Key facts:
The COVID-19 pandemic has served certain governments as an excuse to impose more controls
The world witnesses a struggle between those who want more power and those who want to decentralize it
How does it feel to wake up in a desolate city, where humans hide in their houses, afraid that a health police will capture them? Three years ago this would be the plot of a science fiction movie or novel, but today it is simply the memory of the experiences we have had since the first months of 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Worse still, it is the daily routine of more than 20 million people in Shanghai, China’s main city; where you suffer the worst quarantine ever seen.
That’s why today I want talk about shanghai: in where terror and human pain crystallized for an entire month, before the terrified eyes of those users who followed the situation on social networks. And I bring this issue to the table because it seems to me that the stupor that this city has generated in the world population, where thousands of hungry people demand their most basic rights, was not enough. These have been curtailed by a series of draconian measures that seek to reduce COVID-19 cases by eliminating free movement around the city.
What has happened to us to desensitize us so much? I wonder when I see that there are not many who are scandalized by the current situation in China. We consume the pain of others as if it were another Netflix series. Distant, silent, feeling safe while eating junk food, while swallowing without digesting all that violence. Some will say that humans have always been like this: sensationalist and, at the same time, insensitive. “If something isn’t new, if something doesn’t happen to me, then I don’t care,” seems to be the motto.
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The situation looks more controversial today because the internet allows us to access the pain of others in real time and we consume images, after images, of war and death. So nothing is new. Not even the cry of a mother for her son with a fevernot a suicide could not bear the confinement, not a whole town asking for mercy. Let’s put it in context: many have already forgotten that an invasion is taking place in Ukraine and that dozens of children continue to die in their homes. And Chinese? China is too far away to feel its suffering as mine, repeating the same premise that led us to think that COVID-19 would never reach us.
What “the insensitive” and “carefree” are not seeing is that we are facing another type of pernicious virus that has wanted to end human rights for centuries, and we have let it be. It is the virusauthoritarianismof control and power. That has already been under its yoke for too many generations and, with the formation of an increasingly digitized world, it plans to strengthen itself to unsuspected levels. This is the evil that afflicts the citizens of Shanghai and keeps them captive in their homes, but it is also the one that stalks our families and communities.
Shanghai is the example of a destination that we have to take care of
It is because this virus is swarming with more and more force in the world that I think it is so necessary to talk about Shanghai, especially from a bitcoiner vision. Here I am not going to talk about Bitcoin being the currency that is most resistant to censorship and all the benefits that it provides at the level of financial decentralization, but rather about the principles that founded this cryptocurrency and that make more and more people become part of it. their community. Yes, I mean freedom, privacy and community power.
It becomes more and more obvious to me that we had to live in a time where a battle of forces is being waged that have the ability to determine the future of our freedom as citizens. What do I mean by this? I see States determined to have more and more shares of power over their citizens, such as the government of China, or that of Canada or Russia itself – I do not want to leave out United States and Europe, so they earn their honorable mention—. So, they propose reforms to know where we put our money, who we support, where we go and even who we meet. That is to say, they bet on knowing more and more about our intimate life and deciding on it.
This is what is happening in Shanghai today. Under the idea that imposing a strict and monitored quarantine is “scientifically” more effective (according to party words People’s Republic of China), restrictions are imposed so that you can move around the city, to buy medicines, to meet with neighbors and even to leave your own home. We have already experienced this in Europe, also in Latin America, but in China social control is even taken to a new level.
I never disagreed with social distancing, undoubtedly to protect the most vulnerable we could self-quarantine and this was part of our civil responsibility. However, I cannot agree that under the idea of eradicating a number of contaminated people, pets are killed, parents and children are separated and entire buildings are captured to turn them into temporary hospitals. A life-saving measure does not have to cause pain to an entire population, which has been unable to access basic services for more than a month.
In this way, it read painful testimonies of people who had no medicine, or access to medical help, or food, because the Chinese government had decided that lowering the COVID-19 metrics is more important than basic human rights. People stop being people to simply become figures. And it is there that one can notice that the decisions are not really taken to safeguard the population, but to keep it obedient and controlled.
The line between freedom and submission is very thin, and is always being pulled by the government of the day (from countries like China) that wants to interfere in the private lives of citizens under the feverish dream of staying in power forever. The control of a State cannot be worth the lives of hundreds of people and the rights of millions. Yet this has been the history of the world year after year, century after century.
So why do I think there is a battle going on and not just the installation of an old model of government? Well, because I also believe that there is resistance in the citizenry towards these authoritarian schemes. The human also claims freedom as his most basic right, because he knows and feels worthy of deserving it.. In a widely globalized world with Internet access in a click, it is increasingly difficult to demobilize the voices of citizens and their discontent.
In this context Bitcoin is born and strengthens. But not bitcoin only as a currency, but as an ideology, as a way of thinking and living. The principles of Bitcoin embody exactly the opposite of what authoritarianism proposes, by giving back to citizens the power over their finances and, therefore, the destiny of their offspring. Citizens are increasingly demanding greater privacy, freedom and quotas of representative power. People know that they, too, are a force to be reckoned with if they are organized, and it is exactly the beauty of that system that Bitcoin embodies.
That is why it is so important to talk about Shanghai, because it reminds us that being part of this ecosystem and this piece of history… is also fighting for those individual freedoms. Strengthen the person to, in turn, empower the community. Bitcoin is a disruptive technology and idea, because exactly it opposes and confronts these abuses of power. And we, whether as bitcoiners or simply as citizens, must continue to pull the strings, demanding and defending what is ours by birth.
Shanghai is another reminder that the battle is still there and that the powerful do not stop biting to keep everything. Let’s not let that happen because we are insensitive or apathetic, because tomorrow the virus of authoritarianism could also be in our homes.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to its author and do not necessarily reflect those of CriptoNoticias.