The end of civilization?

Covid-19 is ending what 9/11 initiated: the end of privacy, freedom and common sense. It may have triggered the abolishment of a ‘civil society’ as we knew it (or thought we did).

It’s been a long time since I had the motivation to write here. Well, to be more precise, I find it ever harder to not being cynical looking at the reality. So, better leave it….but now we are sitting here, locked up in our homes (those who have one), and waiting for our mostly incompetent governments to decide who can breathe when and in what circumstances. That hasn’t always been so. There was a time (and some places), when citizens’ opinions counted, when civil society was considered an important part of the political system, and when governments made an effort to seek the best outcome considering the issues at stake.

With 9/11 this has changed forever as Edgar Snowden convincingly demonstrates in his recent book. Nowadays, governments and bureaucrats don’t see themselves as representing ‘the people’. Only focused on power and how to gain power, the only things ‘those in charge’ really care about is their electorate (that is, if they even need to consider that). While it is widely believed that the majority of votes still represents the majority of opinions, all of us that look a bit deeper into the details, know that it’s not exactly the majority of citizens that decide on political outcomes. For that end, it has become common practice to systematically exclude unwanted voters[1], manipulate others, or to cheat, falsify and lie. Whereas some time ago, a president insulting its people, other members of government, or a representative of a foreign country would have been perceived as rude, D. Trump has demonstrated that today one can win global support being an asshole [2]. Trump may be an asshole as a person but he is also the one holding up the mirror for us to see what we have become.

Rather than stopping his aggressive, mean, and totally disgusting acting, national leaders from other countries only feel attracted to his practice. History repeats itself: it’s not the agressors that are to blame for any human tragedy but the silent bystanders. Today we live in a world order that impresses only for its total lack of competence on all fronts. This couldn’t be better reflected in how Covid-19 has so far been addressed. While every country takes a total isolated approach in how to handle the apparent threat, action mostly precedes rational thinking. In Spain, the newly elected ‘socialist’ president has used the momentum to do what Spanish governments have always done best: take unilateral decisions and repress the people without considering the consequences. The government doesn’t even care to properly inform what we citizens may or may not do [3]. All they tell you is this: if you leave your house, you risk being punished from a fine of EUR 100.- to 18 months of incarceration.

So, instead of keeping calm in a manageable situation (compare it to the situation with which millions of refugees, victims of abuse, and families in precarious conditions have to live on a daily basis), the usual bystanders have become agressors themselves by using the momentum to create ‘states of emergency’ all over the planet. The consequence is that millions of people live in fear for loosing their lives, incomes or jobs. Others, such as the thousands of immigrants that live on lowest incomes and in mostly inhuman conditions to produce the cheap veggies and fruits we are all used to consume or all the elderly women selling food in the streets in Southeast Asia to survive on a few dollars day by day, may even struggle to think about the ‘time after Covid-19’. Yet, for our elites, these people don’t count because they surely aren’t even aware of their existence.

The way most governments have adressed Covid-19 is nothing more but hypocrisy. Have you ever wondered where the Greta effect has gone in those last week? Ever questioned why the dramatic restrictions on mobility have never been used before to cope with a climate crisis that has and will cost not only thousands but billions of lives? In my view it is self-explaining that government representatives who only care about reminding us of our duty to pay our taxes and other contributions to the system, do not really care about citizens or the funcioning of society. All they care about is the ‘final solution’: finding the right means to suffocate the ones that are not really appreciated. For them, Covid-19 is nothing more than a welcome opportunity to execute a long planned agenda.

In light of this reality, all the frightened citizens weighing how much longer they should stay at home should ask themselves the following: what is more scary, the threat of dying on a viral infection or the certainty of increasingly being exposed to the perversion of a totally fucked world elite? If you imagine what still lies ahead of us survivors in the years to come in a world that is more and more nationalist, exclusive and totalitarian and in which governments prevent us from being humans, death might not be the factor to determine whether we still live or not.

[1] See e.g. Joseph Stiglitz: ‘People, Power and Profits’.

[2] How else do you explain his millions of followers?

[3] Try once a web search for ‘gobierno Covid-19’ or ‘confinamiento’ and see.