We all live in "Oran" now........

We all live in "Oran" now as the pandemic comes... The borders begin to close as the plague comes. We see the borders shut between Austria and Italy. But where is it carried and how? Is it carried in our heads and hearts, or at the biochemical or microbial level? The cruise ships carrying right-wing gammon traverse the world as a pandemic nears. Has the world become Camus' Oran? I wonder then where a new theodicy will come from ? A woman raves on Question Time with bare-faced racism, unaware that her vile emotion lacks any basis in facts.

The plague is a metaphor and a metonymy for our times. It's closing the borders for us and it forms a fog in the channel. Europe is closing off to both the UK and to its respective states. The boring and bland voice of Keir Starmer sounds in my ears from Radio 4 as Lisa Nandy celebrates the uninformed reactionary attitudes as virtues to be listened to and celebrated. The plague kills our critical thinking and makes us believe that opinion without facts is valid. Ignorance carried in the blood becomes a source of confidence in the psyche. The defence of right-wing nut jobs with swivel eyes become a model to be aimed for. Hate speech becomes free speech as white straight men cannot see racism, homophobia and sexism as real and defend it as banter. The minds close as the bacillus spreads in multiple ways. Farage, Trump, and others are the epidemiological agents that spray us with it...
Those of who live in this worldwide Oran must choose how we resist. There will be many who collaborate with the plague, and there will be those who are carried off by it and those who resist and turn back. The choice is yours, and be it coronavirus or conservatism the vulnerable are always its victims. Will you collaborate, or resist? The choice is yours..