Heroes Not Zombies

Last year I photographed this doorway in Salamanca. What caught my attention were the eyes. I mean, they are so big, how could they not catch my attention? I came across this photo again yesterday and it’s actually one of two. The first one is a close up of the eyes, but it was only when I looked at this second one that I noticed the large circular painting at the top of the door. I’m pretty sure that when I was there I’d have thought it was a close up of an eye….the pupil….so, just another eye on the door. But today, in the light of this pandemic, it looks just like a “corona”! Check out this photo I took earlier this year of a corona around the sun –

Do you see what I mean?

How weird is that? Now, even when I saw that corona around the sun a few months back I thought it was strangely appropriate. I don’t think I’d ever seen this exact phenomenon before – these concentric rings around the sun which made it look a bit like a giant pupil. It was so new to me that I looked it up and discovered it is called a “corona”.

A corona! During the “coronavirus pandemic”!

Well, when I return to the Spanish photo I now see the painted door and gate as covered with images of eyes, and dominated by a closeup of an eye at the top, a close up which transforms that eye into a corona.

How could that not stimulate my thoughts about the virus, the pandemic and the massive increase in “bio-surveillance”. We are in lockdown number two here in France and I need to produce a paper every time I leave the house. France, like many countries, has an app, which will inform you if you’ve been near someone who has tested positive. France, like many countries, is running as fast as it can towards mass testing, apparently hoping to test most of the population frequently. Already there are ideas that you’d need to certify your recent negative test to be allowed to visit an elderly relative in a care home. You might have to certify a negative test to be allowed to board a flight. They are already well down the road to mass testing of pupils and teachers regularly to exclude and isolate those who are positive. In England they are proposing testing students at university before “allowing” them to go back to their families for Christmas. In many countries, although, strangely, not yet here in France, customers entering bars, restaurants or even certain shops, are required to register their presence, recording their location and time of visit via a QR code. You can already hear voices suggesting that vaccination certificates might be required to allow a person to use public transport, enter public buildings, go back to work, or to travel.

We have slipped so easily into mass surveillance.

I understand all of it. I can see the logic. I can even see the sense of it. But there’s still something a bit spooky at having these eyes all over the place, watching over us, checking we are complying with the decrees and the rules.

Is this the price of freedom? Surveillance.

Is the alternative option, “confinement” as they say here in France, or “lockdown” in English speaking countries. Less freedom and coupled with more surveillance?

Have we reached a turning point? Is this part of the “new normal” that people talk about?

Honestly, I don’t have the answers. But I think it’s important to know who is doing the surveilling, and that everything they do is as transparent as possible to allow us all to hold them accountable and responsible. And that side of things isn’t going terribly well so far in many countries is it? Centralised power, autocratic power, cronyism and secrecy, hidden contracts allowing rich companies and individuals to get even richer…..that’s not the kind of system which will allow the average person to accept mass surveillance – even when it is done for the best of intentions.

So, can I make a plea here, raise my voice, throw my hat in the ring…..the “new normal” is going to have to be different by becoming more democratic, more open, and with more de-centralised authority. We need to tackle inequalities of all kinds – economic, social, educational, racial, gender etc – and shift the balance away from greater and greater concentration of wealth and power in the hands of less and less people. We need to open society up and be able to hold to account those who are elected, or delegated, to take decisions for the rest of us. We need to limit the time any single person can hold such powers. And, finally, I think we need to shift from the failing “representative democracy” which currently dominates, to a healthier, fully functioning “participative democracy” where we can all be involved.

Maybe we actually need more surveillance – the surveillance of those who hoard wealth and power.