Pandemic emergencies have been invoked in failing or failed states such as Mexico last spring, and more recently in Ukraine (“Ukraine’s Fantom flu”, Foreign Policy, November 25, 2009).
Both states are in current internal turmoil and are basically being kept afloat thanks to an IMF loan lifeline, or billions in cash infusions. But these economic shots in the arms from the IMF medics also seem to be accompanied by mass scare campaigns fomented from the top and fear mongering techniques. There is an odd coincidental timing between flu outbreaks and chronic political- economic pandemonium. Are the authorities attempting to cow the population into a state of submission? Or perhaps distract their citizenry from their dismal daily lives, punctuated by falling standards of living, corruption, rising crime and increasing administrative incompetence to deal with these blights? Perhaps this is just pure conjecture on my part but allow me to surmise this: the H1N1 flu outbreaks seem to be tool to tighten the government’s grip over its increasingly dissenting populace. This tool seems to be an effective one.
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