Leading communication expert Prof AAMS Arefin Siddique has urged the UN Security Council (UNSC) to lead a coordinated global effort to combat COVID-19 as it appeared as an unprecedented security threat for the entire world upsetting the globalization process.
“The world now lacks a common platform to set directives in containing coronavirus curse, which continues to claim human lives every hour, everywhere,” he told BSS recently in an interview.
Siddique, also a former Vice-Chancellor of Dhaka University, appreciated the recent virtual SAARC summit through videoconferencing in facing the crisis adding that the UNSC could follow the approach in mobilizing the global resources across the world in combating the pandemic. He said the global crisis cannot be contained by cutting off communications rather it is a must to make united global efforts to tackle the deadly virus.
But outbreak of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, the nations apparently have taken a U-turn from the globalisation approach cutting off communication, sealing off borders, suspending flights and locking down cities.
“I think the United Nations and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council should come forward to take combined efforts to deal with the pandemic,” said Prof Siddique..
He said if the five permanent member states can utilise their power calling upon all the countries to work concertedly in containing the virus, making the United Nations a focal point.
“It will be easier to combat the global crisis, if the huge network of the United Nations and its all other specialised organisations can be utilised in a proper way,” he observed.
Siddique said all the countries, including the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) nations, are in deep concern but this crisis cannot be tackled separately.
He said the contagious virus, whose epicenter was the Wuhan city of China, would not follow any boundary of Asia, Africa, Europe, America or Australia.
A pandemic would not remain in a boundary as the deadly virus has already travelled from epicenter China to Italy, France, Spain, Germany and other European countries, South Korea, Iran and over 140 other countries.
“We can divide the world though the map, saying this is Bangladesh, that is India, China and the USA, but after all, the earth is sole,” pointed out Siddique, also a veteran professor of Mass Communication and Journalism at DU.
He said: “We, the global citizens, should think of making concerted efforts for the welfare of our planet.”
Siddique said the SAARC nations have set an example that the entire globe should make united efforts to contain the global crisis.
