This is an interesting weekend that’s coming up in the south of Ireland. With the Covid-19 related death count at 235 and the prospect of a warm or even sunny Easter weekend, it’s going to be tough for people in the south to maintain self-isolation – as it will be for all of us. There comes a point where you ache to get out and talk to people, mingle with them, return to life.
The gardaí have been told to see that no such gatherings occur. There’ll be more than fifty checkpoints throughout the state, and while the gardaí have been told to exert a ‘light touch’ form of policing, they will have the power to issue fines and even imprisonment if people insist on acting against health warnings. And what would we call those who insist on doing what they please in terms of social meet-ups? Bastards. Selfish pigs. A danger to the public. More power to you, Drew.
All of the above will pretty well apply in the north also.
When we get out of this – if ever – there are all sorts of expectations that life will never be the same again. Having explored ways to maintain education, continue work and socialize on-line, it’s expected that there’ll be at least some pick-up of these new strategies for education and work. We’ve been taught a hard lesson about the importance of a health system and alternative ways of working and socialising. Almost certainly those thing will be developed further post-virus.
But let me remind you of how things are now. We are all under house arrest. We are warned if we go out, we’re to call greeting and engage in conversation only from a distance of two metres. If we don’t follow these rules, we’ll be penalized, sometimes severely. Having once built this radical control over our movements and communication, it could well be that our governments might be reluctant not to maintain or develop something similar when the coronavirus has finally been controlled. Add to that the fact that we’re going to be up the creek economically, with many people still on the dole, and the public appetite for a strong man or woman to take the law into their own hands and make us, if not great, at least secure once again will be considerable. History has shown (most obviously in Germany and Italy between WW1 and WW2) that a people who have been shattered turn greedily to someone who says “Let me run this. It’ll all be for your own good.”
Stranger things have happened. The vast majority of us will be obedient this weekend and observe restrictions, and we’ll curse those who flout them. Couldn’t a budding dictator muster similar public support and tell us that it’s all necessary if we’re to clamber out of the economic bog?
Once tasted, political power is a brew that’s hard to resist, especially at the coming time of economic hardship. You have been warned.
Comments are closed.