Opinion / The coronavirus and the forgotten
South of quarantine
By Boaventura de Sousa Santos: Any quarantine is always discriminatory, it is always more difficult for some social groups than for others. It is impossible, for example, for a large group of caregivers, whose mission is to make quarantine possible for the entire population. In this text, however, I want to draw attention to other groups for which quarantine is particularly difficult. They are the groups that have in common a special vulnerability that precedes and worsens with quarantine. Those groups make up what I call the South. In my conception, the South does not designate a geographical space. It designates a political, social and cultural space-time. It is the metaphor for unfair human suffering caused by capitalist exploitation, racial discrimination and sexual discrimination. I propose to analyze quarantine from the perspective of those who have suffered the most due to these forms of domination. Together, these social collectives make up the majority of the world population. I select a few.
Women\
Quarantine will be particularly difficult for women, and in some cases it can even be dangerous. Women are considered “the caregivers of the world”, they predominate in the field of care provision inside and outside families. They predominate in professions such as nursing or social assistance, in the first line of battle in the provision of care for the sick and elderly within and outside institutions. They cannot defend themselves in quarantine to guarantee the quarantine of others. They are also the ones who continue to be in charge, exclusively or mainly, of caring for families. Quarantined, one might imagine that with more arms available at home, tasks could be more distributed. I suspect that this will not be the case in the face of the prevailing machismo and perhaps it will be reinforced in times of crisis and family confinement. With children and other family members at home around the clock, the stress will be greater and will undoubtedly fall more on women. The increase in the number of divorces in some Chinese cities during quarantine may be an indicator of what I have just said.On the other hand, it is well known that violence against women tends to increase in times of war and crisis (and has has been increasing now). A good part of this violence occurs in the domestic space. The confinement of families in small, dead-end spaces can offer more opportunities for the exercise of violence against women. Based on information from the Interior Ministry, the French newspaper Le Figaro reported on March 26 that marital violence had increased by 36 percent the previous week in Paris. South African Police Minister Bheki Cele reported on April 2 that 87 thousand complaints of gender-based violence were registered in the first week of quarantine.
Precarious and informal workers
After forty years of attacks on workers' rights worldwide by neoliberal policies, this group of workers is globally predominant, although the differences from one country to another are very significant. What does quarantine mean for these workers, who tend to be the fastest fired whenever there is an economic crisis? The service sector, where they abound, will be one of the areas most affected by the quarantine. On March 23, India declared quarantine for three weeks, affecting 1.3 billion inhabitants. Taking into account that in India between 65 and 70 percent of workers belong to the informal economy, it is estimated that 300 million Indians will be without income. In Latin America, about 50 percent of workers are employed in the informal sector. In Africa, for example in Kenya or Mozambique, due to the structural adjustment programs of the 1980-90s, the majority of workers are informal. The WHO's recommendation to work at home and in isolation is impractical, as it forces workers to choose between earning their daily bread or staying home and starving. The WHO recommendations appear to have been designed with a middle class that is a very small fraction of the world's population in mind. What does quarantine mean for workers who earn day by day to live day by day? Will they risk disobeying quarantine to feed their family? How will you resolve the conflict between the duty to feed the family and the duty to protect your life and hers? Dying of viruses or starving, that's the option.
Street workers
Street workers are a specific group of precarious workers. The street vendors, for whom the "business", that is, subsistence, depends exclusively on the street, on who transits it and on the decision, always unpredictable for the seller, to stop and buy something. Vendors have long lived in quarantine, on the street, but on the street with people. The impediment to work for those who sell in the informal markets of big cities means that potentially millions of people will not even have the money to go to health facilities if they get sick or to buy disinfectant and hand soap. Those who are hungry cannot afford to buy soap and water at prices that are beginning to bear the brunt of speculation. In other contexts, the uberizados of the informal economy that deliver food and home orders guarantee the quarantine of many, but that is why they cannot protect themselves with it. Your "business" will increase as much as your risk.
Homeless
What will quarantine be like for those who are homeless? Homeless people, who spend the nights on viaducts, abandoned metro or train stations, stormwater tunnels or sewer tunnels in so many cities around the world. In the United States they are called tunnel people. What will the quarantine in the tunnels be like? Have they not been quarantined their entire lives? Will they feel freer than those who are now forced to live at home? Will quarantine see a form of social justice?
Villagers and favelas
According to UN Habitat data, 1.6 billion people do not have adequate housing and 25 percent of the world population lives in informal neighborhoods without infrastructure or basic sanitation, without access to public services, with a shortage of water and electricity. They live in small spaces where large families gather. In short, they live in the city without the right to the city, since, living in urbanized spaces, they do not have access to the urban conditions presupposed by the right to the city. Since many inhabitants are informal workers, they face quarantine with the same difficulties mentioned above. But also, given the housing conditions, will they be able to comply with the prevention standards recommended by the WHO? Will they be able to maintain interpersonal distance in small living spaces where privacy is almost impossible? Will they be able to wash their hands frequently when the little water available should be kept for drinking and cooking? Doesn't confinement in such a small house have other health risks as or more dramatic than those caused by the virus? Many of these neighborhoods are now heavily guarded and sometimes besieged by military forces under the guise of fighting crime. Isn't it, after all, the toughest quarantine for these populations? Will the young people in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, who the police have always prevented them from going to Copacabana beach on Sunday to avoid disturbing tourists, not feel that they are already in quarantine? What is the difference between the new quarantine and the original one that has always been their way of life? In Mathare, one of the Nairobi suburbs, Kenya, 68,941 people live on one square kilometer. As in many similar contexts in the world, families share a room that is also a kitchen, bedroom and living room. How can they be asked for self-isolation? Is self-isolation possible in a context of permanent hetero-isolation imposed by the State?
It should be noted that for the inhabitants of the poor peripheries of the world, the current health emergency joins many other emergencies. According to the companions of La Garganta Poderosa, one of the most notable social movements in the popular neighborhoods of Latin America, in addition to the health emergency caused by the pandemic, the inhabitants face several other emergencies. This is the case of the health emergency resulting from other unresolved epidemics and the lack of medical attention. This year, 1833 dengue cases have already been registered in Buenos Aires. Only in Villa 21, one of the poor neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, there were 214 cases. "By coincidence," 70 percent of the population in Villa 21 does not have running water. This is also the case of the food emergency, because there is hunger in the neighborhoods and the community ways of overcoming it (soup kitchens, snacks) collapse before the dramatic increase in demand. If schools close, the school food that guarantees the survival of children ends. Finally, it is the case of the emergence of domestic violence, which is particularly serious in neighborhoods, and the permanent emergency due to police violence and the stigmatization that it entails.
The elderly
This group, which is particularly large in the global North, is generally one of the most vulnerable groups, but the vulnerability is not indiscriminate. In fact, the pandemic requires us to be more precise about the concepts we use. After all, who is an elder? According to La Garganta Poderosa, the difference in life expectancy between two neighborhoods in Buenos Aires (the poor neighborhood of Zavaleta and the exclusive neighborhood of Recoleta) is about twenty years. It is no coincidence that community leaders are considered "middle-aged" by the community itself and "young leaders" by society at large.
The prevailing living conditions in the global North have led a large part of the elderly to be deposited (the word is hard, but it is what it is) in homes, rest homes, asylums. Depending on your own or family possessions, these accommodations can range from luxury jewelry safes to human waste dumps. In normal times, the elderly began to live in these accommodations as spaces that guaranteed their safety. In principle, the quarantine caused by the pandemic should not greatly affect their lives, since they are already in permanent quarantine. What will happen when, due to the spread of the virus, this security zone becomes a high risk zone, as is happening in Portugal and Spain? Would they be safer if they could return to the houses where they lived their entire lives, in the unlikely event that they still exist? Will family members who left them in nursing homes for their own convenience not feel remorse for subjecting their elders to a risk that can be fatal? And won't the elderly living in isolation now be at greater risk of dying without anyone noticing? At least, the elderly living in the world's poorest neighborhoods may die of the pandemic, but they will not die without anyone realizing it.
It should also be added that, especially in the global South, past epidemics have meant that the elderly have to prolong their working lives. For example, the AIDS epidemic has killed and continues to kill young parents, leaving grandparents with the responsibility of the home. If grandparents die, children are at very high risk of malnutrition, hunger, and ultimately death.
Interned in refugee camps
According to UN figures, there are 70 million people in these conditions, including immigrants, undocumented and internally displaced persons. They are populations that, for the most part, live in permanent quarantine, and for which the new quarantine means little as a rule of confinement. But the dangers they face if the virus spreads among them will be fatal and even more dramatic than those faced by populations in the poor peripheries. For example, in South Sudan, where more than 1.6 million people are internally displaced, it takes hours, if not days, to reach health centers, and the leading cause of death is often preventable, caused by disease who already have remedies: malaria and diarrhea. In the case of the refugee camps at the gates of Europe and the United States, the quarantine caused by the virus imposes the ethical humanitarian duty to open the doors of these internment camps whenever it is not possible to create the minimum conditions for them. habitability and safety required by the pandemic.
The disabled
They have been victims of another form of domination, in addition to capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy: capacitism. It is about how society discriminates against them, does not recognize their special needs, does not facilitate their access to mobility or the conditions that would allow them to enjoy society like any other person. Somehow, the limitations that society imposes on them make them feel like they are living in permanent quarantine. How will they live the new quarantine, especially when they depend on who has to break the quarantine to give them some help? Since they have long become accustomed to living in certain confinement conditions, will they now feel freer than or "equal" to the "non-disabled"? Will they sadly see any social justice in the new quarantine?
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