POWERLESS AGAINST THE POWERFUL
The world is engaged in a war against an adversary we may not be able to see, but which has blatantly made its presence felt by engendering the emergence of novel paradigms; a war which will most certainly not end as soon as the coronavirus crisis will pass, but which will be prolonged by people's perpetual fear, resulting in extended economic, political and cultural crises. The post-pandemic world will be one replete of novel paradigms and adaptability will become the most important of qualities.
While countries around the world are struggling to contain the pandemic, there are certain leaders who appear to be attempting to exploit coronavirus in order to impose measures they have long sought. Such measures could not only reshape politics, but also life, as we now know it.
Disturbingly, there are already numerous signs that governments are potentially using the epidemic as an excuse to seize new powers. In Israel, Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has given himself huge new powers of surveillance without any oversight. Institutions and tactics normally used to track terrorists are now used to monitor quarantine compliance, follow average citizens' activity and movement, and keep track of their health status. A plethora of countries have meanwhile tightened controls on the media, which, in my opinion, was a measure taken in order to delegitimize the opposition. In normal times, such blatant transfers of power, especially ones that seem designed to hide the government's failures, would have never been endorsed. However, these are not normal times. These are extraordinary times which call for extraordinary measures.
Nevertheless, while such stringent measures are judicious and well-founded in times of crisis, there are few sunset clauses to ensure that the powers will be rescinded once the threat passes. Therefore, the question that rises is: will the measures that are now being taken shape the post-pandemic world?
Well, the answer to that question can only be found in history books. Throughout the last centuries pandemics have led to an expansion of the power of the state. As the Black Death, a devastating global epidemic of bubonic plague, spread across Europe, the authorities of Venice closed the city's port to vessels coming from plague-infested areas and forced all travelers into isolation, hence establishing what we now know as quarantine. A couple of centuries later, William Cecil battled the plague in England with a law that allowed authorities to shut the sick in their houses for six weeks. A few years later, the Plague Act of 1604 made criticizing these and other measures illegal, thus giving leaders complete control of the situation.
Therefore, while I do believe that such extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, I strongly believe that a good leader's duty is to only make decisions in favor of the population.