COVID-19 has emphasized the colonial continuity of huge power imbalances between the Global South and Global North. Not surprisingly, Eurocentric discourses that are embedded in Epistemic Violence, reproducing western domination and subjugation of colonial subjects neglect the crucial interconnections between colonialism and global inequality in the time of COVID-19. The longstanding postcolonial power dynamics contribute to the continuity of social injustice and the colonial legacies on the idea of human hierarchy, which can currently be observed in the existing unequal access to and equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines for the Global South.This highlights the ongoing Necropower that has been discussed in relation to Achille Mbembe’s theory of sovereignty as Necropolitics.
Would you agree, there is a connection between unequal distribution of COVID-19 vaccines to the Global South and the colonial idea of human hierarchy: some human lives are worth less than others?
Thank you so much in advance for your critical thoughts!
The political calculation of life is a key part of our 'death world' (Mbembe); 'policing' the virus does also reinforce the governing necropolitics. Quantifying death is definitely not a value-free 'tool' of political decision-making; the stronger the authoritarian power structure, the stronger the necropolitics. Such a global health crisis adds fuel to the fire of 'deadly politics', in terms of centralizing errors.
Dear Mr Abay!
You raised an important topic. Please let me state that in practice there is no ideological value of human life when it comes to COVID-19 pandemic: in case Africa could not able to manage to control this virus, we will have 5th and 6th wave for certain in Europe:
1) Gwenzi, W. Dangerous liaisons? As the COVID-19 wave hits Africa with potential for novel transmission dynamics: a perspective. J Public Health (Berl.) (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-020-01467-w, Free access: Article Dangerous liaisons? As the COVID-19 wave hits Africa with po...
2) Nyadera, I.N., Wandwkha, B. & Agwanda, B. Not the Time to Take Chances! Why African Governments’ Response to COVID 19 Matters. Glob Soc Welf 8, 137–140 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40609-020-00183-3 Free access: Article Not the Time to Take Chances! Why African Governments’ Respo...
3) Stephanie J Salyer et al. (2021). The first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa: a cross-sectional study, THE LANCET, Volume 397, Issue 10281, April 2021, Free access: Article Articles The first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic...
4) Smriti Mallapaty (2021). How a worrisome coronavirus variant spread unnoticed - A new variant stealthily took hold on two continents, highlighting the need for global genomic surveillance. Nature News, 13 May, 2021, Free access: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01285-4
Yours sincerely, Bulcsu Szekely
Go through this paper
https://www.thecitizen.in//index.php/en/newsdetail/index/6/18541/the-necropolitics-of-covid19
Dear all, thank you so much for all your critical thoughts on this topic, this is very helpful. Have a nice week!
Dear colleaque: My openion about necrpolitis og Covid_19 is respect all necropolitica undepinning of racisl and class _based heslth disparitied and vulnerabilities in current Covif_19 pandemic.Thanks
Ref.www.taudfonline.com>full.
Good morning
It is a very good question. For me, CV19 is = Agenda Mundial Everything is a lay, It is sad but it is true, South america is deed no for CV19 a long time ago
Best regards
Ph. D. Ingrid del Valle García Carreño
The Covid-19 lockdown in Nepal & India and the events that followed @can be understood through necropolitics or thanatopolitics when crores of the population in both countries who did the low skill jobs and migrant labourers were left in a lurch where their very survival is put at risk.
On the other scale of things we see how noopolitics plays out when the Indian Prime minister asks the Indian citizens to come out to their balconies and clap in support of the front line workers against Covid 19, and millions of Indians in cities after cities were seen acting out in unison. The Prime minister was overwhelmed with emotion and so were the citizens. Unless all Indian citizens are netizens which is far from true with 20/25 percent of the population may be having access to the internet but what we are certain is that millions of Indians are followers of the Indian Prime minister Modi. “Noopolitics is the way that sovereignty incorporates epistemological trajectories into build space in order to guide thinking and participation, where participation is a guided tour through extended cognition in which sign posts or fields of signifiers of commodity culture are imbedded where they produce or interpolate communities through a process of calling out to” [33]. “An immature State with underdeveloped technology is less dangerous than an immature State with advanced technology” [36] seems to be a relevant statement when we see the draconian ways governments shutting down access to technology in times of crisis generated by calls to freedom by certain populations.
The ways decisions are taken by the sovereign in today’s context can be understood through archipolitics where decision to put entire nations in lockdown was done by the centre without any consultation with other state bodies. In both Nepal and India swift decisions were taken by the centre which sees the disavowal of opinions at other levels below the centre shows Plato’s concept of archipolitics where ‘achieving the common good by an enlightened government of elites maintained by the confidence of the masses’.
Recent world events also show what we identified as infrapolitics in the above section. Infrapolitics viewed as ‘weapons of the weak’ and is displayed in ‘everyday forms of resistance’ could be seen in waves of migrant labours taking to the streets after the announcement of lockdown, where the governments of both Nepal and India instructed their respective citizens to stay put where they were and not venture out of their homes. The daily wage labourers, workers employed in low skilled jobs, factory workers, construction workers who number in millions were left in a situation where they risked their very existence if the government orders are followed. The ‘hand to mouth’ way of existence of the labouring masses with very little or no savings and with their means of livelihood stopped they had very few options left in the cities they worked in. The city to village exodus began both in Nepal and India. Millions of Nepalese work in India and on wanting to return to their homes was left stranded in various borders since the government of Nepal sealed the borders. The infrapolitics is seen when hordes of working class population in thousands thronged the road in an attempt to go back to their homes many hundreds of miles away. Migrant Nepalese workers stuck in the borders even resorted to swimming across a river to enter Nepal.
Dear Avaniendra, thank you so much for your very critical and insightful thoughts. Let's hope, that those in positions of power and privilege will use the global pandemic as a chance to recognize the global system of oppression and exploitation, instead of reproducing necropower in the capitalist geopolitics.