The COVID-19 pandemic has not yet ended, while it seems to be escalating, also in Indonesia. We are in a "global state of emergency" against this.
By
F BUDI HARDIMAN
·7 minutes read
STR /AFP/CHINA OUT
Medical staff treat a COVID-19 coronavirus patient at a hospital in Wuhan, in China\'s central Hubei province on (19/3/2020). - China on March 19 reported no new domestic cases of the coronavirus for the first time since it started recording them in January, but recorded a spike in infections from abroad.
Countries and cities are forced to do lockdown, prohibiting citizens from going out or outside guests from entering. Meanwhile in Wuhan, where the virus first spread in early 2020, has begun to control the spread with discipline and expertise, while Italy is overwhelmed by the increasing number of casualties that have to be buried.
More than 190 countries have been infected. And it seems that their stance -- being disciplined or loose, serious, or taking it easy -- is crucial to determine the success of this pandemic control. For the first time, a pandemic is highlighted by global media, thereby making the world a digital village full of fear in facing this disease. The rapid transmission and spread of these tiny creatures has caused horror. COVID-19 seems to be a global dictatorship that terrorizes countries. However, actually the COVID-19 pandemic is not just a medical phenomenon; these tiny creatures have also become a media darling that seizes the attention of the entire world.
The social psychological impact can be greater than the medical impact. Like religious radicalism that sneaks into government institutions, these tiny creatures also spread mutual suspicion among us. No one has the privilege not to be infected. All people, regardless whether they are officials or ordinary citizens, rich or poor, senior or junior, male or female, having faith or not having faith, have the same opportunity to be infected.
As a medical event the COVID-19 pandemic is an objective part of the world of facts that can be medically calculated. However, as a media event, it touches on the world of subjective and intersubjective meanings that depend a lot on our interpretation. Therefore, the impact of statistical reports about the "achievement" of this virus can be fatal. The number tames the unknown, so the publication of the number of victims suggests that we seem to be able to negotiate with the wild reality that is still beyond our control. But it is clear that 2, 34, 69, 172, 227, and so on will not stabilize the reality they refer to because the number does not fully control the reality. Through the COVID-19 pandemic, we can see from two sides, of course much depends on how we respond to this event.
A spokesman for the handling of the coronavirus outbreak, Achmad Yurianto, gives a statement on the development of coronavirus cases in Indonesia and the world at the Presidential Palace complex in Jakarta on Wednesday (11/3/2020).
In term of danger
There are at least three aspects of our humanity that can be endangered by these tiny creatures as a media darling, namely the psychological, social, and metaphysical aspects. Humans have always needed the hands of others. We are taught to be open to others. Greeting, patting the shoulder, hugging, or kissing strengthen and unite the heart. But then come the pandemic. Everything that previously united now separates.
Human primordial feelings, "fear of touching", become everyday tyrants because people and goods become dangerous. What to be intimate with our hands -- door handles, money, buttons, cellphone screens -- suddenly becomes a threat. Even our own hands are ready to betray, whenever we are complacent. Someone becomes isolated even from his or her own body. If it is dictated by fear and disappearing sense of security, the ego becomes selfish. That is the psychological danger that arises, as happening in the phenomenon of panic buying.
Anxiety in a pandemic makes us aware that everything is just a human construction. Workplaces, schools, campuses, places of worship, namely social constructions that have been connecting people to people, have been suspended. Runaway world must be put on a halt suddenly so that it shakes up certainty of the systems that have long guaranteed human social routines. The cities and states are locked down, employees are laid off, schools and campuses are temporarily closed, places of worship are vacated, schedules of big meetings are canceled. However, domestication of the public that is triggered by fear of contact does not produce sturdy individuals, but a lonely crowd. If it continues for a long time, the isolated crowd will weaken democracy and solidarity by surrendering to a pandemic biopolitics which will continue to inspect the citizens\' bodies.
The pandemic also manifests itself in our consciousness as a random feature of our lives. The image of the spread of COVID-19 seems to soar into the realm of metaphysics to be synonymous with the arbitrariness of fate. These tiny creatures -- and hundreds of other types that can infect humans at any time -- remind the fragility of life that is limited by death. Humans are not afraid of meaningful death, but they will find it difficult to accept the uselessness which is inherent in random deaths that cannot be interpreted. The death statistic that is rapidly rising is heard not as a logical part of the universal watch, but as a depressing work of ill will that is burdening.
When people fail to bear the absurdity, they can stop hoping. In fact, it is from the hope that they can give meaning to life. Therefore, the danger that is no less great than physical pain is the loss of hope. The government or people who have lost hope in a pandemic can be careless, ignorant, and even violent, thereby making things worse. Without hope, not only freedom, but also the future of a nation can disappear.
In term of hope
Let\'s take a different perspective. Pandemic is an ambivalent part of our lives. In life there is nothing that is totally bad, just as nothing is too good. The death of the seniors gives a place to the juniors, illness gives the healers a living, and disasters drive the feeling of a friend\'s loyalty. Similarly, this virus pandemic is not at all bad for us. COVID-19 is not just dangerous. It also opens up opportunities. Of course it depends on the reviewers, and hope does not fail to review this side.
It is interesting, for example, that the threat of these tiny creatures has forced us to flee into the digital world, which becomes a kind of Noah\'s ark for our social contacts amid the danger of physical touch. It helps familiarize the digital communication of the campus community, the profession, the market, and even the country, something that we might previously still be reluctant to do. It is as if we are invited to see the future of post-human digital society that communicates without physical touch, when humans turn into homo digitalis.
Not only that, the tactic of isolation also amazingly presents a reality that has been long lost and in fact we have longed for: families who gather to recover from the wounds of the world of work, a living environment that retires from car and factory smokes, hygiene awareness and discipline a society that was previously obscene and permissive, religious groups\' adherence to civil government, and the emergence of religiosity apart from routine ritualism.
AFP/FILIPPO MONTEFORTE
This picture taken on March 23, 2020 in Rome, shows a view of the Colosseum monument along a deserted Via dei Fori Imperiali during the country\'s lockdown aimed at stopping the spread of the COVID-19 (new coronavirus) pandemic.
Digital closeness in the midst of a pandemic begins to uncover different sides of the people we have so far recognized wrongly. A different mode of being we are experiencing may give birth to new forms of solidarity and balance. The COVID-19 pandemic enriches not only our "subjectivication" experience as a democratic state, but also as members of the global community.
The side that can be seen by this hope reminds us of the words of the German poet of the Romantic era, Friedrich Hiderlin: Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst das Rettende auch, where the danger is there, there is also a saving power. But, without our hope and care, that power is impossible to grow. Danger trains us to care, namely to be responsible by not gathering, to be compassionate without touching, to be loyal to friends without embracing.
It is the hope that increases our care for others, and it starts with our own hygiene and discipline. The command "do not kill!" this time includes "do not infect!" through your carelessness. Hygiene and social distancing are the real manifestations of altruism, sympathy, responsibility, and solidarity with others.
Kompas
F Budi Hardiman
Undisciplined and easy-going nations and governments have the potential to reap many victims, while highly disciplined and concerned nations can reduce the number of victims. The danger of COVID-19 can be a place where "saving power" grows if we do not lose hope. And, now hope means caring and being disciplined. It is with this hope that we can safely pass the COVID-19 pandemic.
F Budi Hardiman, Philosophy Lecturer at Pelita Harapan University.
