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Title: covid-19 lockdown
Author: sze-tao
Date: March 30, 2020
Language: en
Topics: COVID-19, Philippines, Bandilang Itim
Source: Retrieved on 2020-03-30 from http://libcom.org/blog/covid-19-lockdown-quarantine-reflections-30032020

sze-tao

covid-19 lockdown

“This is not martial law. Our enemy is the virus.”

— some poor politician in Malacañang (living a simple life & shops at

Jaeger-LeCoult[1])

Inhale slowly 1001, 1002, 1003, 1004. exhale slowly 1001, 1002, 1003,

1004.

We are in 1984. the Marcos nightmare is back.

This is a practice of our social conditioning. a social conditioning to

authoritarianism and its ultimate dream: an authoritarian society.

Poverty is a social condition that is characterized by the lack of

resources necessary for basic survival or to meet a certain minimum

level of living standards expected for each of us. This is us

(Filipinos) being discriminated. And if you stretch your imagination,

this is Class War.

Everyone is molded into accepting the discrimination we all experience

every day and to eventually give control of our lives to the government

and its cronies. We are not simply asked to obey the rules that military

personnel and politicians have outlined for us but to stop questioning

them. Blind obedience spelled #sumunodlangkayo [just obey].

That is the goal of this lockdown, enhanced community quarantine and 8PM

to 5AM curfew hours. It is not de facto martial law, it’s simply Martial

Law.

When the current president regurgitates from enforcing a community

quarantine to an ‘enhanced’ community quarantine and finally to ‘extreme

enhanced’ community quarantine; your eyes blink in confusion. As the

excuses and denials about enforcing Martial Law accumulates, Duterte

assigns all retired army generals (not doctors/medical personnel) to the

committee for the “Covid-19 National Action Plan.” Finally, the granting

of ‘Special Powers’ via the signing of “Bayanihan Act of 2020” seals the

autocratic hand that will address the crisis spawned by COVID-19

pandemic.

Ultimately, authoritarianism is a personality trait[2] that reflects

certain values, preferring social conformity over personal autonomy. And

this is where the anarchists come to play.

We are under attack. our humanity is being attacked. Our fundamental

attitudes towards the world: conformity versus autonomy, nurture or

discipline is forced into our being.

The imposition of community passes, illegal arrests of curfew violators,

nationwide relief goods distribution corruptions, privileged/VIP

prioritization, suppression of press freedom and later an overall murder

of dissent (online or offline) are mere consequences.

It is not unusual for us to burst in anger for the daily assault on our

human rights while we are contemplating our own fear, our life in danger

amidst this imposed isolation. Most, if not all of us have long accepted

the inability of governments worldwide to provide all our needs in

crisis. And yes, we have long understood the limits of capitalism and

its unhealthiness to our planet.

So, we are anarchists. Descendants of geographer Kropotkin who advised

that the basic biological drive to mutual aid is definitive of humans;

that the not so visible side of success in species survival is in

collaboration with other species. Anthropologists have long discovered

that primitive societies have almost always practiced some form of ‘gift

economies’ (whose competitive drive is not to accumulate goods but give

them away![3]) and have preferred to share resources. That what really

matters is the relations between people, that exchange is about creating

friendships or working out rivalries.

How does it apply here? When a question about status of testing kits to

address the COVID-19 cases becomes a platform for creative poems[4] and

other creative pursuits; we nod our heads in agreement. We do not need

to bury the state further down the rabbit hole, they’ve done it a long,

long, long time ago. In crisis, anarchist values get activated. You just

need to look around, we’re at work (or play) and getting away with doing

the things we love. And yes, this a rhetoric. We are everywhere.

[1] Shoppers mob, take selfies with Duterte in upscale mall. Virgil

Lopez. GMA News Online. May 7, 2018.

www.gmanetwork.com

[2] The Authoritarian Personality. Adorno, Levinson, Sanford, &

Frenkel-Brunswik. 1950.

[3] The Gift: The form and reason for exchange in archaic societies.

Marcel Mauss. 2002.

libcom.org

[4] ‘The Kit’: Duterte’s ramblings at COVID-19 press conference are now

creative poems. Jeline Malasig. Interaksyon. March 10, 2020