We are (almost) done. Maybe. And we are here to tell our point of view… without taking into account the deaths, the infected, the people without home or job, or both, the deep discomfort for a lost freedom, fear, uncertainty of the present and the future… we are “fine”. Even if this “emergency” seemed to regard only Italy in the “Western world”, we had the record of deaths. Actually all the world was involved since the beginning. It was just a matter of time. All the countries that lost time now have reached their “records”…
Nouri Bouzid, facing any taboo in the Arab world
“In our tradition there is a strange reversal of roles, where the rapist is proud and the victim must be ashamed”. I remember once, when I returned to my city in Sfax, I met my brother and other friends and acquaintances playing cards in a bar. I joined them, and I recognized someone who had been a rapist when we were younger, even though he was a few years older than me. Well, at a certain point he said to me, and repeated it several times, without anyone reacting in any way: “if I had raped you as a young man, you would not have had the courage to open your mouth now”…
The role of fear in society
At a social level, fear is a tool of political and religious control. It’s used to build a society which may respond to our concerns about safety and security, guaranteeing a community life. In a present-oriented society, fear prevents from the lost of significance of the daily routine, creating consensus and legitimacy, keeping an unstable order just to avoid to consider new social forms…
Keep calm and… the present is not that bad
Don’t you feel, sometimes, to live in a completely different reality confronted with the world you see portrayed on TV, surfing the internet, flipping through newspapers…?