I Hope We Emerge from this Pandemic with More Empathy for Refugees
Our Covid-19 fears are valid. Imagine the fears of those who have to flee war, life-threatening bigotry, and certain death
The current global pandemonium surrounding Covid-19 has shown us how ‘stability’ itself, or at least what society has advertised as the twenty-first century iteration of stability, is actually a precarious concept. The paradox of ‘precarious stability’ is not news to anyone belonging to any marginalized group. In conspicuous ways, over decades and across several different platforms, marginalized folks have been forced to become used to everyday precarity, whilst resisting hostility.
Covid-19 has thrown us a curve ball that only a few weeks ago, no one would have guessed would lead to this outcome.
Currently across the world, supermarkets are empty-aisled because of panic. Toilet roll is being sold on eBay at five-times the supermarket price. Alcohol is selling out fast: whether for drinking our collective sorrows away or to be used as the main ingredient for homemade hand sanitizer, remains unclear. Fights are happening over groceries and other basics, and survival instinct is kicking in. Stockpiling is the order of the day.
It is dawning on us that this is very serious and everyday practicalities are going to change over the next couple of months. Many of us who haven’t lived through a time like this before are now, at the very least, slightly unsettled.
Some western leaders have only served to trump up more panic and confusion: there were reports about one planning to hoard a vaccine only for his country, whilst another got an honourable comparison, on CNN, to Shrek’s Lord Farquaad — so callous was his message that ‘many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time’.
Journalists are engaging in racist rhetoric by blaming it all on China and suggesting reparations for this global pandemic (note the declaration that reparations for the ‘sins of past generations’ is shot down, just in case BIPoC are tempted to make the obvious case about reparations for slavery, colonialism, and their lingering effects). Indeed, there has been a surge in racist assaults towards Asians amidst this pandemic, and accusatory rhetoric from these journalists will not help matters especially given the US president’s latest racist remarks around the virus.
Unintended ecological imperialism- in the context of White Europeans introducing infection into countries made up primarily of Black and Brown people - is also happening again. This is noteworthy because of the lingering colonial-era narratives of Africa as a ‘diseased continent’. More so in light of the fact that just a few weeks ago, the tone in which many media houses questioned the lack of Covid-19 on the African continent made it clear that western media is still very much invested in these narratives that lack nuance. Further, these media houses passed the subliminal message that they could not fathom why Africa and her people were not at the forefront of this global calamity. Yet still, there are reports that an African country (Somalia) has kindly extended visas for Europeans who simply cannot travel home at this time.
A number of celebrities have publicly announced that they’ve tested positive (and in some cases, already recovered) from Coronavirus. Empathy towards them is naturally accompanied by pointed remarks over inequity in healthcare access. We all want them to get better, whilst also wanting better systems and structures for ourselves.
We are in a global upheaval. Not a single one of us is totally unaffected.
I’m a UK-based postdoctoral researcher who was denied a visa by the UK Home Office in August 2019. I lost my job as a result, and my stable income. My case is ongoing, and I am now awaiting an appeal and an uncertain fate. I know what it is to struggle under hostile border laws and to have a refugee relative (my mother, who is stateless). My current thoughts include wondering how Covid-19 will affect my appeal process: what are the logistics of meeting in a court room at this time?
During this phase of my life, I have been doing everything I can to amplify other cases of immigration injustice that I encounter, being hyper aware of the attention I’ve been paid due to the various privileges I have. My belief is that all migrants are equal and that playing the role of ‘the good immigrant’ will never be enough to stop any BIPoC from being thrown under the bus for convenience.
This is because ‘migrants’, along with the concept of migration and its accompanying narratives, are highly racialized. This racialization dictates everything from who gets to be called an ‘expatriate’, as opposed to a ‘migrant’, to fractured solidarity between EU and non-EU migrants in the UK. One commonality across migrant communities is that we all deal with immigration precarity, to different extents. Of course our different privileges, in addition to levels of access to basic amenities and services, mean that even this very precarity is hierarchized whilst we all seek one over-arching goal: immigration stability.
Stability itself is a desire of humanity as a whole. Instability, whether naturally occurring or created — often for the purposes of subjugation, and accessing natural resources in specific geographical locations, is a force that has driven many peoples out of their lands and in search of places and spaces where they have a better chance of having everyday peace- or at the very least, a more manageable livelihood.
A fear of disease has driven us to our current global state. Imagine the fears of those who have to flee war, life-threatening bigotry, and certain death. Imagine the practicalities of their daily lives. Imagine that their fight for mere survival is often met with hostility.
My hope is that after we flatten the curve, adjust to the outcomes, and (hopefully) settle into a new normal, we don’t forget this unexpected global upheaval and its effects on our interiority and social behaviours. This global pandemic has topsy-turvied our lives in ways that mere weeks ago we wouldn’t have foreseen. We are all stockpiling in different ways, and waiting with bated breath for the coast to clear.
Our collective challenge should be to develop more empathy for those who have had to leave their countries due to far worse, and seek asylum. By extension, to do what we can to help. Perhaps an even bigger ask, but one I believe we are more than capable of, is to make a habit of independently developing empathy without any personal or social crisis having to set this into motion.
