The War on Victoria's Citizens

There has been a discernible change in Melbourne, and not for the better. As I smile at fellow customers in the super market, or greet neighbors as I walk down my street very few people greet or smile back. In fact, it would seem that most people have decided that it is too scary to even make eye contact lest THE COVID leaps from my body and into their eyeballs. Only a week ago, while careful to maintain their distance, strangers still smiled at each other and joked about the strange times that we had come to live through. So why the change?

Whether or not you agree with the recent measures taken by Daniel Andrews’ Government in Victoria, there are a few rhetorical strategies utilized by this government, and indeed, the mainstream media, to galvanize support for the return to lockdown, and which is successfully driving a wedge between citizens, neighbors and families. 

Take for example oft repeated phrase that our medical workers are “on the frontline”. What does it mean to insist that doctors, nurses, etc are at war on the frontline? On the one hand it is an effective way to express an appreciation for the fact that medical workers are sacrificing their own wellbeing for the good of the rest of us. But there is also a more insidious subtext to this language.

The frontline is traditionally a geographical territory, a place where soldiers travel to battle the enemy. And because in this instance the enemy is an invisible virus that inhabits our bodies, our bodies are newly perceived as a territory where politicians, doctors and their allies encounter and fight the enemy. 

But because we can’t see it - and because most of the infected are asymptomatic and otherwise healthy - we don’t know which bodies are infected. All bodies become suspicious, a potential harbor for the enemy. All bodies are the frontline. So when we pass a stranger on the street, or our mother recently returned from the chemist, we suspect that we may be too close to the frontline.

Never shy of mixing their metaphors, our nanny-state government increases our distrust of one-another by also borrowing from the authoritarian language of school teachers. They insist, against mounting scientific evidence to the contrary, that it is a few bad eggs not doing “the right thing”, and this is resulting in the uptick in cases. Those not doing the right thing are the reason why we must lock down once more. 

Dan Andrews is the teacher that gives the whole class detention because one kid spoke out of turn; he feeds distrust by turning family members and neighbors into snitches and nosey-parkers. Worse still, this language is breeding a climate of distrust not seen since the cold war.

And make no mistake, like all worm-tongued politicians, such language is intentionally divisive. The language of war - or of a reluctant disciplinarian - is strategy to “rally the troops” behind a “fearless leader” making “the tough decisions” - and to make traitors of those who would dare question authority - so that next time we vote, those that felt properly looked after and cared for by our benevolent leader will cast a vote in his favor. 

Times of crisis are traditionally times for political leaders with questionable morals and shaky popularity to galvanize support to secure their hold on power for one more round; think George W Bush post 9/11 and his subsequent war in Iraq where if you weren’t with us then you were against us. 

The price of this war is however, our bonds with our brothers, sisters, children, parents, friends, neighbors and countrymen. Despite what their Orwellian double speak would have you think, the Andrews government is not only hell bent on keeping you physically apart, they are also doing their best to atomise our communities at an emotional and spiritual level.