Woke up thinking about Covid-19 as my trip to the London Book Fair had been cancelled due to the virus. I’d been checking the World Health Organisation (WHO) information, curious about the spread of the epidemic and was wondering this morning about Turkey, particularly thinking of all the Syrian refugees at the border, and how vulnerable they would be. Something odd here. Zero cases of Covid-19 in Turkey on the WHO map. And in Iran, which shares a border with Turkey, there are 6566 confirmed cases. Is it a mistake? Time to get some online info. First link I click on is the Daily Sabah, the Turkish pro-government daily newspaper owned by a friend of President Erdoğan, founded in 2014. What did the Daily Sabah say? That, yes, Turkey was ahead of the game keeping the virus out. They had installed thermal screenings at Istanbul airport and were quarantining people coming from Iran, in particular from Qom or Mashhad; used special disinfectant and sanitising on all public transport and in schools etc (vocational schools producing 100 tons of disinfectants for daily supplies.) In early February they launched a Covid-19 test kit which Turkey had developed “with all-local means and resources, the kits give results in 90 to 120 minutes.” and they added that according to the ministry, “the testing kit has an accuracy rate of 99.6%.” Here's a question: how did Turkish scientists get their hands on the Covid-19 virus to develop a test kit to recognise it — when by the virus is not in the country? Did they smuggle in a sample of Covid-19? Can this be true? Does Turkey have zero cases despite being a trade partner with Iran which has 6566 cases? Is it statistically possible? Or is the Daily Sabah simply an effective way for President Erdoğan to control the propaganda and thus the Turkish people? Another Turkish daily, the Hürriyet Daily News, seems to be in agreement regarding zero cases. Seems to me the propaganda patient zero is the Ministry of Health. Off to trusty Twitter to find out more. Some viral tweeters may have slipped under Erdoğan’s radar. Yes, I’m not the only one who is thinking this way. A man called Can Okar (@canokar) has noticed how weird it is that Turkey has not had the virus get across its border “we’ve reached the point where we can say it is a statistical impossibility that Turkey does not have a single case of coronavirus. We’ve all been privately talking/joking about it but it’s probably time to really discuss what is happening here.” and he tweets following the death of the first Turkish person in France on March 6th: @RencapMan adds to the thread with a sharp observation: “I can think of billions of (tourism dollars) reasons why Turkey might not have recorded a #coronavirus case - about 3% of GDP in fact.” Concerned now that information is not what it seems, I check out other nation's details of reporting of Covid-19. Hmmm. Turns out the Russian Federation, a country of 147 million people, has seven confirmed cases. Seven! Something dodgy going on, folks.
Meanwhile in the Guardian Ai Weiwei writes about the epidemic in Wuhan, where it started: "Police have welded doors shut in order to monitor who enters and leaves buildings. Roads out of the city are cut with deep trenches or blocked by walls. Even little paths that lead towards farmland have been destroyed. Swim down a river? There are nets to catch you." Give me the freedom of Italy any day over the autocratic states of Turkey, Russia and China, Corona or no Corona. © Alison Hackett posted 9 March 2020 Information from the WHO map was sourced here This blog is now, on occasion, going to be where I publish the letters I sent that didn't make it past the letters' editor. Undoubtedly there will be good reason some of these didn't make it to print — maybe because I was too controversial, too undiplomatic, too long winded; or simply wrong and possibly slanderous making print in a reputable newspaper risky. It's encouraging to think some of my letters may have gone past the lawyers before printing. As I have not opened this blog to comments I won't know how many I am upsetting or driving to anger by publishing now. So, my terms and conditions are as follows: read this blog at your own risk. Any upset caused was not intentional. Emotions may go up as well as down.
A letter in response to a Guardian article about Dominic Cummings and designer babies. Dear Editor Be careful what you wish for, especially intelligent baby creation by gene selection (à la Dominic Cummings). In my experience academics (acknowledged by their own criteria to be of very high intelligence) have, on occasion, been the rudest, most arrogant, most smug people I have ever come across. But this is already going on (à la carte baby selection). In most sperm banks you can select your sperm (like a dating app, swipe left for no, right for interested) by sorting though the physical attributes, job descriptions, hair colour etc. of the potential fathers on the database. I have no idea why we let this happen — it is a disturbing form of eugenics in a dark pact that has emerged between the science, ethics and business. Some of the these children end up with up to fifty half siblings as the father’s sperm profile was so popular. Not good. Identity is the most precious thing you have. We are playing with fire by allowing this to happen on our watch. In my view you do not have the right to a child. But it is a privilege to be a parent, to be allowed to love and guide a human being from infancy through to adulthood. To quote Khalil Gibran: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. From The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931) © Alison Hackett posted 5 March 2020 Gained about 40% in mental bandwidth and relaxation. Will only write what I really want to write, for myself. I’ve slowed down. A long soak in a hot bath reading an entire New Yorker article on mornings when I would have been furiously writing letters on my laptop last year. Bliss. More poetry being read and written. Dreaming. Respecting the value of my own space. Generating from within rather than reacting to without. Economies of downsizing: the printed papers for my archive, on a quick calculation, come in at around eighty-nine published last year which cost me a couple of hundred Euro to buy. While some were printed in more than one paper my average hit (known as a ‘land’ in the trade) was close to one a week. I wasn’t being paid for providing my opinion to editors. But landing on the platform was how I scored. My drug of choice.
© Alison Hackett posted 3 March 2020 |
AuthorAlison Hackett — Director and founder of 21st Century Renaissance; author of The Visual Time Traveller 500 Years of History, Art and Science in 100 Unique Designs Archives
February 2023
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