What has emerged from the chaos of the response to the virus in the UK and the USA is that the shibboleth of the market has been overturned.
The appalling death rates in what have been considered the most highly civilised countries of the West have forced the world to take stock.
The notion that the democracies are composed of free and equal citizens was also shown to be a lie.
Nothing will ever be the same after this.
Within the USA the status quo has been exposed as unacceptable in a society which claims to be ‘democratic.’
Nicolas Davie in “Why Is the U.S. So Exceptionally Vulnerable to Covid-19?” suggests that the huge death rate is due to “The lack of a national, publicly-funded universal health system.”
It is also closely related to “the corruption of our political system by powerful commercial and class interests and the American “exceptionalism” that blinds us to what we can learn from other countries.” [27 March, 2020 Common Dreams]
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Ahmed Keeler’s perceptive “Rethinking Islam and the West: A New Narrative for the Age of Crises” describes the “ever-growing release of powers within the material realm,” as threatening civilisation.
This is contrary to the view of the British Geological Survey which proclaims the fact that “Humans are now drivers of environmental change on a scale that is unique in Earth’s history,” is a great leap for human kind.
To the contrary Keeler sees that this has led to an escalation of crises and a once benign natural world turning “hostile and unpredictable.”
He thus questions the long held fundamental truth of modernism that the conquest of nature leads to unending progress.
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The nation witnessed climate refugees being rescued by the navy in Eastern Victoria, with major highways closed for long periods.
This has been followed by torrential but patchy rainfall, flash floods and the threat of at least one dam collapse.
Meanwhile our national government continues its generous support for oil coal and gas, with taxpayer subsidies and soft taxation policies.
For example in 2020 our gas output will probably outstrip that of Qatar which gets $26.6 billion in tax but Australia gets only $600 million. [12 March 2018 SMH]
ExxonMobil Australia with a total income of $42.3 billion over the past five years paid not one cent in income tax in this country. [31 January 2020 Michael West Media]
While supporting these contributors to the climate emergency, the government engages in climate emergency denial
As Asam Redwan writes in “When the Earth Speaks Against Us: Environmental Ethics in Islam:”“Good character extends to not only our interactions with other humans but also to our interactions with the world around us.” (20 September 2018 Yaqeen Institute).
In his 2018 small online survey to investigate the awareness of environmental ethics amongst English-speaking UK Muslim, Redwan found that 60% of respondents claimed that humans were having a negative impact on the planet.
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