out numerous human lives as well as economic livelihoods. In the face of such devastation, taking this harmful action to extremes with “ZeroCovid slogans” (1) is highly irresponsible and would prolong the lockdown into eternity. The motto should rather be: ZeroHunger, ZeroHypocrisy!
The system has failed! It has permanently restricted the lives of billions of people for a long time and provides masses of starvation deaths every year, every month, every week, every day and every hour. That’s why we need a real change of the system and no further running in the completely wrong direction aggravated by Corona restrictions. Nor must the goal be just a few hunger deaths – it must be ZERO. We need a common global strategy immediately to effectively combat continued human rights abuses. In any case, the race against the hunger virus fueled by Corona politics cannot be won with the payment of development and aid money – into the throats of the powerful pharmaceutical corporations – in a structure of corruption, greed for growth, repression, propaganda and wars of aggression. In addition to a consistent peace policy and a global lockdown for the production companies of cartridges and cannons, I therefore demand that worldwide poverty be fought immediately in such a determined and purposeful manner that every death caused by hunger is immediately avoided. Because: This goal serves exclusively the well-being and health of the people.
Failure to make consistent efforts to defeat the hunger virus would only expose the actions of international politics in the context of the Corona crisis as clumsy hypocrisy and mass murder, or at the very least as negligent killing of the suffering on an industrial scale. The concerted action of governments in the last twelve months has shown that it would be very possible to put an end to the spread and even the existence of the hunger virus and to banish systemic starvation to the chamber of horrors of human errors. There is no more utopian, virus is called the magic word – and together we can make it possible!
I simply orient myself, therefore, to the new corona reality, reason and international humanity. However, the eradication of the hunger virus, which is deadly for people of all ages, can only succeed if all measures are designed and implemented collectively. That is why I call for:
- Down to zero together.
The first goal is to reduce the number of hunger deaths to zero. To defeat the hunger virus, action must be taken quickly and simultaneously worldwide. For example, with unconditional and unbureaucratic transfer payments, freely accessible emergency medical care, and mandatory distribution of surplus basic and food items to those in need through public-private partnerships across all national borders.
Once this first goal of life-saving measures is achieved, further arrangements for a sustainable system change can be decided and implemented in a second step. Third, we need a shared long-term vision and, based on it, regional, national, continental and global action plans. Basic supplies for the many millions of people in need must be stabilized and secured through a control strategy. In particular, children threatened by the hunger virus must receive priority assistance.
To achieve this most important goal, we need an immediate and solidary restoration of general life. Opening means: we establish direct, social contact with our fellow human beings again, and especially with the poor, the sick and the weak. We actively approach these people, reach out to them and offer our help! Measures cannot be successful if they hit the wrong people and turn masses into new people in need of help. We must abolish the socially harmful sectors of the economy, the production of weapons, the environmental pollution attributable to them, the greed for growth or the speculation with basic and food commodities and promote healthy living.
Utilities, services, stores, cultural sites, clubs, schools or other places of meeting, as well as means of transportation, must be opened immediately and made accessible to everyone without harassment. Exploitation, apartheid, exclusion, defamation and surveillance of people must end immediately. All people have a right to a self-determined life in a solidary and democratic society that deserves this name. With this appeal, all forces are called upon to immediately commit themselves to measures against world hunger and to implement them.
- Nobody must be left behind
People can only live in dignity if their basic and human rights are respected and if it is possible to provide them with the most basic necessities. Therefore, a comprehensive rescue package along the lines of the rapid international donor conferences for the pharmaceutical industry in the Corona crisis or for the banks in the last financial crisis must now be put in place without delay for the poor. People who are particularly hard hit by the negative effects of the prevailing system must receive immediate support. This applies to people in catastrophic housing conditions, with low incomes, without adequate medical care, in war and crisis zones, or the homeless.
Collective accommodations must be dissolved, refugees must be cared for, received and housed in a humane manner. Wars of aggression to conquer markets and resources or the destruction of local markets must be ended by decisive international action and those responsible held accountable in independent courts. Failure by those responsible to provide assistance is to be punished more severely than any violation of Corona restrictions, effective immediately. Any political or diplomatic immunity must be immediately lifted, as well as replaced with global immunity from the hunger virus.
- Expansion of the social health infrastructure
The entire health and care sector must be expanded worldwide in a sustainable manner. The privatization and closure of hospitals must be reversed. All people must be provided with free basic medical care. The budget in this area must be significantly increased by the international community. Medical facilities must be put into planning immediately when needed, staff must be increased, and wages must be raised decisively. The systemic pursuit of profit in the health sector is damaging to collective health, as the Corona crisis also shows. The operation of hospitals must serve the general benefit and not the individual profit maximization and should therefore be based on solidarity. No enrichment should be made from the sick or the needy.
- Basic goods and food are global common goods
Hunger and poverty can only be defeated globally by working together. Public and private companies, organizations and initiatives must therefore immediately support and implement the necessary steps for a sustainable change of system. Water, air and food as well as a minimum of medical care, co-determination, freedom and peace are unconditionally available to all people. International politics has shown how to coordinate, network and act together at the global level. These common goods and elementary rights have to come before profit, profit maximization and the dogma of eternal growth. They are not to be put up for discussion or played off against other rights.
- Solidarity-based financing
The necessary measures cost money. Some societies in the world, especially in colonial and industrialized nations, have captured and accumulated enormous wealth over the centuries, but only a few wealthy people own it. With this concentrated wealth, politics is influenced and controlled, which is why it is an imperial and global oligarchy that has little to do with freedom, solidarity and democracy. Already with a part of this wealth all measures to eradicate poverty and hunger can be financed. Money is not an obstacle, politics has also proven that in the Corona crisis.
Therefore, in summary, I demand nothing less than a rapid end to world hunger, a change of system necessary for this, and an end to the unprecedented world-wide and intolerable hypocrisy.
I demand the reversal of all privatizations and closures in the health sector during the Corona crisis, a total lockdown on the war and propaganda industries and on all exchanges for speculation with common goods, free basic services, an immediate worldwide opening and the obligatory restoration of human rights.
We must strike down the political and media double standards. All forces have to unite for ZeroHunger and ZeroHypocrisy. There is a contradiction between human rights such as the defense of self-determination and co-determination and the authoritarian state that positions the monopoly of violence against people and human rights for the benefit of corporations. Contrary to superficial claims, it is not and has not been about the welfare of the many, the eradication of systemic poverty and war, but about the establishment of digital totalitarianism and the expansion of power of the globally ruling oligarchy. The unity of freedom, self-determination and solidarity – community – is the crucial key to a human rights-based strategy for ZeroHunger and ZeroHypocrisy.
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Thanks to the author for the right to publish the article.
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Image source: chomplearn / shutterstock
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