Since the outbreak of the Corona pandemic, world leaders have not stopped borrowing the term "war" to describe policies for dealing with the spread of the emerging virus, and the language of the pandemic has become very military. We "fight" the virus, and our bodies have "defense" mechanisms against the pathogens they "invade".
And while metaphor seems unavoidable to express the insufficiency of direct meaning even if the war against an enemy is not visible, language researchers say that the use of war metaphors is similar to self-fulfilling prophecy, meaning that its popularity may bring the burdens of war to reality, just as the use of fighting language War when thinking about illness can jump on the lessons learned from it and the deep structural problems that the pandemic has exposed.
However, political leaders did not stop using war metaphors; Initially, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to launch a "people's war" against the virus, and he continued to respond with the spread of the pandemic to Europe, as French President Emmanuel Macron declared that the country is at war with an "unseen enemy that is out of reach".
The Italian special commissioner for coronavirus emergencies said that the country should prepare itself for a "war economy", and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson considered that his citizens' battle with the pandemic "in which every citizen was recruited." In the United States, US President Donald Trump described himself as a "wartime president", and in Egypt the media called the "White Egypt Army" to describe doctors who deal with the disease.
The language of war
Some writers believe that the metaphor of "war" in describing policies to deal with the Corona pandemic can cause stigmatization of patients who cannot fight this pandemic, impose blame on them, and affect the way we think and make pandemic deaths merely collateral damage from combat warfare. The word war suggests aggression and the transgression of power and does not reflect the concepts of care that should prevail during the time of the pandemic.
In her article in The American Atlantic newspaper, writer Yasmine Sarhan considered that invoking military concepts to express the need for state intervention and unusual personal sacrifice in peacetime is an additional risk exacerbating the public health crisis.
And Jasmine believes that this may cause fear and panic as well, and it can cause behaviors such as vacating store shelves, storing food products, and greatly increasing the sales of firearms to citizens.
And it considers that if the aim of such a metaphor is to compel the public to act in the interest of the national interest, then framing this crisis from the perspective of war may achieve the exact opposite, in this "war" - after all - most people are not required to mobilize, but rather ask Of them stay at home.
The author notes that the last time the world faced a pandemic of this magnitude was in the middle of an actual war, as the Spanish flu emerged during the last months of World War I, before it spread quickly throughout the world, affecting one third of the world's population and killing tens of millions of people.
Unlike the current epidemic, wartime borrowing was not necessary to stimulate action against the Spanish flu. Yasmin quoted medical historian Mark Honigsbaum, author of "The Pandemic of the Century," that at that point in the war, "everyone was already making all these sacrifices," noting that many countries had already united against a common enemy, Germany, before he came. This invisible enemy, the Spanish flu. "
And war by its nature causes conflict and conflict, and this is not particularly beneficial in the midst of a crisis that requires global cooperation. These divisions are already affecting people, especially with the rise in hatred against East Asian societies who are believed to be carriers of the virus.
Alternative metaphors
In her article "Epidemics are not wars," critic and journalist Alyssa Wilkinson quotes author Susan Sontag, observing metaphors borrowed from military warfare in dealing with cancer in the 1970s, and is illustrated by examples such as "invading" cancer cells, "colonization" and " Penetration "," outposts ", and even" imminent victory over cancer "and others; And notes that doctors use the language of military officers to deal with these diseases.
Although people are not expected to stop using war metaphors to describe the pandemic in the near future, the American writer is trying to think of other alternative metaphors away from the language of war and fighting, such as thinking about offering healing as a journey or a river, which reminds us over time and the similarity of experiences Whoever embarks on the same journey or follows the same path, as the journeys involve mapping the paths, and the rivers usually remain in their courses and paths, which means that its path can be expected despite obstacles and without stigmatizing the sick.
The writer is also considering an alternative metaphor that revolves around an orchestra or symphony based on the idea that responding to the epidemic requires every person to be ready to play his role and coordinate the collective response, rather than looking at the self and the other only as the metaphor of the war suggests that the writer reduces the complexity of the problem and focuses Only on "virus strikes", without considering the factors that facilitated the spread of the pandemic such as environmental issues and the absence of social justice.
"Instead of thinking of this epidemic as war: humans versus the virus, what if we re-think of imagining our goal as finding balance not only in the natural world, but also in our social and cultural world," she continues.
In fact, rhetorical metaphors are inevitable, and people will continue to use them to imagine the world, because our brains tend to this way of working, but the human imagination is worth thinking about new metaphors and metaphors, regardless of what political leaders prefer.