Views From Afar: COVID Hope

Happy Inauguration, America!

On Wednesday morning, January 20th, at 8:00 AM in Southern California, I laughed and cried in my pajamas. Legs under the covers, my husband and I hugged and traded off who was holding the kleenex or the phone, while on that tiny screen our country swore in a new government. 

We will get a handle on COVID thanks to clear leadership and efforts like Biden’s 100 days of Masking, I thought, reveling in my relief and COVID hope.

By afternoon, tears squeezed from my eyes again for less happy reasons. 

My brain ached with an awareness that stretched and grew inside of my skull, the result of chatting with Daud, 12-hours ahead of me on the opposite side of planet Earth. 

“I’ve had my first injection already,” Daud typed. “Next one soon. It’s a very strict rule here but you do what you are told. I like it. You know exactly where you stand. Very clear rules.”

“Where are you, again?” I typed.

“I’m in a cowboy themed steakhouse and whore bar, in the capital of the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi…see?”

Between chat comments a video appeared of a Philipino man singing Radiohead under disco lighting. And then a snapshot of two Russian “ladies of the night” who had joined Daud’s table uninvited. 

In the picture, which he assured me that he had politely asked permission to take, the women are making a Herculean effort to smile past their caked-on drag makeup. Their drinks are clutched in spike-tipped fingernails, sharpened and polished neon yellow.

Hobbies and shared interests had brought Me, Daud, and a handful of other fans together on this Discord server. Allowing us to share a laugh and check-in on each other from California to London to Abu Dhabi.

Another picture popped up in the thread: A wide-open space dotted with high-top wine cask tables. The lighting fixtures featured iron cutouts of gauchos, crossing the plains on their trusty quarter horses. Red studded leather covered the stools and chairs. 

It looked so normal. Decorated with the occasional saddle, the picture could have been taken at Woody’s Barbecue, The Idle Spurs Steakhouse, or Renegades Bar and Grill. Any of the known and loved places I’ve had ribs, steaks, or line dancing lessons in my Californian lifetime. 

The UAE? Really? I wanna hang out there I thought…and then felt shaky and breathless looking at the pictures again. The faces of the two women. The singer. The people sitting, drinking, chatting.

“Is COVID not a thing there!?” I typed.

“Technically socially distanced. Most people here have had the Vaccine and also to get to Abu Dhabi you need a negative test. Have to wear masks if standing up. Seriously though, the covid rate is very low here and the rules very strict. If you are in a car and don’t wear your mask you get fined 1000 dollars.”

A country that has COVID under control? I want that!

Or do I?

“I imagine that’s the beauty and tragedy of a strict government. As an SF fan, I feel like I understand both,” I wrote.

“I’ve had my first injection already. Next one soon. Yeah. It’s a very strict rule here but you do what you are told. I like it. You know exactly where you stand. Very clear rules.”

Knowing where you stand. No choices to make. Everyone masked. It sounds so safe. 

For another moment I was blind with anger at my unmasked, willfull, irrational, stupid fellow Americans and jealous of a country under Sharia law to boot: I WANT THAT!

Then my preconceptions and prejudices about Arab cultures kicked-in. 

With absolutely no first-hand experience, research, or knowledge that hadn’t come from desert escapade or mummy movies, I imagined a society more violently divided than the US. But only in secret. And with no choice, no hope of anything different. 

I looked up the rules. “Women should dress modestly…Cross-dressing is illegal…Public displays of affection are frowned upon, and there have been several arrests for kissing in public…All sex outside marriage is illegal…All homosexual sex is illegal…Posting material (including videos and photographs) online that is critical of the UAE government, companies or individuals, or related to incidents in the UAE, or appearing to abuse/ridicule/criticise the country or its authorities, or that is culturally insensitive, may be considered a crime punishable under UAE law.”

Wikipedia mentioned lashes, flogging, and stoning.

A place peopled with a religious majority who demand absolute adherence to structure, rules, and clarity. Where every citizen is rightly fearful to go against a mask mandate. 

What would it be like to be on the “wrong” side in a society like that? What does “freedom” mean there? How is it for women? I’d probably leave as soon as I could.

After chatting with Daud, I wrestled within my mind. Loops of grey matter choking each other, conflicted by a desire so intense to be safe from COVID that I felt attracted to authoritarianism. 

I pummeled myself into submission with the strength of my belief in American freedom, and confronted myself with the question, What would you be willing to give up, to have that safety?

Not freedom.

I do want everyone in the US to be safe from COVID. 

I don’t want it enough to sign up for a government with rigid control over the population. 

I don’t want the police and the military to be the same guys–the guys in berets on street corners, armed with automatic weapons.

After a masochistic battle inside my head, I’m manic and dizzy. My synapses are still firing on overload while I think and imagine and hope and dream and learn about my own world…12-hours ahead…the opposite side of Earth.

Viewed from afar, how can it look exactly the same…and like another planet altogether?

From inside my house, the house I leave once a week at most for fresh food, I have COVID hope because the UAE has the upper hand on COVID. According to my friend, conquering the disease is possible with 100% compliance.

On my iPhone screen, my president urges me to choose to move toward the rigidity and the rules that are making other countries successful at reducing COVID. And as an American, in a country with strong constitutional freedoms, I have choices. 

I want my choice to matter. I want my choice to wear a mask, my choice to keep my countrymen safe, to be effective at eliminating COVID.

My COVID hope is that everyone will see the value of the freedom to make choices. 

Even if it impairs our lifestyle, even if it is uncomfortable or unnecessary in your opinion, please make a choice that matters.

Because if you make the wrong choice, you leave me no choice.

If you don’t wear masks, don’t get vaccinated, you are taking all our choices away.

So here’s what I’m offering you: The view from afar. COVID hope. Choose to protect us all, please. Choose to, so that you do not ever have to.

*name changed for protection