Advance Australia. It’s Only Fair.
Australians all let us rejoice, for we are young and free. Except for the fact we’re old and not allowed to leave our homes. Our latest confinement in Victoria is beset with familiar conditions, but our collective psyche is undoubtedly more tattered in the wake of how the context has evolved. One in which our patience and trust has been tried and shaken, as we attempt to make sense of a situation that provides more data, clearer analysis, and a resultant unease when using those sense making tools to compare our lot with other nations. It’s no longer a mystery to our friends around the world that our harsh fortress policy has had its positive effects, but it’s equally apparent that its persistence has made us a laggard in attempts to reboot the global economy. It’s far from satisfactory to site economic concerns as paramount when we see staying open has exposed and expended many lives around the world, but Australia’s stubbornness has become more like a bug than a feature in the lives of many it’s affecting. This includes the lives of those Australians stuck overseas, for whom their emotional and financial stress risks being compounded by the officially sanctioned scorn directed at returning travellers.
Most Australians have a fair degree of compassion for the plight of these people, but the issue is softened and pressure eased on the government when the scope of the personal turmoil is not something that’s hammered home in the media. In the place of more compassionate considerations, the nation’s blanket policy has helped to amplify the fear of the virus, and thus our condemnation of people who make small infractions. Understandably, a small mistake can cause a big outbreak, but also offers insight into the difficulty of keeping things in perspective. Initially, this strict compliance policy helped foster the attitude that we’re all this fight together and we continued to swell with pride when comparing our low numbers against other countries. We became biased towards confirming that sense of unity, yet it could be justifiably argued that it’s at the expense of engendering false pride in certain facts that no longer (or never) warranted the sentiment; we’re quick to praise the effectiveness of social distancing when already we’re in a massive country populated by a measly 25 million; we beat the drum for keeping the elderly safe, which while obviously commendable, is done while forgetting the media panders to a hell of a lot of boomers who don’t share the existential anxiety and financial concerns of younger generations; we echo the chants that doing our bit means that everyone can be safe so we can feel comforted by a civic duty upheld, while conveniently denying that bravado can’t shield us from the psychological impact of a society that’s insulated itself from the outside world. We’re seemingly “all in this together” at the cost of “tearing us apart.”
It’s hard to know how many people are out there lending a hand to their neighbours in need, but enough is known to realise that many people bind closely to the mainstream narratives until such time as those narratives become impossible not to question. The boundary that separates trust and optimism vs suspicion and cynicism seems to depend largely on the extent to which one is or isn’t benefitting — or likely to benefit — from the status quo stories that dominate our attention. Surely there are some political power games that will always be obscured and put up with, and no amount of transparent corruption that will dissuade the most ardent supporter not to raise an eyebrow to his or her most charismatic political figure, but just beyond the line of what’s tolerable in the discourse purporting to report our reality lies a growing number of people clambering to keep their sanity. There’s a growing number of people that are growing angry, hurt, apathetic, or oscillating between those and other unpleasant emotions, but who increasingly will come to agree that the same questions need to be answered. Our rights are confined to what the law of the land dictates, and so if those governing the laws tell us the only way out of this mess is to take a vaccine, (regardless of whether or not you want to take one) we don’t need to share anything in terms of preferences to expect steadfast action on their behalf. People are all in it together in the sense they’ve had it up to their necks with headlines, breaking news, and press conferences that lend the pungent aroma of smugness, deflection, and plausible deniability to justify further impositions on daily life. It’s starting to be get harder for the concerns of ordinary people to fall on deaf ears as our festering desperation sparks the deeper ringing of a more concentrated line of questioning.
Some were always asking questions, others now feel compelled. One of the biggest ones could be why aren’t governments forcing big Pharma companies to share the recipe of this vaccine? Companies need to make money, yes, but there’s no shame in being confused with the crowing that combating this virus is like a war effort. That kind of rhetoric leads one to conjure the notion of sacrifices being made for the common good, of an all-hands-on-deck push to kill the enemy. No one is being asked to suspend their disbelief that wars aren’t about making money, but as long as we’re pretending this is a war we want to end quickly and we supposedly have the amo (the vaccine), then there shouldn’t be any room for profits interfering with this goal, particularly considering the time sensitive nature of repelling future attacks. (But never miss the chance to turn a crisis into an opportunity, eh?). As America’s friendliest ally, one would assume that we wouldn’t need to be held over a barrel while writing the check, but as long as Pfizer or Moderna etc. requires a hefty sum, then it might just be incumbent on the leaders of this supposedly wealthy nation to pony up. Do we have the means, but not the will? Aussies are increasingly fed up asking. Our rollout performance, in stark contrast to other developed nations, might well cause a significant few to ponder what does the rest of the world think of us?, and we could inevitably find ourselves pulsating towards the revelation that our incompetence is embarrassing at best, and criminal at worst. As angst grows, so too does the collective town square perception — right or not — that further lockdowns threaten peoples mental and physical well-being more than those who would otherwise suffer from covid.
Has anybody noted the confusing feedback loop that one could be forgiven for harbouring? We don’t need the vaccines as much as other countries because we’re doing well with the virus… Then why do we need the lockdowns?… To keep us safe from the virus… But I thought we were doing well… We are, but we need to do better… How do we do that?… We need people to get vaccinated… Why don’t people get vaccinated?… Because we don’t have enough vaccines… I thought we didn’t need them… We don’t, we just need to do better… How do we do that?… Inevitably, we’re getting dizzy on the spin and are left with the realisation that a government that stands firm in its conviction that it requires a vaccine for its citizens to regain their freedoms, stands charged with a responsibility from which they should no longer be allowed to squirm away. Our troubles are spreading wider in light of restrictions. We’re losing savings and dreams, destroying businesses and industries, missing friends, raising anxiety, facilitating helplessness, and we’re exposing kids to a lack of social development that could bring immeasurable longterm issues. As a result we encourage — if not guarantee — drug and alcohol addiction to alleviate the pain, and watch as depression and suicides cripple families and communities. We watch as other parts of the world can attend events, parties, weddings, funerals, travel, while we’re not allowed to leave or bring loved ones home, dragging down our reputation as a place worth any attention.
Regardless of its basis — or lack thereof — in fact, the proclamation that numbers of vaccinated citizens don’t correlate favourably with the number of newly infected patients leads many to believe that the vaccines aren’t effective, but even this can’t divert the strongest cynic from wondering why a shortage exists for those who are eager to book an appointment. There’s only so many delays and lockdowns that can transpire before people start to reason that the chronic ineffectiveness and inefficiency typical of the last year and a half is either by design and / or inexcusable. Some people have long since reached their tether. Some people will ask questions on behalf of others because to allow the situation to continue is as galling as the results are confusing; one recent Facebook post noted that a 39 year old teacher working with hundreds of teenagers daily and living with elderly and disabled people was told she is currently ineligible for the jab. What gives?
How long are we willing to wait for the nervous trembles of a “what gives?!” to graduate en mass to the shaking, iron-fisted convulsions of a mob stripped of its freedoms, robbed of its rights, labelled dangerous and conspiratorial and then, perhaps censored into sad oblivion? Just like we’re siloed into our chambers by the social media algorithms that moderate much of our thinking, Australian’s are being siloed into thinking “Let my kid go to school!” “Let me travel!” “Let me save my business!” “Where are the bloody vaccines!?” Whether or not those are the dominant questions after all of our sense making faculties have been exhausted, the standard to which we hold our leaders will depend a lot on just how satisfactory an answer they give. The more we sense their answers are obfuscating, or laden with empty platitudes, or becoming more brazenly authoritarian, the more it will raise confusion, resentment, desperation and anger. We all deserve better than what comes after that.
