A divided world.

ON Friday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the 'tsunami of hate' that is being witnessed in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic. There may indeed be a spike in the number of hate crimes and xenophobia globally, taking a uniquely ugly shape in each country it poisons, but much of these resentments were already in place before the pandemic unleashed itself. The seeds of division were planted long ago, and have seen the sudden rise of populist leaders who capitalised on divisive sentiments to come to power. As people now search for scapegoats to pin the collective blame on, racism and paranoia have only intensified. In particular, Chinese and Asian-descent people have been the target of verbal harassment and physical assault. In the US, a man from Myanmar and his young children were stabbed by a teenager who thought they were 'infecting people with the coronavirus'. In Australia, a video surfaced of an unruly woman kicking and spitting at two sisters of Asian descent. In Italy, racist graffiti appeared overnight, and in one video, an elderly Asian couple are being followed by a man with a camera, calling them 'filthy' and 'disgusting'. On the other hand, in China itself, African immigrants were subjected to racism after being accused of carrying the virus. In India, Muslims have been repeatedly targeted, attacked...