INTERVIEW
Since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, the writer and journalist Kamel Daoud, whose last book The Painter devouring the woman has appearedat Acte Sud, chronicles this change of life, which we inexorably face, in the newspaper Le Point . Guest of Patrick Cohen, Sunday on Europe 1, he believes that the crisis we are going through, a "philosophical moment, a political moment, and of economic anguish", remains above all "a moment of self-reflection". The writer considers in particular that the virus "impoverishes in us this gift of self", with catastrophic consequences.
The virus "will mark our habits for a long time"
During this period, we are "forced to reflect on what we are going to do, and what we can still bear," recalls Kamel Daoud. With the rules of confinement and then of social distancing, physical proximity, which he calls "Mediterranean virtue", is today banned. "This is something that strikes us: distancing, barrier gestures - I called that social chastity. But how is the future going to be?" Asked the writer.
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"We have all experienced this form of hesitation when we meet a friend whom we have not seen for two weeks in a supermarket. Those three or four seconds where we do not know how to show affection or joy reunion: what to do? You can't hug, you can't shake a hand, you can't kiss ... "continues the writer.
"Beyond the dead, it's a disaster"
"It will mark our habits for some time, if not for a long time," he said. "Especially for us, Mediterranean people, who are used to touching others, hugging them, being within their perimeter, their proximity. (...) Beyond the dead, it is a disaster".
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Another consequence for the intimate: the relationship to freedom is upset by the new rules of tracking to the expanded implementation of telework. "Intimacy and intimacy are the challenges of the future," says Kamel Daoud. "It is both a question of accepting that there are new rules, and of defending one's right to privacy. It is really a crest path," said the author, for whom the debate remains whole.