By now, you all know me, at least a little.
Either you’re my family or a close friend, or you’ve been kindly reading these posts. Point is, you know I grew up in Tehran during the 80s, and was there for most of the Iran-Iraq war. You also know Iraqi air force conducted random bombing raids on Tehran and its suburbs, mainly to destroy morale and to scare us into submission, but also to occasionally destroy an important target; a power station, military barracks, whathaveyou. But mainly to scare the shit out of us citizens.
And, at least in my case, it worked.
There also existed economic hardships, most of which persist to this day. The middle class slowly disappeared, incomes stayed the same while the cost of living skyrocketed, and even the basic foodstuffs were rationed. Tehran’s population suddenly exploded when people running away from the front lines of the war in southern Iran made their way to the capital, their meager possessions on their backs, and populated the sidewalks with their families; social services existing only in the minds of hopeful reformers.
Things were terrible. Things were hopeless… and yet, not nearly as terrible and hopeless as they are now.
The pandemic has me rattled. For the first time in a long time, I’m actually scared. A lot of it probably has to do with my constant exposure to the news, none of it good, compounded by my absolute hatred for all things Trump, especially his bungling, idiotic, self centered mismanagement of this crisis.
But what else is new with this creep, am I right?
What really scares me about the COVID-19 pandemic is the lethal speed with which it has overtaken the globe, and how it isn’t done yet. Thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, have already perished, with thousands more yet to come. The elderly, the young, the middle aged medical staff who are overwhelmed with the virus and what is often shocking lack of basic equipment needed to combat it.
I hear you say ‘hey, that’s what a new virus does. It spreads and overwhelms.’ Fair enough, nothing I’ve said so far is exactly news. Ultimately, what really scares me, is the ease with which we, the human race, have reverted to our less advanced selves; levels of racism and xenophobia are on par with what they were during the Spanish Flu pandemic, and subsequently during WW2 and The Korean War. Hoarding of resources have reached unnecessarily epic levels, leaving some with no food to eat and nothing with which to wipe their bums.
Why tho?!?
Then there’s that whole price gouging and profiteering thing. It’s almost as if they were waiting for their opportunity! This has become so bad that states are in bidding wars to procure medical masks and respirators and other tools they need to at least keep their respective death tolls to a minimum. And the federal government isn’t doing anything about it, because… well, because Trump.
What. The. Fuck!?!
I’m scared, gentle friends. Not so much of the virus, but of us, the human race. The global economy is going to be a wounded animal on the other side of all this, and judging by how we’re behaving during our most dire hour…
I’m scared.