A couple of months ago, life as we knew it fundamentally changed. The mantras of today are ‘stay at home, stay safe’ and ‘social distancing’. Not even the most critical mind working on surveillance – and on what George Orwell grasped in his ‘1984’ novel – would have imagined that almost all over the world, nation states ban individual free movement and the gathering of people, while borders are closed and aeroplanes are grounded.
Normal social life and work has come to a halt. It seems the policing of populations might be the ‘only’ way to stop the deadly virus spreading further–or at least slow it down to a pace our medical systems can handle. Ulrich Beck’s ‘risk society’ appears to be taking on new forms in current times, while Simmel’s ‘psychology of the city dweller’ also seems to take on novel meaning. The effects of the pandemic on social inequality, urban life, citizenship, migration, and core-periphery relations are already becoming visible, but will be only fully comprehensible in due course.
What we have to face up to is unprecedented as far as contemporary generations are concerned, and will leave heavy marks, stigma, and perhaps trauma for those who survive the virus (but also for the lucky ones who are not being physically infected).
There is a lot to say on the neo-nationalisation of security regimes we see right now, as well as on systematic failures of national and international politics in securing public health systems, which now renders visible the horrific scale of death counting. Neoliberal capitalism has ignored what society means, and now leaves it to the kinder people in society to fill the care gaps that are man- and system-made.
The disaster is televised, and in the daily news, we increasingly see worn out faces of nurses, doctors, and of all involved with keeping alive the livelihood in our neighbourhoods, cities and across the globe. Foremost, the rising numbers of mass deaths as result of the COVID-19 pandemic is streamed into our temporarily (over-)crowded home spaces, and is reversing the notion of public social life and culture. Empty city streets, closed businesses, and people avoiding proximity of each other is a bleak reminder that our urbanist mode of living is fragile, and that everything does not come back to life during springtime.
The outbreak has left everyone talking and Wondering. Is the Wuhan virus the world's biggest intelligence failure? Is the government benefiting from this outbreak?, And is the virus more or less effective in Nigeria. These are prominent questions that are left in the dark as we think of a way forward. The pandemic has left the world's economy in a struggling state, while everyone is playing catch up, China is already up and running. It sounds too clear a plot to say that thu outbreak only meant business for some people and a period of gnashing of teeth's for the poor.