Turbulence of Life
Turbulence comes into being through some kind of disturbance, such as a virus or parasite. And COVID-19 is now that nuisance that is interfering with the lives of the people.
In recent days, the images of the lives of the nation have been very worrying, tense, even frightening.
Almost every time we open Facebook, WhatsApp or Twitter, there are long lines of news about friends, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers or other relatives infected with COVID-19 who have been hospitalized, made to self-isolate, picked up by ambulances or who are dying or have breathed their last breath.
Also, the media has reported on hospitals being overwhelmed with patients, the scarcity of oxygen cylinders, roads being closed and queues at funerals. All these are grim images of the nation as it struggles to survive.
This is not only about the fear, sadness and tears, but also about the uncertainty in life. The nation is in a long tunnel of uncertainty, between being infected or immune, healthy or sick, negative or positive, recovering or dying, staying at home or traveling, being able to eat or starving, continuing to work or being laid off.
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> Herd Immunity and Covid-19 Metamorphosis
> The Beginning of the end for the Covid-19 Pandemic
This shackle of uncertainty grips all walks of life, every social class, all lifestyle groups, all ethnicities and all races – with no exception. This is a threshold of life that leaves indecision and uncertainty—the turbulence of life.
With all their limitations, humans are certainly trying to escape the twists and turns of this uncertainty. For example, the government\'s efforts to enforce emergency public activity restrictions (PPKM Darurat) began on July 3 in several areas.
Even though the effect has not been huge, at least there has been a shift in people\'s behavior – individuals, groups, communities – toward adherence to health protocols.
The increased sales of several types of vitamins and supplements are an indicator that people are trying to increase their immunity. That means that in the twists and turns of uncertainty, the “war on the virus” is still alive!
Social turbulence
The COVID-19 pandemic – especially the new Delta variant – has created chaos, uncertainty and turbulence in social life. The panic-inducing effect of this turbulence has threatened physical, social, economic and cultural resilience.
Philosophically, turbulence is an intermediate or floating state between order and chaos, between fullness and emptiness, between determinism and indeterminism, between being and nothing, between the predictable and the unpredictable, between integration and disintegration, between unity and division, between health and illness or between life and death (Serres, 1998).
And COVID-19 is now that nuisance that is interfering with the lives of the people.
Turbulence comes into being through some kind of disturbance, such as a virus or parasite. And COVID-19 is now that nuisance that is interfering with the lives of the people.
Viruses and parasites are both hitchhikers, hijackers and stowaways on the human body as hosts, which can cause multidimensional destructive effects. There is an asymmetrical relationship between the parasite and the host. The host gives everything and takes nothing.
The parasite takes everything and gives nothing (Serres, 1995). The COVID-19 pandemic creates turbulence in life because it interferes with the biological, social, economic, political and cultural lives of the people – and even destroys civilization, the noise of civilization.
A worker rides a bike as he wears a face mask as a precautionary measure in the face of the global COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, in Bogota on March 12, 2020. - Colombia declared on March 12, 2020 a "Health Emergency" due to the new coronavirus pandemic, a figure that allows it to take exceptional measures such as prohibiting the disembarkation of cruise ships and the holding of public events with more than 500 attendees.
Turbulence creates multidimensional thresholds: physical, social, psychological and cultural. A threshold is something that floats or oscillates on the borderline (Kristeva, 1991). The COVID-19 pandemic has created physical threshold points between immunity and infection, between health and illness, between life and death.
It also creates psychic threshold conditions between safe and threatened, between calm and fear, between release and being trapped. It also creates social thresholds between assembly and distance, between freedom and isolation, between integration and disintegration. This threshold condition has darkened the tunnel of uncertainty.
COVID-19 has created chaos, randomness and uncertainty on multiple scales. Uncertainty then leads to conditions of maximum unpredictability in various systems, due to the high number of choices and their random nature: social, economic, political, cultural and artistic (Campbell, 1984).
Also read:
> Weak Protocols, Hundreds of Students Test Positive for Covid-19
> The Impact of COVID-19 Virus Mutations
However, we must remember recok (disruption) is as old as the history of human creation, which has existed since the beginning of humanity on earth. The devil, who seduced Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, was the first form of recok. Recok then became the "backstage" of the entire history of human life until now and also in the future (Serres, 1998).
In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic deserves to be material for self-reflection about the meaning of life. The burden of suffering and fear experienced by humans due to the COVID-19 pandemic is indeed indescribable. However, under normal conditions, aren\'t humans also viruses and parasites?
Imitating the behavior of viruses, humans are also pillion and recok for other humans and nature. Humans deplete natural resources for the sake of desires, never giving anything in return. Humans have also "made it easy" for the COVID-19 pandemic because the virus jumped in on the convenience provided by man-made global production, transportation and distribution technologies.
Nevertheless, “the war against the virus” must still be waged in order to survive. Biopolitics is a political way to maintain life in the existing system and conditions. Meanwhile, biopower is "life that is the target of political command" (Foucault, 1986).
The people are now involved in these two forms of "politics". On the one hand, everyone must survive amid the severe threat of the pandemic, at all costs. On the other hand, the government uses its authority to regulate, control and limit the public in order to reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
People wearing protective clothing and masks arrive at Hankou Railway Station in Wuhan, to board one of the first trains leaving the city in China\'s central Hubei province early on April 8, 2020. - Chinese authorities lifted a more than two-month ban on outbound travel from the city where the global pandemic first emerged.
Conflict occurs when there is a gap between biopolitics and biopower, namely the contradiction between the movements of the people in maintaining life and the movements of the government in regulating it. The bigger the gap between people\'s actions and government regulation, the greater the effect of turbulence and uncertainty in the fight against the virus, as has happened in some countries.
On the other hand, the stronger the chemistry between the inner spirit of the community and the government\'s policies, programs and movements, the more resilient the nation\'s war machine against the virus becomes.
Cultural resilience
No matter how heavy the burden of life, a response against the virus must be carried out to stay alive. Resilience is a flexible cognitive, behavioral and emotional response to various difficulties, which are largely determined by attitude in dealing with them.
This is a way to build resilience and rise from disruptive adversity, such as the COVID-19 pandemic (Neenan, 2018).
Various methods and techniques have been carried out by various elements of the nation to increase resilience to the effects of the pandemic. The recovery process may be long, which will create new habits (Fiksel, 2015).
In addition to the virological point of view, the virus must be viewed from a broader and integrated perspective: social, political, economic, cultural, as well as artistic and religious.
However, resilience must be supported by a comprehensive, integrated and in-depth understanding of the virus in all its dimensions. In addition to the virological point of view, the virus must be viewed from a broader and integrated perspective: social, political, economic, cultural, as well as artistic and religious.
Pathography is a cross-disciplinary approach of this kind, as a mixture of historical, biological, social, political, economic and cultural narratives of disease and its transmission. This is a metanarrative about a crisis or disease in a certain time and space, including the COVID-19 pandemic and its various variants (MacPhail, 2014).
Also read:
> Adaptation to the Second Year of the Pandemic
> Japan Enters ‘Vivere Pericoloso’ With Persistent Olympics
In the fight against COVID-19, apart from being cross-disciplinary, a cross-sectoral and cross-institutional approach is also needed. At the academic level, it is necessary to generate ideas, concepts, systems, forms or products related to viruses through various cross-disciplinary scientific findings, involving various disciplines, including medicine, virology, science, technology, sociology, economics, psychology, culture and art.
At the government level, cross-sectoral and cross-institutional policies, programs and actions need to be integrated. At the community level, there is a need for grassroots movements at the individual, communal and social levels in the spirit of gotong royong to overcome common problems, transcending all sociopolitical differences.
In addition, it is necessary to optimize and integrate the three efforts that are being carried out. The first is to maximize compliance with health procedures that have been outlined nationally. Second is to maximize self-immunity according to ability and if possible find innovative ideas related to defense and immunity.
Third is the intensification of one\'s approach to God through prayer because religion teaches us that every disease has a cure. Indeed, the virus cannot be eradicated because it is a historical part of the balance of nature. However, it must be fought to dampen the shock of turbulence and its destructive effect on life. May this nation be given strength, immunity and health.
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Yasraf Amir Piliang
Yasraf A Piliang, Social and Cultural Thinker at ITB
(This article was translated by Kurniawan Siswoko)
