Visions of the Post-Coronavirus World - Kuwaiti Novelist Taleb Alrefai: There Is a Conflict Between China, the U.S. Over World Leadership; Social Bonds and the Nature of Travel Will Change after This Pandemic

Kuwaiti novelist Taleb Alrefai said in an interview on the Arabic-language France 24 TV that was published on April 7, 2020 that humanity is engaged in a "world war" against the coronavirus and that the U.S. and China are in a war over who will be the world leader. He predicted that whoever wins this war will re-draw the world’s political, geographical, monetary, and economic map, that the nature of travel will change, that people will be isolating themselves, that social bonds of all sorts will be different, that countries will relate to the third world differently, and that America, Europe, China, and Japan will realize that Arabs are not inferior people.

Taleb Alrefai: "I feel that humanity is going through a world war against the coronavirus. But inside humanity's trench, there is a war between China and America over world leadership and over who has the right to lead during this time. Of course. The victor of this war will become the leader of humanity in the next stage. There is also a war between the international pharmaceutical companies over who will develop a coronavirus vaccine. There are clear cracks in the EU, with Italy and Spain on one side and the other countries on the other side. There are also cracks between the different states in America. Therefore, what will happen after the coronavirus (pandemic) will be completely different from what preceded it. There will be a winner, or winners, who will re-draw the political, geographical, monetary, and economic world map. Travel regulations will be different. All the visas in your passports will be cancelled and you will have to get new visas that will have more strict conditions. Travel will be different. The way people relate to one another -whether with their countrymen or with foreigners – will also change."

Interviewer: "Will there be an increase in globalization, or the opposite?"

Taleb Alrefai: "In my opinion, everybody will be isolating themselves, so their relations with others, with their countries, and with foreigners will be new and different. I believe that the most obvious relations in this regard will be between the north and the south in the world – how others will view us in the third world. Human bonds will be built in a new way, and I hope that the Arab world, or the south, will get better recognition than in the past, and that the Western cultures of the U.S. and Europe, and even of China and Japan, will realize that Arabs are not inferior to others."