Maddie de Ferrer
Last December, I was sitting in my parent’s house in France when they both walked into the room discussing an email they had been sent. I was only in France as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, suddenly having to leave my university in the Netherlands, unsure if the trains were even going to be operating. The last few months had been strange, the pandemic had been relentless, with new measures being brought in constantly and the only hope we had at this point were these new vaccines.
They sat next to me on the sofa and my mother put her phone in my hand.
“Read this.”
The email was from a long-term family friend, she was my sister’s godmother, the parent of a very close childhood friend. She was trusted, she cared for us, I had spent my early childhood in and out of her house.
“She likened the vaccination program to Auschwitz, a particularly stark sentiment when my grandfather, who she knew personally, was a holocaust survivor.”
It was a page and a half of ramblings about the ‘dangerous’ vaccine, “it will make your girls infertile”, doctors will be criminally charged for this. She likened the vaccination program to Auschwitz, a particularly stark sentiment when my grandfather, who she knew personally, was a holocaust survivor. It was sentences and sentences of conspiracy theories, spouted from the likes of Piers Corbyn, Kate Shemirani and Mark Steele. I think there was a part of me that was unsure about whether or not these people actually believed in some of these conspiracy theories. Do they just want to seem a bit edgy? Are they bored?
But for this family friend, this was genuine, she believed every word of it – chasing up my father when he hadn’t replied after a couple of days. I thought, she must be a one-off, consumed by YouTube videos or something she’s seen on Facebook – down the rabbit hole. I was dismissive, sure she would find her way back to believing in science and the medical journals and trusting professionals.
A few months later, I am now living in Manchester. I went into the city over the weekend for a long-dreaded dentist appointment and decided to pop into some shops on my way home. The street was filled with protestors, which is not unusual for Manchester, there were often marches in support of Extinction Rebellion, Sister’s Uncut, Free Palestine on Saturdays so I had become accustomed to it. I put on my mask and began to look at their signs.
“SCAMDEMIC”
“NO MEDICAL APARTHEID”
“SURGEONS WEAR MASKS, DIVERS WEAR MASKS, SLAVES WEAR FACE COVERINGS”
“PLANDEMIC IS GENOCIDE”
It was as if her email had become plastered into signs around me, the same sentiment being shared. This is all a lie, nothing we are being told is real and this is something that must be resisted. I had protestors screaming at me to take off my mask. To which, in light of the growing numbers of the delta variant, I politely declined.
Kate Shemirani, in London over the weekend, said the NHS medical professionals will face ‘Nuremberg trials’, declaring that doctors and nurses will be hanged. How anyone can believe that these doctors and nurses, the same ones we saw with bruises on their faces from wearing PPE for hours and hours, saving our family members, holding their hands when they were dying alone, are the villains in this situation. This is especially mind-boggling when some of these medical professionals themselves, were dying due to repeat exposure and lacking PPE.
There is a logical response to these conspiracy theorists, asking them why? What benefit is there from the government to drug its population and make it sick? How does the government benefit from having more lockdowns despite the damage they have on the economy? There is also a further question as to whether or not they really believe this government is competent enough to pull something as elaborate as that off.
“The damage that they are doing is diluting the serious discussions that need to be had..”
And what next for these protestors? The law permits vaccine passports – at least for the time being. So will they just continue to protest until they’re allowed inside a club or on a plane?
The damage that they are doing is diluting the serious discussions that need to be had regarding the passports. There are serious and legitimate problems with their introduction (e.g. for people medically unable to have the vaccine), but the conversation has become so damaged by these conspiracy theorists that it has become almost impossible to have a rational and reasonable dialogue.
My hope is that our family friend returns to us as herself, putting this down to a momentary blip. I hope she is well and healthy and never has to face the reality of Covid-19 within her own circle of family and friends. However, given the comments made over the weekend and the speed at which these protests appear to be growing, this hope might be futile.
Featured image courtesy of Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona via Unsplash. In-article images courtesy of Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona via Unsplash. No changes were made to these images. Image license found here
