The western world is facing one of the biggest health crises in a generation since the COVID-19 spread rapidly in Europe and the US from Wuhan in China. The speed of transmission of the infection, the immediate and threatening consequences on human wellbeing and implications it is bringing to the economy as well as social life have brought to the attention of commentators, researchers and the public the role of the state in society. This is partly due to the fact that the virus seems to have struck with an unprecedented force the ‘white’, ‘civilized’ and developed world in terms of the political system, knowledge, wealth and technology it possesses, where life is conceived as an absolute privilege.
In unprecedented move since the end of World War II, fashion catwalks and ringing cathedrals in Milan and Rome were closed, museums, subways and buzzing parks in Berlin, Paris, London and New York were locked in a trembling uncertainty about the future. The world plunged into lockdown and is observing how the concepts of almost a century on man’s relationship with nature, with himself and governmentality are crumbling under its feet.
The spread of the virus and our inability to predict and respond has shown, as the German sociologist Ulrich Beck has put it, “the idea that we are the masters of the universe has completely collapsed”. The division between nature and man as well as their hierarchical relationship seems to be over if not altered. Moreover, social distancing, self-isolation, closing borders and declaring the state of emergency are seriously challenging our relationship with freedom and morality.
According to the Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek, a disciple of the free society, freedom can accept the fact that we are not free to do specific things, but it cannot exist if individuals need permission to do most of the things convenient for them to achieve their goals.
At a time when the COVID-19 epidemic can collapse the healthcare system and thus further endanger vulnerable people such as those chronically ill, the elderly or homeless, our freedom to go out to buy bread, read at home or organise a small party, while we can do voluntary work in the community becomes the object of ethical and moral judgment by society.
In such circumstances, policymakers everywhere are facing the emerging dilemmas; how to address the coronavirus epidemic, how to achieve an optimal balance between saving as many lives as possible, upholding economic stability and protecting individual freedoms and civil rights.
In the verge of a humanitarian and economic catastrophe most of the Western countries have returned to the biopolitical concept ‘control and command’ of the prominent French philosopher Michel Foucault, thus abandoning the neoliberal policies of the last three decades which hailed small state and individual responsibility.
COVID-19 outbreak has shown so far that man as a subject of the government is problematized in crisis management situation, is seen as irresponsible, irrational and as dangerous to himself and other citizens. Therefore, his life should be administered from ‘above’ by an authority with ratio (reason) – the state, which according to Foucault secures, protects, and multiplies life by establishing order.
This approach to the crisis has sparked philosophical and practical discussions not only on its effectiveness in halting the spread of COVID-19 but also on the long-term consequences it may inflict on democracy, which in Jacques Derrida’s words is a non-ending process.
Thus, while the COVID-19 outbreak will pass, like any other plague that has hit the world, there are growing concerns that the draconian emergency measures will become the norm in a context in which society is more inclined to trade freedom for security.
The COVID-19 crisis is becoming a fertile ground where autocrats can sow the seeds of despotism in order to harvest its fruits later on as a reward for the victory of ‘war’. While consolidated democracies possess all constitutional, political, and civil mechanisms to return to the status-quo-ante in the political sense, countries with anti-democratic tendencies such as Albania are in real danger of eventually deepening authoritarianism.
The disproportionality of measures taken by Albanian government since the COVID-19 outbreak hit the country is the beginning of this planting campaign, and our socio-political context makes this more dangerous as far as democracy is concerned.
First, as a result of a missing civic tradition, foreseeable economic hardships and fear from the unknown, the vast majority of citizens are remaining silent in the face of the daily aggression Prime Minister Edi Rama is exerting through the issuance of normative acts which restrict fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens.
Second, the risk of cementing an authoritarian regime becomes even higher in the context of complete absence of any balance and constitutional control of the executive who currently exercises power without any restrictions from parliament or the constitutional court which remains dysfunctional due to the vetting process. The daily ‘bread’ distributed by the government in forms of subsidies can buy the complicity of citizens and the media while power is abused.
Third, despite the complexity of its mission’s track record, the international community has been the last safety net of the Albanian semi-democracy during these three decades. It is likely that in the coming years the international community will be more involved in the long-term battle with the multidimensional consequences the COVID-19 crisis will leave behind. This would bring down the last control mechanism on the concentration of power endeavour led by the Prime Minster.
Therefore, beyond the urgent need to save the ‘bio’ (life), the Albanian society must seriously be concerned about the ‘political’ (democracy). Otherwise our being of being will merely become ‘life in the zoo’.
