Sisi and Erdogan are partners in the coronavirus pandemic

The Centers for Disease Control and Preventions manual for global and national health emergencies clarifies one thing: an essential element in the fight against a pandemic like COVID-19 is clear and consistent scientific information which is communicated by a reliable and respected source. When people are worried about their health, they want information about the person in the white coat.

Given the gravity of the current circumstances, there is no risk of sounding melodramatic, so I would add a second requirement to effectively fight coronavirushumanity.You know basic humanity when you see it : this is the sense of community and social trust engendered by natural empathy.

There is a shortage in the world of both competent expertise and a real sense of the common good. The United States is certainly not immune to the shortage. But the problem is acute in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey. Whole region is experiencing a wave of coronavirus cases, but official figures from government health departments don't give a clear picture of the problem, either because they don't know or because they are lying on the extent of infections. Qatar is one of the hardest hit countries, with one of the worst epidemics per capita in the world. At least the Qataris have money to throw the problem away. This is not the case for Egypt, Algeria or Tunisia. There is little valuable test data, but it can safely be assumed that everything that has been done is pale compared to what is needed.

Much of this stems from incompetence, complacency and lack of basic decency among regional leaders, which has led to a fatal breakdown in social trust. I am not saying that Iraqis, Egyptians, Palestinians, Turks, Saudis and others do not have the capacity to sympathize with their fellow citizens. On the contrary, the contempt of their leaders for the societies they run has deprived them of social cohesion, which necessarily makes their survival and recovery in times of crisis more difficult, which is a recipe for the kind of disaster. in the Middle East that wows the mind. .

Before continuing, let me make clear to all the critics in the Middle East that I think the response of the administrations of US President Donald Trumps to the coronavirus pandemic has been nothing short of appalling and deeply irresponsible. Both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have proven to be the least credible voices on the crisis, both reassuring no one that the U.S. government under their leadership could handle the situation and, in doing so, putting the people in danger. History will pass judgment on their contribution to the collapse of trust in American government institutions, the press and science, and its impact on the many Americans who could have remained healthy but who have were infected and died.

That stipulated, let's go back to the Middle East. Who, among the current mass of leaders from key countries in the Middle East, can people turn to for clear, impartial and factual information? Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi? Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan? Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman? They are strong men who control significant amounts of resources, but they are hardly the strong leaders that people need now. There is no evidence that they are more willing to offer their citizens than the obfuscation and misdirection that the White House has for Americans, but with probably more dire consequences. Perhaps the leaders of the Middle East will seize the opportunity. One can only hope, but the track record suggests a disaster compounded by arrogance, incompetence and brutality.

Egypt is the most worrisome of the coronavirus crisis. The country is huge, its population having recently exceeded 100 million, with almost a quarter of these people in Greater Cairo. How do Egyptians practice social distance in such a megalopolis, especially in its poorest neighborhoods? Egypts public health infrastructure is fragile at best and the private sector is not well placed to fill the gaps by issuing guidelines or helping to organize tests, as it has done in the United States. United. In addition to these challenges, there is the very fact that the first tendency of Egyptian leaders is to lie. They most certainly lie about the rate of coronavirus infection on Monday. The Sisis government is said to have made Egypt believe 166 cases of COVID-19 and four deaths. Modelers from the University of Toronto say it could be closer to 20,000, and Sisi and his advisers no doubt understand that this figure is much more plausible.

Egyptian management nevertheless remained faithful to the message of an apparently low number of infections, minimizing the scale of the crisis for fear of harming the tourism industry. After years of decline following the uprising that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak, the 2015 attack on a Russian airliner over the Sinai Peninsula and the disappearance of a robbery 39; EgyptAir over the Mediterranean in 2016, last year was a record year for visitors to Egypt. Authorities in Cairo want to keep up the momentum and get the dollars running, just like the American president, they pointed out that COVID-19 is like a cold that most people get over relatively quickly. Of course, this conveniently overlooks the fact that the foreign crew and passengers on a now famous Nile boat, the MS ASara, have all been quarantined and that infections in a number of countries, including the United States, Canada, Greece and France,dates back to tourist trips to Egypt.

Even the Egyptians could not deliberately ignore reality forever, so they instituted half measures, including allowing the suspension of Friday prayers in mosques, limiting organized tours to Luxor, reducing cultural events and by closing universities. Implicitly recognizing that the country is sitting on a COVID-19 bomb, Sissi has led $ 6 billion, a large sum for Egypt, to respond to the epidemic, but they are so far behind, that even if authorities step up testing, all hope of containment is long gone. When the wave of infections hits Egypt, as will inevitably happen, Sissi is unlikely to be the kind of character who can calm an anxious nation and stem the resulting instability that will threaten the region and Europe. He is no longer the savior of July 3, 2013, who saved the country from the abyss, which arouses the loyalty of citizens. Instead, he is already widely regarded by many of his own people as brutal, reckless and dishonest.

Although Egypt is the most worrying, Turkey is better off than because it has a functioning health care system and good public health infrastructure, which which is to the credit of the ruling party, Justice and Development. But the Erdogans government lied to the Turks and only recently took half-measures to prevent the spread of the disease. Why, one might ask, given the situation in the EU, has the government decided to organize mass rallies such as Friday prayers last week? The message of the imams would have centered on the importance of social distancing, but the damage was done. The infection rate of turkeys will no doubt increase; However, in the absence of widespread testing, Turkish business leaders still encourage people to visit shopping malls and stores. During the early stages of the pandemic, Erdogan, who was otherwise involved in all facets of public life, large and small, remained silent. . He is a man more concerned with taking the blame for future illnesses and deaths than the health and safety of his people. When the need for drastic public health measures becomes impossible to ignore, it is unclear how the public will react.

If the scene in Cairo a few weeks ago, in which hundreds of people attempted to storm Central Public Health Laboratories to get a coronavirus test, is an indication of what could happen, countries of the region are in serious trouble. Marked by political and social systems that are rigged so that all benefits go to the wealthy and connected, unlike the United States, but more pronounced and more brutal health care and basic needs will be distributed unevenly and will further erode trust and radicalize societies in various ways. Does anyone believe that Saudi elites will wait in line for coronavirus testing? No. The wealthy will accumulate what they can before fleeing, leaving the rest to fend for themselves and confront tear gas and riot police water cannons. What about armies of Bangladeshi, Indian, Pakistani and Filipino guest workers across the Persian Gulf? It will be a black hole for coronavirus infections. They have little or no protection in societies that cannot function without them, but they have power in numbers. The many dimensions of this virus and how it can overthrow already fragile societies are truly frightening.

Sissi and Erdogan are not unique, they just illustrate the extra layer of complications that people in the Middle East face when facing the coronavirus pandemic. has individually and collectively undermined basic humanity, in the form of a basic community, necessary for the survival and survival of populations. What kind of government has beaten up desperate people for a test that will make the difference between the ability to feed their families and not? What type of system is destroying a large part of its scientific community on the basis of guilt by association, conspiracy theories and the political needs of a dear leader? Who would dare to speak out publicly and suggest a different path in a place where a capricious leader judged that only his ideas about society were good? There are no societal safety nets in these places, leaving people alone to deal with fear, stress, resignation, illness and possible death.

If we have learned anything from this global health crisis, it is that there are no borders, no nationalisms, no differences in the way the coronavirus ravages the human respiratory system. . There are only differences in the quality of leadership and the resulting sense of humanity. in the nations they control. Both the Middle East and the United States fail on both fronts.