The problem with playing the blame game is that you inevitable end up in dangerous territory by marginalising those you’re blaming which inevitable leads to dissociation and disenfranchisement.
Everyday on the news all we hear is people blaming the politicians, the politicians blaming the public or the public blaming each other using the term “COVIDiot”. I know I’m guilty of some that (for various reasons) and I think most people are guilty of it to some extent.
In a situation that we find ourselves it’s a massive learning curve and you’re not going to get everything right. I think we can all admit to that; hotel quarantine being a prime example of it. But in the last few months- from around June/July- a new dangerous game has started to apply and it’s to blame and victimise people that are in a situation not of their own making and doing the best they can to survive.
Let’s break the situation down to a few key points, it which are by no means exhaustive.
One big problem I think is that blame was quick to be assigned to those who come from a English as a Second Language (ESL) background. Now for quite a while there was a lot of talk in the recent past saying that there was transmission of COVID-19 because of people’s inability to understand hygiene- and by implication (not very hidden)- because of the lack of understanding of English. When the housing commission towers were locked down, the government failed to provide resources in people’s main languages and it was left for community organisations and those people in the towers themselves to translate the information!
Australia’s and Melbourne’s biggest strength is our multicultural society- the fact that our country and city is a veritable stew of people from various backgrounds and countries is our biggest strength. Our strength is our people and people are stronger by exposure to people’s various backgrounds and stories- we’re not as bigoted for one! The fact that the government failed these people is nothing short of disgusting.
I can understand there’ll be delays in resources and distributing of them to the community- no system is perfect and we’re not in a perfect world. But consider this- when I was in New Zealand in late February/ early March, there were information everywhere about the importance of good hygiene. Now I can’t recall if there was anything in Te Reo Māori but I’m sure there would have been- or I hope!
Fast forward to the lockdown of the towers in June/July and the fact that relevant materials were not available from day one is a disgusting. We have a moral obligation to help those who need it- we simply abandoned them to their own devices. It breaks my heart that yet again community organisation was left to pick up the slack- sad they had to do it but proud that working class people came to the rescue yet again!
The victim blaming has also been seen in the recent months with the media reporting on the “hotspot” in the Wyndham area. Everyday in seems that the media are finding ways to blame the people in that area for the Stage 4 lockdown that metropolitan Melbourne has seen- every flipping day! But this victim blaming is short sided and narrow minded; it doesn't address that the route issue comes down to social “mobility” or lack therefore, combined with insecure work and a broken capitalist system.
I know I’ve posted about this before, but it still applies now as it did then.
We have a system where people are encouraged to come to work because they feel morally obliged to do so; never mind it’s the middle of a global pandemic but we must go to work because the system expects us to. We have a broken system and if this doesn’t make you angry I don’t want to know you.
Despite the numbers coming down, there appears to be a new cluster in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Now I wonder how long it’ll be before/if the attacks on the people will start or if because it’s the east the media will remain silent.
I suspect the latter.