Perm Fails – nationally controlled communities disadvantaged people of color and silenced alternatives

As horizontal communication links were severed or severely constricted, it emerged only slowly that the biopolitics of death among ethnic minorities and other disadvantaged populations were disproportionately high (Bertocchi & Dimico, 2020). The pre-eminence of national news sources and lack of opportunity to travel might have narrowed focus on the national experience. However, this call to an idealised national community, helped people accept the radical change in their lives and economic hardship (for some). It glossed over the widening inequalities between those who could work at home benefitting from living in high digital density households and those who lost their jobs and started to suffer real hardship or were more digitally excluded. Some of these tensions are evident in the diary from Slovakia. Different pressures are emerging – the voices of the large and strong are heard. Some say we should support banks, others point to large businesses, but I hear very little of caring about those who have fallen through the net – and are not covered by social assistance as we pushed so many people out in the past years. They managed (previously), because labour market was strong, but from day-to-day they lost their opportunities for temporary, black-market, migration jobs. One Roma settlement is in quarantine - they are short of food, and cannot leave the settlement... How is the government going to reach them? Hence, at a national level a territorialised community was reinforced through the erection of national borders and the focus on national resources. Furthermore, the call to solidarity and social cohesion meant that the idea of national community was continually reinforced. This helped to silence opposition and restrict channels of communication that might have led to alternative voices being heard – at least during the first lockdown.