"Give Me Liberty or Give Me Covid-19”: Anti-quarantine Protests and the Freedom to Die View Digital Media

Focused Discussion
Gabriela Segura  

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, (neoliberal) citizens have been held responsible for “spreading the virus” and have been asked to further self-discipline in a Foucauldian fashion: wear a mask, don’t leave your home, practice social distancing, etc. These practices have been promoted as imperatives of the “good, responsible citizen” to reduce the spread of the virus. I am concerned, however, with the neoliberal subjects who deem government-led preventive measures as a direct threat to their individual liberties. These actors frame measures oriented to protect the public good as a cultural war in which socialist forces represent a menace to their freedom and way of life. Thus, resisting these measures has become a matter of nationalist and patriotic duty. In this paper, I focus on the anti-lockdown demonstrations and the meanings of freedom that these actors defend in the US and Brazil, two countries where reactionary forces have recently emerged. Specifically, this paper asks: What are the necropolitical implications of the meanings of freedom that these actors profess and defend? How did masks become a symbol of slavery and oppression? I argue that the meanings of freedom displayed at the anti-quarantine protests can be understood in the context of the necropolitics of neoliberalism and anti-public good values. Through discourse analysis of news articles and right-wing social media in both Brazil and the US, I analyze how the defense of freedom has been redefined by neoliberal culture and subjectivities to represent the freedom to die or what I call in this paper necrofreedom.