Plague and power
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The French philosopher, Michel Foucault, in his book “Control and Punish”, considers that the highest degree of power can be reached; It is when the people who are subject to it become illusion that they are free with a choice, and this kind of power does not require a social contract; As much as it needs a general framework through which the authority moves, so that its goals appear to be consistent with the forced choices of individuals, as is the case in the time of epidemics and disasters. evoke Foucault today; At a time when more than two-thirds of the world's population lives in voluntary and involuntary confinement in their homes; It is not an intellectual luxury, or a review of philosophical theories with the intention of keeping time and breaking monotony and boredom, but rather for an important and useful purpose to understand what is going on, and what repercussions that happen in our lives today, we do not know, may have on our future, our behavior, and our freedoms. This French philosopher was a forerunner to work on the history of prisons and punishment; Through the penalty of isolation and deportation, because he considered that writing the history of these isolated spaces is, at the same time, a history of power and its formation within society. Because the idea of “discipline” upon which the existence of prison institutions, or isolation spaces in general, is based, aims to coercive moral and social profiling of punished individuals, who do not meet its recognized stereotypical standards, and to make them comply with the values of society, and accept them without discussion. In his study, Foucault focuses on the engineering structure of prisons, where there are many watchtowers, to give the prisoner the illusion that he is always being watched, which leads to his discipline to his observers. to discipline. When projecting his idea onto society, Foucault arrives at the same conclusion that surveillance leads the individual to be disciplined by the supposed authority that watches over him, even if that authority is as illusory, invisible, or as symbolic as traffic lights. In his lectures in which he reviewed the history of isolation, especially during the time of the “Black Plague” that struck Europe in the mid-thirteenth century AD, Foucault describes how “quarantine” ghettos became places of ostracism and social abolition, and the plague itself turned from a dangerous epidemic into a tool in the hands of The authority, to re-establish its hegemony over society, and to impose its presence, which penetrated into people's homes and selves, watches them and takes their breath away. In the case of epidemics, such as the plague, the authority reconfigures its sphere of influence through the health and security measures it imposes, limiting the movement of people, and monopolizing the public space that allows it to monitor and control the society and individuals. The plague turns into a “political dream” of the force majeure, which always aspires to control individuals, because it allows it to penetrate into the smallest details of their lives. In Control and Punishment, Foucault says: “The plague-stricken city is the ideal that power dreams of expanding its dominance. And if the people of rights and the law dream of the natural and logical state of respect for the law, then the people of power dream of the coming of the plague epidemic to impose complete control over the people. The force majeure, as Foucault defines it, exploits people's fear, to penetrate into the smallest details of their lives. Today, this penetration has become more dangerous, because the monitoring of the stricken cities, which was carried out in ancient times by means of in-kind observation, and oral and written reports, is now carried out through remote monitoring, using electronic and digital technologies that have become part of our daily lives. The power that was based on coercion and cruelty in ancient societies also shifted; To a force based on censorship and control in our time, what will the new authority look like that will be produced by the crisis of the Corona epidemic and its consequences? Foucault's theory of control and oversight imposes itself on us today powerfully, because the state of panic that afflicted us all reinforced our strong sense of the need for the state, and for the control of power, even if that control affects our basic freedoms, such as movement or our sacred freedoms, such as the freedom to practice religious rites. In many authoritarian countries, governments have exploited the state of collective fear to disrupt laws and impose an exception that allows them to take measures that do not take into account people's freedom and dignity, under the pretext of preserving their health and preserving their lives. In democratic countries, voices have begun to rise, warning of the power’s hegemony and singling out decisions, taking advantage of the collective fear that some media exaggerate and exaggerate, and intimidate people from discussing it. There is a legitimate fear that some governments in authoritarian regimes will take advantage of the state of panic and panic caused by the Corona epidemic, to impose authoritarian practices for the purpose of control and monitoring, starting with restrictions on freedom of movement and moving to restricting freedom itself. We have seen how governments, even in democratic countries, have exploited the justification of terrorism to finish off liberties, and no one today knows how the mind of the authority thinks to exploit the exceptional measures dictated by the response to the epidemic; To impose more control and control on society and individuals in the future. What if we get used to living in the “state of exception” imposed on us by the fear of extinction? What if Big Brother became observing us in the smallest details of our lives, as was the case in George Orwell's "1984"?
By Ali Anouzla
The New Arab
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