British actor and rapper Riz Ahmed feels that the coronavirus pandemic is becoming more personal to him as the actor revealed that two of his family members have tested positive to the deadly disease and have sadly passed away.
The actor opened up about the virus and the current state of things in a recent interview.
“Since we spoke I have lost two family members to COVID. I just want to believe their deaths and all the others aren’t for nothing. We gotta step up to reimagine a better future,” he said.
While talking about the social implications of the coronavirus, Riz believes that it has brought forth the real faces of people.
“This moment is forcing people to take their masks off. You see more of someone in a moment like this – what they are about, who they are. We’re accelerating towards a world of closed borders, a fear of the outsider, governments with sweeping powers. And equally, we’re accelerating towards the fact that the economy doesn’t come first. Lives come first. The planet comes first. Our general well-being comes first.”
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The Venom actor added that such a situation is making society redefine its priorities.
“Crises accelerate trends that are taking place in society. We’re going to migrate to online living in a way that we could have done before but just didn’t. The seeds of that were already sown,” he said. “I’m seeing reports of India, where the government are calling it ‘corona-jihad’ and they’re trying to blame it on the spread of Muslims and they are segregating hospitals between Muslims and non-Muslims,” says Ahmed.
While society is moving towards a more empathetic approach, Riz highlighted that certain governments are using it to fuel xenophobia.
“Trump is using it as an excuse to try to ban immigration and the Hungarian government is centralizing power off the back of this.” He further added: “I’m looking at the fact it’s hitting African-Americans twice as hard; I’m looking at the fact that 50 percent of NHS frontline workers – is it 50 percent? – are ethnic minorities.”
The Pakistani-British actor had some interesting points to share. What are your thoughts? Share your answers in the comments below.
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