WHO meeting Chinese officials under Shiva, a Hindu god?

A photo posted to Twitter over one year ago by the head of the World Health Organization appears benign at first glance but a closer look reveals that the image depicts a meeting between the WHO and a Chinese organization focused on the domination of global markets. Even more disturbing is that the meeting is being overseen by the statue of the Hindu goddess known as Shiva the Destroyer.



The tweet states that the occasion was to celebrate the WHO’s participation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative by supporting the “overseas training more than 2,000 Chinese health workers.” This is even more inexplicable than the presence of the statue of a Hindu deity at the meeting since The Belt and Road Initiative has nothing to do with health work. It is, in fact, a global development strategy adopted by the Chinese government in 2013 involving infrastructure development and investments in nearly 70 countries and international organizations in Asia, Europe, and Africa. Formerly named One Belt One Road (OBOR), the name was changed in 2016 when the Chinese government considered the emphasis on the word “one” was prone to misinterpretation. However, “One Belt One Road” is still used in Chinese-language media.
A screenshot in case the Tweet gets removed

The stated objectives are “to construct a unified large market and make full use of both international and domestic markets, through cultural exchange and integration, to enhance mutual understanding and trust of member nations, ending up in an innovative pattern with capital inflows, talent pool, and technology database.” Critics see it as a push for Chinese dominance in global affairs with a China-centered trading network.

President Trump has been quietly working to oppose the OBOR with a program titled the Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy (FOIP). The European Union supports the OBOR despite the objections of several member nations.

Shiva is one of the principal deities of Hinduism and is known as “The Destroyer” within the Trimurti, the Hindu trinity that includes Brahma and Vishnu. In Hinduism, Shiva represents a duality of being both a benefactor and a malignant destroyer.

Devdutt Pattanaik, an Indian mythologist, wrote an article in Economic Times explaining how Shiva fits into modern corporate society.

“Organizations are built by people who have the desire to achieve something,” Pattanaik wrote.”This desire makes them Brahma, the creator of the organization, but when their desire ceases and they let go of the organization and they become Shiva, the destroyer.

Hinduism is not one of the five religions recognized by the Chinese government so it is not known why the statue of a Hindu deity would be displayed at the meeting.

Perhaps even more disturbing is the large statue of Shiva the Destroyer prominently displayed at the entrance he European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, in Switzerland. CERN operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Physicist Fritjof Capra explains its enigmatic presence at the laboratory by saying, “For the modern physicists, then, Shiva’s dance is the dance of subatomic matter.”

In 2012, CERN was granted official observer status at the UN.

It is interesting to note that nuclear research has been associated with Shiva since its inception. J. Robert Oppenheimer, known as “the father of the atomic bomb” for his work on the bombs dropped on Japan at the end of WWII recited a quote referring to Shiva from the Hindu text, the Baghavid-Gita, at the first atom bomb test in 1945.

“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds,” Oppenheimer said.

It is believed that he was noting that like the Hindu deity Shiva, a nuclear weapon has inherent duality beneficial as well as horrifically destructive:

The image becomes even more disturbing when considering the past of its twitter host, Tedros Adhanom. Tedros’s candidacy for the WHO director-general was opposed vigorously by several Ethiopian parties, due to his career in the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the most powerful of the armed liberation movements in Ethiopia with decidedly Marxist ideologies and an abysmal record of human rights violations. TPLF sees self-determination as the launching pad for the ultimate socialist revolution. The TPLF provided millions of dollars in financial support for Tedros’s candidacy in WHO.

In addition, when running Ethiopia’s health ministry, he was known to discourage journalists from reporting about suspected cholera cases in the country while deliberately preventing life-saving actions. His ministry was accused of misappropriating over $7 million in funds appropriated for these epidemics.

Tedros has identified universal health coverage as his top priority at WHO. In 2017, Tedros chose President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, a leader with a horrifying record of human rights abuse, to serve as a WHO Goodwill Ambassador. Observers said Tedros was returning a campaign favor.

The WHO under his leadership has been heavily criticized for its reaction to the spread of the coronavirus. Tedros was criticized by some government officials and experts and was perceived to have acted slowly in his efforts to stem the epidemic, and as having a too-close relationship with the government of China where the pandemic originated. Tedros praised China for its containment measures, describing them as a “new standard for outbreak control”, a position which was criticized in light of China’s efforts to suppress information.