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Today is a FREE taste of an Insight Politics article by writer Chris Trotter
Lockdown through Six Different Lenses
From Fabulous to Fubar
WHERE WE STAND on Covid-19, lockdowns and “living in a cave”, has a lot to do with how we live. This, in turn, will have a lot to do with what social class we hail from, what sort of education we’ve had, what we do for a living, and what sort of personality type we are. For some of us being in lockdown is not that far removed from fabulous. For others, it is FUBAR from beginning to end. Depending on which group you belong to, Covid-19, lockdown, “living in a cave”, and the Government’s handling of the pandemic, will be viewed through radically different lenses.
If, for example, you’re comfortably retired: with a sprawling garden to tend, a big library to work your way through, a top-of-the-line PC along with ultra-fast broadband, Zoom, and Netflix, plus a large flat-screen television to watch, the prospect of being locked down for a month won’t seem so bad. Sure, there’ll be no dinner parties to endure (sorry, ‘enjoy’) and you’ll miss your weekly catch-up with friends at the pub, but the general tenor of your life will not be profoundly disrupted. All in all, you’d give the Morrinsville lass and her government a solid 8/10. One only has to look overseas to realise how much worse things could be!
Or, you could be a professional woman, now working from home – thanks to Level 4! But, really, lockdown isn’t so bad. You’ve got all the gear you need and are nicely set up in the spare room. Your husband has his “den” and his “man-shed” – so he’s like a pig in shit. Grounded for the duration, he’s loving not having to be away from home every other night, and is relishing the chance to catch up on the projects he’s put on hold for far too long. We Zoom the kids most evenings, just to make sure they’re okay. Then there are the trips to Faro and the deliveries from Hello Fresh and the Wine Club. Naturally, everything shudders to a halt at 1:00 pm for the “Jacinda and Ashley Show”. What a fabulous woman she is. We are just so lucky to have her!
Now, imagine you’re the owner of a small, but extremely popular, café? For you, lockdown spells, if not disaster, then something uncomfortably close to it. Everything you have has been invested in your small business. If it goes under, you go under. So the issues of Covid-19, lockdown and “living in a cave”, aren’t just a matter for genteel discussion and debate, they’re personal. No, dammit, they’re existential! And then there’s the staff to consider. What’ll happen to them if the café goes under? Or the chef? It took forever to persuade Immigration to let him in – will they force him out? The longer you’re required to keep your business closed, the nearer the spectre of bankruptcy approaches, or unemployment, or deportation. Fuck Ardern and her bloody “Team of Five Million”! It’s the “Team of One” (or “Four”, if you count the wife and kids) that you have to look after!
Then again, you could be a check-out operator at the local supermarket – an “essential worker” no less – for whom the threat of Covid-19 is all too real. You don’t have the luxury of “living in a cave”, or watching afternoon telly, because lockdown doesn’t apply to you. Every morning you have to travel along deserted roads in a bus with nobody else on it – like a scary science-fiction movie. At work, masked, gloved and protected by Perspex, you glance up at the customers and try to figure out which ones might be carrying the virus, and whether the barriers between you and them are strong enough. You worry, too, about your kids. Home alone from school and up to goodness knows what. You offer up a quick prayer that Jacinda gets on top of this Covid thing soon. It’s only then you realise that there’s a well-dressed woman in front of you angrily demanding to know what has happened to all the flour.
What if you’re a university student isolating in your dingy hall of residence? Your room isn’t much bigger, and only marginally more comfortable, than a prison cell. And a maximum-security prison cell at that! No working outside on the prison farm, or tending the prison vegetable garden for the likes of you. No, Sir! You have to take your meals, and get what exercise you can, on your own. It’s like being in solitary confinement. To make matters worse, the cell phone reception is shit, the Internet speed is slow, and the wi-fi keeps cutting out. And for what? For a bunch of pampered Baby Boomers who might catch Covid and die. Like they’re not going to die anyway! (Although, it sometimes seems as though the selfish bastards are planning to live forever!) Why the hell does Jacinda keep pandering to these whiny old crusties? Why can’t she be more like that guy Boris in Britain? “Freedom Day” – Fuck yeah! That’s what we need!
Or the elderly widow uncomfortably retired and struggling to survive on her pension and the accommodation supplement. Her little Housing Corp flat is warm, she’s thankful for that, but since her husband of 50 years died, it’s very lonely. She has her two sons, of course. Bright lads who went to university and did very well. But one is in Sydney and the other is in London. John and his family used to pop over regularly to see Grandma, but the bubble burst and he’s stuck across the Tasman with the same Delta virus that we’ve got here. Charlie would love to bring Clarissa and the grandchildren back to New Zealand, but he can’t get the necessary MIQ reservations, so they’re stuck, too. You’d think the government could have done a little better, wouldn’t you? Been a little more prepared. And the trial of getting oneself vaccinated – unbelievable! The widow’s father, who fought in World War II, used to talk about SNAFU. He only told her what it meant when she was in her teens: “Situation Normal All Fucked Up”. Not very polite, but very applicable. She wonders if Jacinda Ardern has heard of FUBAR – the other wartime abbreviation her father used.
Fucked Up Beyond All Repair.
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