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Coffin for those who died of Covid-19 in Girona (Spain)
Photo: Emilio Morenatti / dpa
There was this phase in spring when it became clear that quite a few people were dying of Covid-19, and it was already clear then that different people - logically - deal with this issue differently.
Some became as cautious as they could be, some learned slowly, some learned in shock through the loss of a loved one, some did not learn at all.
Some shone with a demonstrative nonchalance regarding their own finitude (Wolfgang Schäuble: »We all die«), some desperate all the more.
Now that the number of cases in the current wave of the pandemic is higher than before, there are, on the one hand, increasingly clear calls for stricter measures, on the other hand, it must be noted that the topic of death is only moderately present in public.
While at the same time someone in Germany dies of the corona virus every few minutes.
What is it, are we bored of obituaries and personal fates?
Margarete Stokowski, arrow to the right
Photo:
Rosanna Graf
Born in 1986, was born in Poland and grew up in Berlin.
She studied philosophy and social sciences and has been working as a freelance writer since 2009.
Her feminist bestseller "Unterrum frei" was published in 2016 by Rowohlt Verlag.
In 2018, "The Last Days of Patriarchy" followed, a collection of columns from SPIEGEL ONLINE and "taz".
The Ministry of Health has posters put up calling for masks to be worn, airing, and reducing contact.
On one of the posters you can see a man with the quote: “I want to go back to my local pub soon.
That's why I'm wearing a mask now. ”On other posters you see other people saying:“ I want to travel again ”or“ I want to go back to my favorite restaurant ”.
All understandable wishes, I share all of this, but: Is that it?
Would it be senseless alarmism or too much pathos to say: Hello, a lot of people are dying right now - wouldn't that be motivation enough?
Are people so cold that the prospect of drinking beer and sushi affects them so much more than the fact that hundreds of people die every day?
When you talk to people about it, the argument of repression often comes up.
Death is too blatant an issue and if we had a culture of grief before the pandemic that tended to work in silence, if we somehow suppressed grief in the first wave of the pandemic, why should things work better now?
I dont know.
But in a country where the most popular Sunday evening pastime is watching a mostly poor quality movie with a corpse for the first few minutes, the subject of death itself can be something to protect people from - while tens of thousands lose their loved ones at the same time?
more on the subject
Celebrating despite Corona: What to do if the party is going next door? A column by Margarete Stokowski
It is a classic ethical phenomenon that distant suffering makes us feel less empathic and act than suffering before our eyes.
We are less interested in a war that takes place in a country whose capital we cannot name than one that takes place in a country to which we regularly go on vacation.
We buy a smartphone even though we know that the raw materials for it were mined under inhumane conditions, and we might not do that if the seller in the Apple Store handed us the device with bloody hands.
This is how we are, and it is bitter, but difficult to avoid in a globalized world, in which, at least in theory, one could spend the whole day following the brutality that goes on in the background of a life in Central Europe.
Mourning chewing gum?
Suppressing the suffering of others is, to some extent, a survival mechanism.
But when it becomes a principle, it is a killing mechanism.
more on the subject
Mulled wine in the corona crisis: The latest "hot shit" from Felix Bohr and Birte Bredow
That is why it is a bad argument when inconsiderate behavior in the current wave of the corona pandemic is explained by the fact that people secretly meet at home on ski trips, shopping, drinking mulled wine in close groups, exceptions about "exceptions" ... that they that would be needed to somehow get along mentally.
Yes, of course, it will be good for you.
But at what price?
Wouldn't it make more sense for those who, despite the extremely serious situation, still behave carelessly to somehow make the subject of death more present?
Not to ask people more drama, but to better protect people?
“The pain of the dead must no longer be kept quiet like annoying collateral damage.
It's time for a grand state gesture, a memorial, something.
Even and especially when it hurts, ”wrote Constanze von Bullion in the“ Süddeutsche Zeitung ”.
Could it be that far too many people - despite the high death rates, despite all the available information - still think that Corona only affects people who they consider to be dispensable?
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Publisher: Rowohlt Taschenbuch
Number of pages: 256
Author: Stokowski, Margarete
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It is a fascist thought that it does not harm a society and, on the contrary, it is even good if the supposedly weak are "removed" from it, which can mean: die.
But on top of that there is a contradicting thought, because: The loss of the supposedly weak can break their loved ones and - also make them "weak".
It's a death spiral.
"The widespread disappearance of chewing gum from the lives of many people has not yet been sufficiently mourned," read the "SZ" recently, because people have been buying less chewing gum since the pandemic.
Yes, well, but somehow it's cynical, because something else hasn't been sufficiently mourned here either, and that's people.
People who often had to die without the possibility of saying goodbye, and who are now denied the possibility of being adequately mourned for them.
There are no good reasons for it, only really bad ones.
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