Member-only story
Part 5: Why are we planning to go back to “normal” anyway? PRIVILEGE
Really?
The birds are still singing in my garden, but I hear them less now as the cars on the street and the trains are back, and back with a vengeance. “Normal is making a strong comeback in a very big way.”
Before I started writing this piece I sighed and just shook my head as to what was being played out in the media this week. Almost in slow motion — the frenzy of how the establishment can play around in the lockdown. The deaths (officially they now number 37,000+ in the UK) will barely get a mention. I remember early in the pandemic discussing with a friend that we will get to a period where x hundred of deaths from Covid-19 will just be a passing comment in the news like the weather is presented daily. We are here now.
During the early days of the crisis, there was also a sense that everyday events were secondary. Brexit was a distant memory; knife crime had fallen considerably and hope had kind of been singing daily of fundamental change in all aspects of life. This was of course a very optimistic view.
The opposite of hope is despair and I came back early in the morning to update my article following the tragic murder in broad daylight of George Floyd by police officers in Minnesota. Normal is not making a comeback because it never really…
