<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<header class="css-d92687">
<h1 class="css-19v093x">Giorgio Agamben, “The state of exception
provoked by an unmotivated emergency”</h1>
<div class="css-1x1jxeu">
<div class="css-7kp13n">By</div>
<div class="css-8rl9b7">positionswebsite.org</div>
<div class="css-zskk6u">3 min</div>
</div>
<div class="css-1890bmp"><a
href="https://getpocket.com/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Fpositionswebsite.org%2Fgiorgio-agamben-the-state-of-exception-provoked-by-an-unmotivated-emergency%2F"
target="_blank" class="css-1neb7j1">View Original</a></div>
</header>
<div role="main" class="css-yt2q7e">
<div id="RIL_container">
<div id="RIL_body">
<div id="RIL_less">
<div lang="en">
<p><em>This is a translation of an article that first
appeared as <a rel="noopener"
href="https://ilmanifesto.it/lo-stato-deccezione-provocato-da-unemergenza-immotivata/?fbclid=IwAR17ciygOzmIpolNxACx8WMoRzrPpePxJMN0Tns7ni69ZfwO_QzmHYeYXVk%5C">“Lo
stato d’eccezione provocato da un’emergenza
immotivata,”</a> in</em> il manifesto<em></em></p>
<p>In order to make sense of the frantic, irrational, and
absolutely unwarranted emergency measures adopted for a
supposed epidemic of coronavirus, we must begin from the
<a rel="noopener"
href="https://www.cnr.it/it/nota-stampa/n-9233/coronavirus-rischio-basso-capire-condizioni-vittime">declaration
of the Italian National Research Council</a> (NRC),
according to which “there is no SARS-CoV2 epidemic in
Italy.”</p>
<p>It continues: in any case “the infection, according to
the epidemiological data available as of today and based
on tens of thousands of cases, causes light/moderate
symptoms (a variant of flu) in 80-90% of cases. In
10-15%, there is a chance of pneumonia, but which also
has a benign outcome in the large majority of cases. We
estimate that only 4% of patients require intensive
therapy.”</p>
<p>If this is the real situation, why do the media and the
authorities do their utmost to create a climate of
panic, thus provoking a true state of exception, with
severe limitations on movement and the suspension of
daily life and work activities for entire regions?</p>
<p>Two factors can help explain such a disproportionate
response.</p>
<p>First and foremost, what is once again manifest here is
the growing tendency to use <strong>the state of
exception as a normal governing paradigm</strong>. The
executive decree (<em>decreto legge</em>), approved by
the government “for reasons of hygiene and public
safety,” produces a real militarization “of those
municipalities and areas in which there is at least one
person who tests positive and for whom the source of the
infection is unknown, or in which there is a least one
case that is not connected to a person who recently
traveled from an area affected by the contagion.”</p>
<p>Such a vague and indeterminate formula will allow [the
government] to rapidly extend the state of exception to
all regions, as it is practically impossible that other
cases will not appear elsewhere.</p>
<p>Let us consider the serious limitations of freedom
imposed by the executive decree:</p>
<ol>
<li>A prohibition against leaving the affected
municipality or area for all people in that
municipality or area.</li>
<li>A prohibition against entering the affected
municipality or area</li>
<li>The suspension of all events or initiatives
(regardless of whether they are related to culture,
sport, religion, or entertainment), and a suspension
of meetings in any private or public space, including
enclosed spaces if they are open to the public.</li>
<li>The suspension of educational services in
kindergartens and schools at every level, including
higher education and excluding only distance learning.</li>
<li>The closure of museums and other cultural
institutions as listed in article 101 of the Statute
on cultural heritage and landscape, and in executive
decree number 42 from 01/22/2004. All regulations on
free access to those institutions are also suspended.</li>
<li>The suspension of all kinds of educational travel,
in Italy and abroad.</li>
<li>The suspension of all publicly held exams and all
activities of public offices, except essential
services or public utility services.</li>
<li>The enforcement of quarantine and active
surveillance on individuals who had close contact with
confirmed cases of infection.
<p>It is blatantly evident that these restrictions are
disproportionate to the threat from what is,
according to the NRC, a normal flu, not much
different from those that affect us every year.</p>
<p>We might say that once terrorism was exhausted as a
justification for exceptional measures, the
invention of an epidemic could offer the ideal
pretext for broadening such measures beyond any
limitation.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>The other factor, no less disquieting, is the state of
fear, which in recent years has diffused into individual
consciousnesses and which translates into a real need
for <strong>states of collective panic</strong>, for
which the epidemic once again offers the ideal pretext.</p>
<p>Therefore, in a perverse vicious circle, the limitation
of freedom imposed by governments is accepted in the
name of a desire for safety, which has been created by
the same governments who now intervene to satisfy it.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>