“Remember, remember, the 5th of November.” Remember, remember, the 13th of November. 2015. Let’s pause for a moment here as I juxtaposed, just a day out of the attacks on Paris, the cultish quote from the 2006 film, V for Vendetta. Lest you think I make jest of the severity of the events happening at Paris, I am not. It’s a phrase I start with since I am writing in light of the attacks, and at any given time such an attack occurs, the intimate binds of society and humanness we incur and suffer comes in stark realization. In any other perspective V, the protagonist in the film, is a terrorist of the state. Bombing with classical music aplomb the very symbols of the state, the film ends in a difficult “double-bind” where he simultaneously kills, tortures, and fights for the liberty and social contract the state has seemingly failed to its people. At least, that’s the gist. We, as the audience, and in the foil of Natalie Portman’s character Evey, see V going to lengths to torture and murder in order to accomplish his cause. Where do we stand here? Do we don our Guy Fawkes mask and join the allegorical masses against the evil state or do we pause in hesitation on the lines V have crossed that should – in only his acts alone – deeply discomfort us. And in this “double-bind,” the Paris attacks will manifest, if history is to be leaned on, of strong speeches to the retribution of the injustice that have befallen Paris. You see, the definition of this kind of “double-bind” often leads us – “the people” – to two choices. One, is the retributive act and choice of violence. They will have hell to pay. Two, we make that choice lest we risk becoming a victim ourselves. And in it, we stand at the precipice, on the legacy of the terror apparatus at work that groups like the Islamic State desires. I am misappropriating the use of the term, but I think it is apt to understand the deeply disturbing process of necropolitics. As in, the “power of death to subjugate… …in order to control the population.” Shoot a local bar, bomb a weekend family football stadium, pepper bullets to the innocents of a fun good musical event, and where is a safe space for the people to go? I might be killed or I will demand my government, my nation-state to protect me at near whatever cost. This is our “double-bind” layered by an embodied deep uncertainty where we remain fearful of these invisible forces coming at us with malice and death. A consequence of such a bind is the American Patriot Act. For the French now, their emergency measures loosened to provide access to the invisible forces and strengthen the authority of the state in the safeguarding of their people. And, let us be clear. I am not criticizing the need to protect our safety and ourselves. The police are an example of this legitimized use of violence by the state and in lieu, us. I am simply highlighting the simple choice we have made in the legacies we passively and actively create in the backdrop of terror and it’s counterpart: trauma. So, why is this an entry in a health equity site? I only pause to write on this difficult bind we are placed on and the tendencies we often go to when we are placed in such a painful situation. We question and become often suspicious of the invisible forces that have remained in the background of our life-stories. Case in point: Did these terrorists sneak in with the Syrian refugees? or It’s the Muslims. It’s the backward religion of Islam! And, we have to be very careful here, as the witnesses of this terror apparatus, on what it is that moves us to make choices. We have to be careful because by this act of terror, the background has decided to intrude for a moment on our protagonist stories. I mentioned in an earlier post on the marginalization and invisibility of the elderly. Here is the same point, but from a slightly different angle. The Parisian attacks points to the mechanics of invisible tendrils of violence that have now come to the forefront. In contrast, in the case of our “ordinary life,” the misery of all else that surrounds us is and stays in the background. Our gaze is firmly on us, a first person view of the world in front of us. But pan your gaze towards the side, into the margins, and you will see the homeless, the sick, and the multiple manifestations of suffering. It’s a difficult gaze and one that also requires much guidance and understanding. It is also why, barring the arguments we can have on the ways to move forward and heal after attacks such as the one in Paris, we must try to re-direct our gazes towards the background. Not only in the terror and mechanism of hellish war, but in a society that shares agency and voice to those in the background. To those like the migrants who have fled the terror, to those who live with terror, and to those who may turn to terror. You see, the double-bind is false dichotomy. Of course, vigilance is necessary as a society, but the double-bind does not heal. We turn to either fear or to violence to perpetuate power over those we already have power over. We just have to turn our gaze. It’s a wider and broader ethics that can be asserted, an equitable stance that makes union to the shared setting of all stories. Pay attention to the background. For a good video on this gaze, try watching Nerdwriter1 on Youtube and his delicate analysis on another film: Children of Men. It's a film critique and I can go into medical humanities at another time with another work. Sang Ik is a 2nd year student at UL GEMs.
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CaesuraRotating views on various subjects concerning health (in)equity Health Equity NutSome streams of consciousness on the subjects of the tragic and the mundane. Archives
February 2021
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