Demos: protest is soaring
In Belgium, unease is swelling in the hearts of some citizens, as illustrated most recently by the marches “for freedom”. United in the same deep unease, citizens of many European countries are expressing their exasperation with the health crisis management measures.
From unprecedented gatherings of the French to the cry that is setting Italy alight, from silent marches through Luxembourg City to violent clashes in the Netherlands and the recent anger of Austrians: a few examples, among others, of citizens' movements, somewhere between growing concern and nascent revolt. And further afield, one cannot ignore the massive protests in Australia against an extremely authoritarian and repressive government policy.
The French mobilisation
On 12 July, France was in shock at the speech by President Emmanuel Macron announcing the extension of the health pass to a series of ordinary everyday activities. There followed the sudden organisation of demonstrations throughout France. Demonstrations that have lasted, week after week, and whose repetition testifies to the scale of the shock experienced by the population.
While the president announced at the beginning of November that, for people over 65, the validity of the pass would be conditional on a third injection, the protest, far from dying down, relentlessly denounced the yoke of the QR code, vaccination blackmail and the callous exclusion of unvaccinated carers.
In this respect, let us mention the emblematic Marche du Réveil , initiated by geneticist Alexandra Henrion-Caude and Prof. Christian Perrone “to support thousands of doctors who are faithful to their Hippocratic oath”. On arrival, on 14 November at Mont Valérien (Paris), Alexandra Henrion- Caude denounced: “yes, we are now prisoners of a fixed idea maintained by our governments”, namely that only the vaccine can save us, and that “those who do not adhere to this new dogma, hammered home in an almost religious manner, become outcasts”. She then listed the possible complications linked to the vaccines (facial paralysis, myocarditis and pericarditis, venous thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, frequent elevation of the D-dimer thrombosis markers to abnormally high levels…), and concluded that “some subjects of these experiments will bear the cost”!
As if to prove Alexandra Henrion-Caude right about the “fixed vaccine idea”, Prime Minister Jean Castex announced on 17 December that the French government wants to transform the health pass into a vaccine pass. The Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, said in this regard: “it's simple, it's clear, it's crystal clear, it's owned, we want the French to get vaccinated.” . Enough to boost the anger of the French, who were still demonstrating in large numbers this Saturday, 18 December, in several major cities as well as in Paris .
Italy's cry of resistance
On 15 October, the Italian government made the health pass compulsory for work. This vaccination blackmail was answered by a chant, which is also a cry: “La gente come noi non molla mai” (“people like us never give up”). First chanted by the dockers in Trieste, who refuse the obligation of a vaccine pass to work, it was taken up in chorus by crowds of people all over Italy: Milan, Genoa, Pisa, Rome, Naples, Bologna, Verona….
It crossed borders all the way to Israel, to Tel Aviv, where the crowd in turn sang the now emblematic “la gente come noi non molla mai”. The epicentre of the resistance, the Trieste dockers sent the world a crucial question: “Abbiamo bisogno di autorizazioni per vivere?” (“Do we need authorisations to live?”). The question sends a chill down the spine and echoes the words of the philosopher Giorgio Agamben, who described the pass and the vaccine as the “baptism of a new religion defining the inverted figure of what was once called citizenship”. A baptism “that is necessarily provisional and renewable because the new citizen, who will always have to produce his certificate, no longer has any rights” [8].
The silent “no” in Luxembourg City
Every Friday evening since September, thousands of people dressed in white have been meeting on the Kirchberg plateau in Luxembourg City for a silent White March. To express, peacefully, “a deep unease with government policy ”. Carrying torches and candles, they set off, slowly, in silence. No slogans, just small flickering flames and the name of Dr Ochs on many lips - he is a general practitioner in the Grand Duchy, well known for his criticism of both the protocols put in place in the context of COVID and the vaccination campaign) .
We are told that “he is certainly here, walking among us”. We will not see him, but it is certain that, underlying the silence of this march, there was also the voice of Dr Ochs, who dares to speak of the risks of the vaccines, not only current but longer-term, warning of the presence of abnormally high D-dimers (indicators of thrombosis) in the blood tests of many vaccinated people . Let us point out, however, that he is in no way a “representative” of the movement because “the silent White March has neither representative nor spokesperson”, “it belongs to the People” .
And the people, thus dressed in white, see themselves as the defenders of the “fundamental rights of the human being”, in breach with current policy, in which “citizens who do not agree with the authorities' single way of thinking are openly made to feel guilty, stigmatised and gradually excluded.” . The initiative is about to cross borders, because according to our sources, White Marches are planned soon in 2022, in France in Thionville and in Belgium in Arlon.
The anger of the Austrians
On 14 November, in Austria, Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg declared the entry into force of the lockdown of the unvaccinated. Five days later, in a new announcement, he decreed a general lockdown of the country and the introduction of compulsory vaccination for all from 1 February 2022. The very next day, many Austrians took to the streets of Vienna to voice their deep indignation. Since then, the demonstrations have followed one after another, supported by tens of thousands of people who relentlessly contest compulsory vaccination.
The Netherlands in a state of shock
During November, the Dutch expressed their anger at the measures through large-scale demonstrations marked by unrest and clashes between the police and demonstrators. In this climate of violence, the unthinkable happened in Rotterdam: on 19 November, a demonstration against the announcement of a partial lockdown turned to tragedy when, during a clash, police officers fired live ammunition at the demonstrators, killing one person.
Australians in turmoil
During the winter of 2020, Australia, like New Zealand and the countries of South-East Asia, had opted for a “zero covid” strategy, giving rise to extremely severe measures. Melbourne was undoubtedly “the most locked-down city in the world since the start of the epidemic”, and the case of the capital Canberra, “locked down after the discovery of a single positive case” , was widely shared, with dismay, on social networks.
Despite drastic repression of the protest, in which, notably, “the army was deployed in Sydney in July to enforce the lockdowns” [22], protest movements spread, and citizens who disagreed with the restriction of their fundamental rights defied the ban to demonstrate in the streets, coming up against a very heavy-handed response from the police. Riot-control rounds, tear gas, physical restraint and multiple arrests were very often the daily lot of the demonstrators.
From October, in an admission of the failure of its “zero covid” policy, the government changed its strategy, now banking on the mass vaccination of the population. This did not extinguish the protest; on the contrary, “peaceful marches for freedom” took place in the major cities. There, Australians protest against the anti-covid vaccination policy, demanding, like other inhabitants of the world: “freedom” and “my body, my choice” .
The exasperation of the Belgians
For several Sundays now, thousands upon thousands of Belgians have been marching in Brussels: a diverse and overwhelmingly peaceful crowd. It all started with an announcement on the “que faire” website: All together for freedom” , meet in Brussels on Sunday 21 November! The aim: a march in the capital to express a collective “enough is enough” against the requirement of the pass for access to everyday activities.
Many answered the call: 35,000 according to the figures of the Brussels Capital police. This Sunday, 19 December, despite the incidents and the unleashing of police interventions during previous events (tear gas, water cannon…), there were 37,000 of them according to the organising collective, 3,500 according to the police (one of the two probably miscounted). On the placards one could read: “freedom flouted”, “stop CST”, “NO COVID SLAVE TICKET”, “No to compulsory vaccination”, “No one may be subjected without their consent to a medical or scientific experiment - Nuremberg Code 1947” , like so many reflections of the concerns shared by citizens of many countries.
A multitude of voices of anger and suffering are rising. Voices of resistance to anti-covid policies and denunciations of their consequences. Implicit in the protest against a loss of freedom, are these movements not questioning more broadly the humanity we wish to defend versus the world that these political measures risk building in the long term?
By Marley R., citizen journalist at BAM!
Coming soon in BAM:
a new section to discover in pictures the demonstrations taking place all over the world
https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2021/07/12/adresse-aux-francais-12-juillet-2021
https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2021/11/09/adresse-aux-francais-9-novembre-2021
Extracts from the speech by Alexandra-Caude-Henrion at the arrival of the Marche du Réveil, 14 November 2021, full speech in https://crowdbunker.com/v/LYMYr1pGQW
https://www.breakflip-awe.com/societe/actualites/parcours-manifestation-paris-18-decembre-2021-anti-pass-sanitaire-7312 & https://www.breakflip-awe.com/societe/actualites/manifestation-anti-pass-sanitaire-18-decembre-2021-ou-ont-elles-lieu-7315
Extracts (in a personal translation) from the text by Giorgio Agamben – full text in Italian in https://www.quodlibet.it/giorgio-agamben-la-nuda-vita-e-il-vaccino
BAM attended a white march in Luxembourg City
Press release of the silent White March in https://www.facebook.com/M.B.Luxembourg/photos/pcb.122531026873071/122530760206431/?type=3&theater
Dr Ochs is a general practitioner who practises in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. He is very well known in the country for his criticism of the protocols put in place in the context of COVID, as well as of the vaccination campaign. In July of this year, he was sentenced on these grounds by the disciplinary council of the Medical Council to a one-year ban from practising. He has appealed the decision and is currently continuing to practise - https://www.medecins-generalistes.lu/home/type/view/docteur/605/ochs-benoit-gonderange https://theworldnews.net/lu-news/le-dr-ochs-sanctionne-par-le-college-medical
https://5minutes.rtl.lu/actu/luxembourg/a/1743734.html
Extract from an interview with Dr Ochs in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEGZsCV-gTk
cf. Charter of the silent White March & explanations concerning the birth of the movement https://www.facebook.com/M.B.Luxembourg/photos/pcb.122531026873071/122530760206431/?type=3&theater
cf. Charter of the silent White March & explanations concerning the birth of the movement https://www.facebook.com/M.B.Luxembourg/photos/pcb.122531026873071/122530760206431/?type=3&theater
https://fr.euronews.com/2021/09/22/australie-manifestation-a-melbourne-contre-l-obligation-vaccinale
https://www.lapresse.ca/international/asie-et-oceanie/2021-11-20/covid-19-en-australie/des-milliers-de-personnes-manifestent-contre-la-vaccination.php. According to this media outlet, these gatherings took place without incidents with the police.
https://www.quefaire.be/tous-ensemble-pour-la-liberte-8412652.shtml
BAM covered these events live. Watch the videos again here https://www.facebook.com/bam.belgian.alternative.media
Photo source:
BAM! - ©Vick
