I’ve noticed a video reporting the severe crisis a small city called Tonghua in the north of China is facing. More than 200 people in that city have infected COVID-19. As a result, the whole city was sealed off urgently. People living there were asked to stay at home. However, many of them do not have enough food. I was surprised by the huge number of people infected and the crisis native citizens are facing and wonder why I have heard nothing about it. Then I tried to search it online. The result shows that there are rarely news reporting it and only a small group of people have noticed the problem. The virus used to broke out in Hebei, a city close to Tonghua but bigger. During that period, I see reports everywhere, the situation was updated every day, and everyone in the city was asked to take a COVID test. These two cities all face the COVID-19 but it is obvious that much more attention was paid to one city than the other.
I think this is an example of systemic injustice since people living in different cities does not have equal availability to medical care and food supply. There’s no law mentioning that one city should get more attention than another when facing problems, but the reality shows that since Tonghua is a small and less developed city, it was almost ignored. When people think about how COVID is affecting cities, cities like Beijing, Shanghai are also those that pop into their minds since these are “more important” cities with larger populations, more highly educated citizens, and act as economic or political center. I think this case relates well to the key word “Subaltern” which Spivak has mentioned in the article “Can the Subaltern Speak?”. Here people living in Tonghua are the subalterns, whose voice cannot be hearted by the public. People noticed what they are suffering only after the official news reported it. Which indicates that citizens’ voice cannot be heard without the help from those who have power.
If we ignore those “less important” cities, problems may exist. Without paying enough attention, a huge population may be infected by the virus before being realized. Doctors are unprepared and cannot control it as soon possible. It may even turn into an national disaster. Also, this may lead to social unrest as citizens facing this crisis may try to remonstrate, causing conflict and panic. To fix this systemic injustice, the government should let people realize the negative consequences of ignoring what’s happening in small cities, and administrators should take every problem seriously no matter which city is facing that problem.
This article may help you to learn more about what is happening during that period of time
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/25/what-happened-when-one-chinese-city-shut-down-after-new-covid-outbreak.html
Reference
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/25/what-happened-when-one-chinese-city-shut-down-after-new-covid-outbreak.html