Italy - A story of Karma or Destiny

Be it Ferrari, Lamborghini or Fiat in the automobile segment or Gucci, Prada, Valentino or Armani, the fashion and style segment in every sector is dominated by the Italian companies. The art and design destination of the world, Italy has accumulated enough wealth from its years of Roman Empire and cruel colonialism to build a world class country with an educated, rich and scientific community, 8th largest economy and 9th highest standard of living in the world. Italy has its foot set in manufacturing, automobile, shipbuilding, tourism, textiles, fashion goods, leather and other industries. Also the cultural heritage of Italy ranging from the Roman empire of the past to the Roman papacy of the present times, has contributed to the growth of Italy both from tourism and perspective with the likes of Venice, Rome, Milan and Florence amongst many.

   

Even with the second best healthcare system in the world, only next to France, Italy is succumbing to the pandemic of novel Corona Virus NCovid-19. The unforeseen and abrupt increase in the number of cases and deaths in Italy has been attributed by some to their direct connection with China from the late nineties. The influx of Chinese immigrants in the late nineties was the result of their captivating productivity and contentment with lower wages in the Italian textile, leather and fashion industry. As Chinese are dubbed to be excellent in copying products without the sense of art and innovation, this influx: though tolerable at the beginning started to hit the native Italians hard on their foot as their businesses were replaced by thousands of Chinese owned firms which sold imitation products with cheap, below-par raw materials imported from China. These small and medium scale enterprises owned by the chinese or owned by Italians with chinese workers contributes to a large scale of the Italian economy even today. 

Being the heartland of Roman Sculpture and artists like Da Vinci and Michelangelo, art and artists of Italy are highly respected and appreciated for their paintings and sculpture. The dwindling art form and sales of the Italian products due to mere imitative Chinese products led to a sense of jealousy, hatred and resentment towards the chinese community by the Italians. The failed efforts of Italian government to curb the "Made in Italy - by Chinese" carries a massive dissappointment among the natives till date. The residing chinese in Italy mostly from Zhejiang province of China have adapted to the conditions in Italy without adopting their culture, language or practices fuelling the fire by creating ethnic territories within the country. 

   

The chinese travel to their homelands every year to celebrate their largest festival "The Lunar New Year". The chinese flew back to their country to paint their town red as usual in January and February this year too. The epicenter of the then epidemic Corona Virus, Wuhan and the Hubei province were sealed by the Chinese government on 23rd January. It is estimated by The New York Times that around 7 million people left Wuhan before it was quarantined completely. The fleeing chinese became the nucleating sites for the spread of infection all around China. As the chinese new year celebrations got cancelled to control the epidemic, the non-resident chinese went back to their countries of work; but they didn't go emptyhanded. They carried seeds of Corona across the globe. The worst affected countries right now, Iran and Italy are suffering due to their greater links with China. France and UK are following the suit. 

With deaths exceeding 6000 and cases exceeding 60,000 (as of 23rd March), the new epicenter of the novel corona virus: Italy has multiple reasons to account for its overwhelming numbers. Be it the second most ageing population, multiple health issues among senior citizens ranging from lung infections to heart and kidney problems, notorious air pollution of the northern industrial provinces of Italy, presence of large number of chinese in the northern provinces of Lombardy, Tuscany and Veneto or the spread of virus among the healthworkers. Congruent to the chinese presence, northern Italy has seen more than 70% of the total tally. The European Union, sharing open borders are stunned with Spain, France, Germany and The UK reported an alarming number of cases forcing them to lockdown their own countries. 

With Europe becoming the worst affected continent from corona, what could the reason be chalked up to? Are the colonial powers of the past yielding to the modern colonial power; China? Is the karma of the atrocities committed by Europe on the rest of the world being paid back by the present generation? Or is it just plain negligence of the western countries to under-asses the impact of NCovid-19? 

Many theories can be drawn with the assumption of China as the main culprit in either unleashing a bio-engineered-attack on the world, or for the consumption of exotic animals and birds housing deadly viruses. Well, there is a possibility that this could be a part of China's plan to dominate the world. By recolonizing African and fellow Asian countries in the name of development induced debt and the new Silk Route (OBOR), China has also been successful in having a say in policies, politics and trade of many countries including Italy. Could the corona virus be the last nail in the coffin for the western countries? Is it the time for the rise of the East? Is a unamious world superpower emerging? Only time would tell. 

But the point to be emphasized is that China is also aiding the affected countries by supplying masks, ventilators and other medical equipment thereby gaining sympathy from the world to overcome this phase of blamegame by the US.