The United Nations issued a report last March to describe the extent, severity and rapidity of the Coronavirus, the short and long run social and economic chaos that it brings, and how responsible should people be in defying this pandemic and reducing its severity. The report was titled“Shared Responsibility and Global Solidarity: Dealing with the Socioeconomic Impacts of COVID-19”. The report confirms the universality and uniqueness of the crisis, as this pandemic affected the whole world, and no country is individually able to overcome it. Confronting the spread of pandemic, providing appropriate health care for patients, conducting scientific research, and facing the economic and social repercussions necessitate a collective effort at both international and local levels. Solidarity, hope, political will and cooperation today are what we need the most. In order to overcome this humanitarian crisis, the report addresses all these concepts through the following sub-headings: preventing the spread of infection to stop the pandemic, saving lives, social, economic and multidimensional impacts, sustainable solutions to adapt to the effects, and partnerships to accelerate the global response to the crisis.
In this study, a summary of this report will be presented, with a number of other reports issued on the same subject in an attempt to compare them with the UN Group report, and point out the similarities and differences among them. Finally, our Arab and Islamic countries must deal with the challenges that were created by this pandemic as an opportunity for serious reflection and self-criticism on the nature of their status and role in the global system, to know how this system works, and what efforts must be taken to obtain an independence when it comes to knowledge and technology. One of the manifestations of their knowledge dependency in light of this pandemic is that Western institutions dominate the narrative of the crisis, and their recommendations on how to deal with the pandemic are generalized, without the presence of an Arab-Islamic effort or criticism in formulating any of those efforts. Moreover, on the practical level, it is obvious that Western scientific institutions also dominate scientific research and efforts pertaining to vaccines. Therefore, it is essential that this pandemic serve as an opportunity to reposition Arab and Muslim countries in a way that gives us more independence, liberation and prosperity, eliminating any material or intellectual dependence, to create more balanced and independent relationships and a fair reality.
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