A professor at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside has blamed the U.S. for the coronavirus, insisted there is no “patient zero” in China, compared the situation to Adolf Hitler, and insisted that more people die around the world from U.S. economic policies than from the virus.
Regarding the coronavirus, Palestinian-American Sociology professor Seif Da’na insisted that “more people die every year not just from diseases that you can get vaccinated for, like malaria – from which half a million people [die] in Africa – but also from the West’s economic policies, at least in the 20th century and the two decades of the 21st century. More people die every year from the consequences of these economic issues than from what is happening now.”
According to video translated and published by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Da’na compared the coronavirus situation to that of Adolf Hitler in a March 29 interview with Al-Manar TV, a Hezbollah-affiliated station in Lebanon.
“This is exactly like what happened with Hitler. Hitler did not do anything out of the ordinary,” the professor said. “He did not do anything that had not been done by the Europeans before. In the colonial days, in the countries of the [global] south, they would kill hundreds of thousands and even millions of people. Hitler came to be viewed as Satan just because he did what he did in Europe.”
How does the coronavirus connect to Hitler, Europeans, and the West? Da’na suggested the virus originated in the U.S. — when it is known to have originated in China — and compared the U.S.’s alleged “leaking” of the virus to the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
“The question about how this virus appeared has not been settled yet. As of now, there is no ‘patient zero’ in China, and therefore, we do not talk here about a conspiracy as much as we talk about the leaking of the viruses from a laboratory at Fort Detrick in the United States,” the professor said. “Perhaps this leaking was not deliberate. We are not talking here about a conspiracy, even though the U.S. annihilated two whole cities in Japan during WWII, despite this being unnecessary. They were already winning the war, but they still used the nuclear bombs.”
Da’na is the associate dean of the College of Social Studies and Professional Sciences at UW-Parkside and the department chair of the school’s Institute of Professional Educator Development. According to the school’s website, he teaches a broad range of classes, including ETHN 206 — race/ethnic relations in the U.S., MAPS 710 — the global city, SOCA 301 — introduction to sociological theory, and more.
UW-Parkside did not respond to multiple requests for comment from PJ Media.
Contrary to Da’na’s suggestion, a “patient zero” has tentatively been identified by the South China Morning Post — a 55-year-old individual from Hubei province. The Chinese Communist Party has released propaganda claiming that the U.S. is responsible for the virus, but this is clearly a lie. Scientists have tentatively concluded that the virus has a natural origin in animals, and it appears to have transmitted to humans through the wet markets of Hubei province near Wuhan.
The idea that Hitler “did not do anything out of the ordinary” is grotesque. His genocide directed against European Jews and others (including ethnic minorities and homosexuals) was horrific and is rightly condemned by all right-thinking people. While other genocides have indeed been carried out in the past (such as the Armenian Genocide), and oppressive Communist regimes have murdered tremendous portions of their own people, Hitler’s Holocaust stands out as a true pinnacle of evil. Tragically, Holocaust denial is widespread in the Middle East, and that may explain why Da’na thought he could minimize it for Hezbollah-linked Lebanese television.
Finally, the West’s economic policies have fostered free markets and previously unimaginable prosperity across the world. In the past two hundred years, the standard of living has increased dramatically in and outside the West. Innovations like air conditioning, refrigeration, microwaves, cheap books, the internet, air travel, and more were barely conceivable in the early 1800s. The world is incomparably richer thanks to the West’s economic progress — the very thing Da’na suggested has killed more than the coronavirus will.
This bare fact reveals an astounding ignorance that may only be possible in the far-left thought bubble of American academia.
Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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