Reflections on Biopolitics in Pandemic World Situation
Uttam Poudel
At the time of the outbreak of Covid-19, the entire world is grappling with it. The normal life and mobility of people has been fixed within the limit of home quarantines or the State-sponsored quarantines for Corona victims. The countries are taking recourse to coercion, surveillance and monitoring measures and technologies to mitigate the effects of virus so strictly that the biopolitical intervention of the States has just come to the fore. We cannot deny completely that even in post-pandemic situation, biopolitical interventions of different kinds are likely to be seen.
Simply speaking, biopolitics is a system of persistent surveillance and discipline by which the government strives and aspires to control the physical existence of citizens. It also relates to how politics and government policy influence the biological aspects of people’s lives. Drawing on from Michel Foucault, a French philosopher, historian and political theorist, biopolitics can also be discussed with reference to how the biological features of human beings are measured, observed, and understood through the execution of different forms of State mechanisms. The theory of biopolitics which evolved from the ideas of Michel Foucault has been advanced by Giorgio Agamben, an Italian political thinker and philosopher in his most celebrated books, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life and The Remnants of Auschwitz, in which he claims that biopower and Sovereignty are essentially integrated and that the production of a biopolitical body is the target of sovereign power\ the modern States. Some so–called modern States have even gone to the extent of reducing population into muselmann\ bare life— a limit condition of human life, which through exposure to starvation, hopelessness and deprivation experience a fundamental loss of will and consciousness to live . Agamben uses the term muselmann to refer to the captives\ prisoners of World War II Nazi concentration camps, who were on the verge of death from starvation, exhaustion and despair. A person who has reached the muselmann stage has utter disenchantment towards life.
Following the outbreak of Covid-19, the most serious thing is that most of the migrant workers have been terminated from the job or granted unpaid leave caused by lockdown in almost all countries across the globe.
Due to the outbreak of Covid-19 in the present situation, there is a persistent fear of the reduction of citizens into something “expendable’ or “undesirable” by the States. It is because tens and thousands of people are in the State-sponsored quarantines and the same number of people is beyond their national territories desperately waiting to go to their respective countries. Following the outbreak of Covid-19, the most serious thing is that most of the migrant workers have been terminated from the job or granted unpaid leave caused by lockdown in almost all countries across the globe. The population itself has been the burden to Sovereignties/ States now, which otherwise is a must to function the modern States.
Owing to Corona-crisis, the Australian Prime Minister, Scott John Morrison has recently asked international students, who are in financial difficulty, to leave the country. There are hosts of other countries, which are thinking of sending the international students or migrant workers to go back to their home country. In this situation, States have enacted repressive policies against immigrants and refugees, political movements that organize the unemployed, non-conformists of all sorts, displaced and homeless people and many other social groups. These people cannot be incorporated into the capitalist system of globalized production and consumption at this point of time. They are regarded as undesirables or misfits by sovereign power. In this sense, there is a risk of those people being treated as Agambean’s homo sacers having lived a shaded life lacking power and agency either to be excluded from the political sphere or included as mere objects of the functioning of the nation.
Now, the coronavirus outbreak and the geopolitical consequences around the world that arose from it have brought the direct relationship between biological life and political interventions to its conclusion. These days, we are in a situation wherein politics is suspended, societies are under lockdown, parliaments are closed and states of emergency are declared by the States. And the biological aspects of our life are under the control of the State mechanisms. The persistent penetration of the States to the everyday life of the people has contributed to the possibility of the exploitation of physical existence of citizens.
This is the most disturbing time when each and every State mechanism is concentrating into Corona Pandemic consequently; state of exception has just come out. According to Agamben, state of exception is a situation, in which the juridical order is actually suspended due to an emergency or a serious crisis threatening the States. In such a situation, the sovereign/ the executive power prevails over the others and the basic laws and norms can be violated by the States itself while facing the crisis. In this sense, the contemporary political life seems to be hiding behind the civilized mask of liberal democracy/ freedom.
At present, almost all governments of the world have established quarantine zones/camps and such zones/camps are in the premises of schools, universities, sports hall, and the government offices or in open camps, and other public places aside from the hospitals. These are the sites (which are common during the crisis/ pandemic) where Corona-affected people are staying. Such camps are liminal spaces full of uncertainties. They are precisely a juridical no-man’s land and a place where every form of violence and human rights abuse become possible. It is a space where the distinction between law and no-law is blurred. Because of “state of exception”, it becomes difficult to distinguish what is legal and what is not. In this sense, the quarantine zones can be very lethal and uncertain ones, where the victims can be regarded as abject objects to be disposed off.
There is constant and continuous fear in the critically-driven minds, of totalitarian surveillance even after the post-pandemic situation. Under the pretext of “health,” even “survival,” or as per the advice of the medical personnel, the States may govern the population as biomass rather than agency having free will. Israeli author, historian and Professor, Yuval Noah Harari, in his recent interview at CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) news has also forwarded his views about the possibility of the control of population by the States by executing different mechanisms under diverse pretensions in the post-pandemic time.
Similarly, looking at the opinions of the high profiled political leaders in different countries be it America, Australia, European countries or Gulf countries regarding the international students and even immigrants, it can be safely said that after the normalcy of the Corona-crisis, their plight will be as that of muselmann / bare life/ homo sacer, a specific form of life which lacks the strong affirmation to life as conceptualized by Agamben. By taking Corona virus as a threat to global public health and economic security, most of the countries are likely to restrict the political life and freedom of people in the days to come.
Aside from that, post-pandemic time can be under the control of technologies (online works, online business, etc.) which will suspend our political life and freedom reducing us into mere biomass. The definition of man as the living animal who has language and free agency will be reduced in to the definition of bare life under the biopolitical capture of the States.
We have also seen the growing prejudice, negative attitudes and abuse directed at people suffering from Corona virus. Such stigma\ discrimination also makes people vulnerable leading them to the position of bare life. This kind of treatment must be discouraged in no time because even in post-pandemic time, there is a risk of previously victimized people from Corona virus being excommunicated by the members of their community.
Needless to say, the coronavirus and host of other diseases will probably continue to bother the humanity in the coming years and at the same time, there will be a constant fear of biopolitcal capture of human life. The critical and creative minds like Harari, Foucault and Agamben will need to express their voice so as to mitigate the possible biopolitical practices and policies of the States during the epidemic/ pandemic or any other horrendous and traumatic situations.
*The writer is an Assistant Professor at Nepal Sanskrit University, Balmeeki Campus, Kathmandu, Nepal
