COVID-19

What Kind Of War Does A Virus Wage?

RobertLeave a comment

The world of virology is rife with belligerent metaphors. COVID-19 is a viral invader which attacks and attempts to colonise a host. The host fights against the virus with its own defence systems in the hope of repelling the invader. Meanwhile, the societal fight against COVID-19 is likened to a war effort as the heroes of the NHS support those infected by the virus while the rest of the country contributes to the fight by staying at home and doing all we can to lower the rate of transmission. We have to win this fight after all and it’s a big one, it’s a pandemic.

These metaphors are useful. The former helps describe how viruses exist and how they infect us, while the latter reminds us of the severity of the pandemic and the scale of the response needed to meet it. However, they are both metaphors – “a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable” – and just as a virus can’t literally be said to invade a host (although we do talk of a virus spreading) so we can’t really go to war against a virus because a virus, strictly speaking, isn’t an enemy (even though it does very much threaten our lives). Because an enemy is defined as “a person who is actively opposed or hostile to someone or something” and personhood often depends on possessing conscious agency – the ability to desire something and act in a way so as to get it. So, really, when it comes to fighting the war against COVID-19 we aren’t at war with a virus we are at war with one another.

Today we see this war play out in the political decisions those in power make which determine how well (or badly) we will be able to survive this pandemic. The lack of ventilators, the insufficient supply of medical equipment, and the state of the NHS have their origins in politics. As did the decision to bail out the banks after the 2008 crash and foist the debt onto the public via austerity, which further undermined our social fabric. This response based on a long-standing neoliberal capitalist hegemony in the UK (and beyond) which prioritises commerce and capital over community and well-being. This politico-economic regime a logical continuation of our entrenched class system that sees a few (e.g. Kings and capitalists) hoard wealth at the expense of the many (e.g. serfs and workers). And the very wealth of this hierarchical system founded upon many genuine invasions, in which an attacking force attempted to destroy populations and colonise their territories. I am talking of the spread of the British Empire and its genocidal colonisation of so much of the world. If we were to use a viral metaphor the Empire would be the virus.

Many have fought and questioned this system of oppression for centuries and, now, the pandemic is making many more of us question it too. This violent and soul-destroying system can be replaced by ways of life that are more healing, communal and just. Ones which are ultimately founded on love, not hate. For this to happen I think it worthwhile to be able to trace the origins of our political circumstances in their long, bloodied and genocidal history. The pandemic is about so much more than a virus, it is deeply political, and for our politics to change we must understand them from as many different angles as possible including anti-colonial, feminist, queer and intersectional. In the meantime we will continue to fight a war on COVID-19 but who survives it and how depends on the politics we practice and, to date, it is our politicians, not our viruses, that wage war. This can change and we must be the people to change it.

“Truth counts, Truth does count.”

RobertLeave a comment

So says Mr Emerson in E.M. Forster’s lovely novel, A Room with a View, about repressed middle class Edwardians who happily travelled around Europe and went skinny dipping in ponds. Like those fusty Edwardians I too was long schooled in the fine English arts of passive aggression and stiff-upper-lipness. Confrontation was something to be avoided at all costs and emotions were best left repressed. Nevertheless, after a breakdown in my early 20s I slowly learned that mental health is vital as is the ability to experience, process and communicate my emotions. A not dissimilar breakdown last year taught me that telling the truth is also vital, be it recounting my own experiences of suffering and isolation as a gay man or speaking up for the wider suffering within the LGBTQIA+ community. Just like Lucy Honeychurch, the protagonist of A Room with a View, I have learned that love and truth do count, they really do (incidentally, my privilege let me go travelling in South America, much further away than Europe, and there was definitely the odd bit of skinny dipping).

The COVID-19 pandemic requires love and truth on an unprecedented scale. A love that is being demonstrated in abundance by the UK’s key workers who are working tirelessly to save lives and a love we need to show towards ourselves, those we care for, the vulnerable, the NHS, our key workers and, actually, everyone. And the truth matters just as much because many people still don’t understand the severity of the pandemic and the need for us all to take action following the recommendations of the WHO (World Health Organisation) and medical experts. This includes staying at home, regardless of whether we have symptoms or not, an incredibly simple yet powerful thing we can do to stop the spread of the virus.  We can follow the advice of the government as well but we must remember that the government has been slow to act, so there will be times when we can act more responsibly than Boris Johnson is telling us to. It’s in our hands (but hopefully not on our hands because we’re washing them regularly).

This isn’t a self-help blog and I can’t tell you what to do but I can tell you that I am doing my best to honour truth and love. I’m having difficult conversations with people I care about (conversations we might call ‘conflict’ but are actually about trying to do what’s best for everyone) and encouraging people to speak up for themselves. And, I confess, there are times when I have shied away from these conversations because I fear someone’s reaction more than I do the consequences of inaction. I will do my best to change this behaviour because it could save lives. I am trying to look after myself so I’m in a better place to look after others. I am trying not to catastrophise (too much) but I am also trying not to deny the rapid ways in which ‘normality’ has irrevocably changed. I am trying to love myself, I am trying to tell myself the truth, and I am taking it one day at a time. Over to you Mr Emerson and Dr. Rita Issa:

“…we fight for more than Love or Pleasure: there is Truth. Truth counts, Truth does count.”