Perhaps the most well known example of apocalypse in popular media is “The Walking Dead,” which follows a set of characters surviving during a zombie apocalypse. An intriguing storyline takes place in Alexandria Safe Zone, a gated community where members are living in normalcy, despite the surrounding chaos.
If the idea of an apocalypse seems distant, perhaps you’re too accustomed to a safe zone yourself. As Gazans live in an open air prison constantly bombarded by U.S. made missiles, Israelis live just across the wall, where life functions with regularity. Most of us are not living in Israel, but our consumption of certain perspectives render Israeli life normal.
Like Lauren Ben Yaaqov, who flipped the comparison, writing that “The Walking Dead” is comparable to life in Israel, apathy in an apocalypse necessitates excuses, self victimization and moral depravity. We must challenge that urge and understand our privileged positionality in this fascistic political moment.
We can even take the comparison of “The Walking Dead” further. While immigrants are forced out of the country by mass deportation and marginalized communities no longer have access to necessary federal funds, Whitman College largely feels the same. Even as the federal administration targets higher education, statements, small demonstrations and a few conversations in class come and go, leaving no real sense of urgency or understanding of the moment we are in.
Part of the problem is historical. Just like those living in the Alexandria Safe Zone during the zombie apocalypse, most Whitman students were in a relatively secure position before the Trump administration. While some acknowledgement of our descent towards fascism might take place, especially when it impacts the lives of our most affluent in small ways, many Whitman students come from backgrounds that can take some small blows. Their lives are entangled in capitalism’s benefits and so long as that remains unthreatened, it’s hard for fascism to concern so many.
While many students have real and legitimate reasons to remain in the background right now, so many more of us are too comfortable with our apathy. A comparison to “The Walking Dead” is not just a cute metaphor; our current state should be taken as seriously as any fictional apocalypse. At this moment, more of us must be willing to put ourselves on the line and accept the consequences of our dissent. The apocalyptic period we’re living in doesn’t have the luxury of fictional perfections in the storyline. However, just because genocide is taking place halfway across the world, for example, doesn’t mean we can turn away.
We need not even look to fiction to explain the gravity of this moment. Just as Hitler was inspired by Ford’s assembly line and saw it as a method of genocide, Trump’s acting ICE Director recently stated that the agency should operate “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings.” Just as Mussolini used the Italian police to arrest political opponents, Trump does the same with ICE and their recent arrests of pro-Palestinian activists.
If you don’t think we’re in an apocalypse, perhaps you’ve shielded yourself from reality. Whitman College students continue to live as though little has changed outside of the bubble. It’s time we pop it, not just to engage with our neighbors, but to fight with them.
Recent administrative moves and actions by security guards are showing that, if you don’t pop the bubble yourself, they will pop it for you. But how close to home does fascism need to be for you to notice? Will you begin to show up if a security guard chases you home for writing a statement in support of Palestine with a little washable chalk? If ICE comes to campus and takes one of your friends, would that outrage you?
We can’t wait for these forces to hit close to home. We must believe those that are already urging us to listen, experiencing the violence, accurately comparing our current situation to authoritarian histories, and fighting back in creative ways.
These experiences aren’t new and we all should have been outraged years ago, but as fascism inches closer to you, you’d better stand up now or it will consume you. Such a stance can’t just be for yourself and those immediately around you, but those living in other apocalyptic situations around the country and the world.
Whitman College shouldn’t be the site of apathy; it must be the site of outrage. The college begs for a purpose lest it be left to knowledge production and endowment growth with no real usefulness for those activities. But when students stay quiet in the face of growing threats, they reinforce the college’s inaction and complacency.
As Omar El Akkad states in the title of his most recent book, “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.” If we make it out of this moment of regression, too many of you will claim your fervent distaste for the current administration and genocide, while failing to note your utter silence as they were taking place.
It seems unfathomable that we would be so apathetic during an apocalypse, yet very few of us seem to be worried today. However, as “The Walking Dead” would go on to show, when chaos surrounds you, eventually the walls have to come down and if you aren’t ready to fight, you’ll be swept up in that chaos.
