Apathy in Germany

Covid Passports & Exclusion

Lady Skimmington

20th September 2021.

For many years, Germany is the place that I’ve called my home. Frankfurt to be more precise.

Sitting on the River Main, it is a city of Skyscrapers.

Nice places, high wages, affluent high status professionals behaving like amateur wine tasters at the regular fests in the city’s prime spaces.

City dwellers mix with blue collar workers, aimless student time wasters, and unforgivably, far too many homeless people and those lacking even life’s basics. While the masses pass it on the street daily, like blind strangers. All the time acting like they are quite blameless. I find the sight shameless.

A stark, contradictory and often polarising city, it is the physical manifestation of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. And that is by no means a compliment.

The inequality of this strange city has always been there for all to see. From the constant rasping exhausts of rich banker’s super cars, to the desperate call for small change from the many impoverished people on the street. But even more so now, it really is a city of division.

As I see it, we are now begining to witnessing the formation of a two-tier society, divided roughly into these two conflicting but not mutually exclusive groups:

The vaccinated, the recovered and those willing to submit themselves to testing. (Whatever justification they have. Playing their part. For the greater good. An easy life. Egal, as they say here.)

And those who remain unvaccinated and are unwilling to undergo any such discriminatory testing or restrictions. (Either because of health reason. Their strong principles. Their religion. Their normal weighing up of the available facts. Whatever reason.)

Oh, it is discriminatory, by the way. Before anyone attempts to argue otherwise. It is.

The fact that neither those vaccinated nor those deemed recovered have to test but are equally as likely to be infected and infectious, highlights how, not only are vaccine passports totally ineffective at virus control, but are simple a means by which to increase the take up of vaccines, by means of imposing restrictions on fundamental freedoms.

And that is coercion. Coercion, especially under what is effectively threats of duress, has been shown to be unacceptable at any juncture of our history.

Let alone when enacted by a government using emergency powers to circumvent normal legal avenues that can curtail their exercise of such draconian powers, and in doing so they are able to administer subsequent punishments for failing to submit to their illegal & unconstitutional demands!

That is also a very dangerous cycle that we must urgently escape from. A Kafkaesque nightmare that we need to bring attention to. Again, before it becomes too late.

Irrespective of these imminent threats to our well being, there is clearly now a deeper and further division that is slowly emerging between friends, family and neighbours. Constantly stoked by the media and it’s government approved messaging.

A simple Google search of the word "unvaccinated" will show you just how far some have fallen.

One group will tolerate the discrimination and segregation of the other, whilst said other will tolerate no such thing. Yet they are the ones who are demonised!

Please let that sink in for a minute.

One will ridicule, dehumanise and wish harm on the other, armed only by the certainty that they are correct and that the others are ignorant and deserving of their subsequent suffering.

The other will prey that they are wrong, wish the other well and hope that they can both be united against what they see is the greater loss of both of their liberties.

Now that division becomes even more obvious.

For one month now, due to exceeding the defined incidence rate per 100,000, the state of Hessen has imposed the requirement on businesses to check their customer’s private medical information, or face legal ramifications such as fines and prosecutions.

The so-called 3G system (geimpft/genesen/getested - vaccinated/recovered/tested) allows them to demand that you provide businesses with proof of either your recent "full" vaccination, evidence of whether you have recently recovered from Covid-19 or proof of a recent negative test result.

These businesses include restaurants, bars, nightclubs, cinemas, theatres, operas, gyms, swimming pools, spas, sports halls, fairgrounds, hairdressers, nail salons, tattoo parlours, casinos, trade fairs and hotels.

Also bear in mind in Hessen, this includes outdoor dining and drinking establishments!

Yes, outdoor!

In summer!

Even though I fall into the later group in this segregated aberration I find myself trapped in, it is not the ridiculous regulations, discriminatory as they are illogical, that I am most shocked by.

No. That is not what hurts or surprises me the most.

Yes, I am now completely excluded from enjoying any semblance of normal life, forced to walk along busy streets of smiling diners and drinkers, all the while expected to tolerate and accept this as a consequence of my perfectly reasonable decision not to get vaccinated, nor to have to be tested. More so it's somewhat understandable when the policy exclusively targets me, against all logical explanation and lacking any remotely sensible health justification. But remember, I'm still totally excluded from normal life, despite the insanity of it all or any complaints!

And yes, I am becoming increasingly more marginalised and further isolated by the government's extreme, unscientific and inhumane "public health" policy. But do you know what really shocks me the most?

None of the points mentioned above are the answer to what I find the most shocking thing in all of this orchestrated chaos.

So, out of all of this, what shocks me the most?

It is people's compliance.

It is the complete apathy towards this illogical & inhumane system. To it’s implementation. And now to it’s month long enforcement.

It is the acceptance of everything as inevitable. From customers, to business owners. From friends, to work colleagues. They all simply complied. Without any protestations whatsoever.

They collectively shrugged their shoulders, rolled up their sleeves and then they posted their selfies. Then, when they were asked, they meekly got out their phone to show their covid passports.

They ignored any voices to the contrary. Fearful of the difficulties in holiday travel or future social life, they rushed out and took the path of least resistance. Paradoxically

enabling the very thing they used to justify their own decision. And in doing so, they have indeed allowed this segregation to plough on, at full speed.

And they have turn a blind eye each and every hour, of every day, of every week that this nightmare has been allowed to continue. And they still do.

The public. The businesses. The politicians. The media. The lawyers. The unions. The charities. The God’s themselves.

With that said, it shouldn't shock me that they are happy to see people like me excluded from society. But I would be lying if I said it didn't. Especially in a country with such a history as this one. And especially in a city like this.

One, who's very streets are now cobbled with reminders of their last decent into a loss of morality and humanity.

One, who's street were once lined with baying, jearing crowds as the thousand of of their fellow citizens and neighbours were openly moved through the city on public transport to a hall. Where the new ECB Headquarters now stand. To be sent to their eventual death. I expected better of this city, this country and it's people.

When something happens to you directly, that also cements the feeling of shock and disappointment. When my work colleagues went drinking, I did not. My team leaders and colleagues, some once respected, say that the unvaccinated should pay the consequences for their choices (their basic human right to do so, remember!) one even says that they should be excluded more than now! Others who see the madness of it all, simply shrug and try to change the subject. The few friends I have left who still can be bothered to meet me, seem to agree. Well, some do! Yet still, they all roll over and comply.

Still take their jabs.

Still wear their masks.

Still take their tests.

Still show their pass.

Telling me it is simply too difficult to have to miss out on things!

Well, it is. I can assure you. It is very difficult. And if they remove the option for testing and move to a 2G system, then it will become very difficult for millions more.

It brings me down everyday it is rubbed in my face. It crushes my very soul. Every time I walk by a busy street cafe and bar, everytime I see snaking queues outside test centres, every time I see that people accept this as even remotely acceptable or normal, a little bit of my heart grows colder. And I see it every single day.

When night time curfews were introduced in April this year, what limited existence I had was shattered. This cut me off from what is still my only social contact.

When you live alone in a small apartment, in a different country you can get used to loneliness. When you weren't able to see your family at Christmas and infact have not seen them since January 2020, you sometimes struggle. But it becomes a lot harder to cope when you are totally isolated.

Yes, daily I go to work. I've worked throughout this pandemic. Except for the initial 4 week lockdown at the end of March, I have been in the office every, whilst the majority of my team work from home. Still being the only employee who has attended work almost non stop these last 15 months. I was expected to come into the office at at time of significant risk, saying many people each day, even carrying a letter in case I was stopped by the police on the way to or from work.

But now I am being expected to take a vaccine to partake in normal life. And in not doing so, I am privately, professionally and publicly attacked, smeared, insulted and now actually excluded? I am to be further isolated, all the while being told that I am selfish? That I deserve this treatment. That there are consequences to my choice.

Well, tell me how these disgusting "consequences" are remotely proportionate to the choice of exercising your basic human rights?

When the mounting body of evidence shows just how preposterous vaccine passports are as an infection control tool.

They cannot even be defended as a stick to enforce vaccine uptake, when that idea is so unethical and counter to what makes us human, it should not even be considered as a valid argument to use. In any democratic society!

Just two year ago, the thought of mandatory vaccines to partake in normal life sounded as far-fetched as it did morally repugnant. Yet here we are, people advocating, accepting and acquiescing to this madness.

The law was changed just last week in Germany to allow companies to not only now ask employees their previously protected private medical information, in this instance their vaccination status, but be able to store and use that information.

Think deeply about that.

This change in law is currently limited to health care workers, educational settings and close contact public bodies. Which is bad enough as it is. And I feel sorry for those like me in those professions. But you only have to look to the UK or Italy to see where this will eventually lead for all of us.

The existing law says that companies cannot ask for this information. And rightly so!

But sadly, as we have seen recently, with companies in the UK such as Morrison's or previous statements from the Germany Health Minister, that the idea of financial penalties being enacted on the non-vaccinated are already here.

How long before it becomes a requirement for simply going to work? To being able to feed yourself and your family? To be able to shop? To be able to earn your wage? To be able travel again? To receive medical treatment?

It is no longer far-fetched for me to ask those questions anymore. I've seen how quickly we've gone to get to here, in just 18 months.

People have short memories. I’m often reminded of one particular line from George Orwell’s novel - 1984.

"History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right."

They quickly forget each step that was taken in these last 18 months, that slowly stripped and peeled away another layer of hard earned rights, and now demands the very thing their jailer wanted all along!

At this point it is clear that they will do everything in their power to not only maintain that power but extend it by repeating the same cruel tactics as last year.

People don't realise the damage that lockdowns have done. The missed treatments. The crippling fear. The lost businesses. The domestic violence. The poverty caused. The lives lost.

Or the damage that curfew and social isolation has done. The suicides. The depressions. The emptiness that you've fueled. Then those who developed these barbaric campaigns against their fellow eearthlings have to audacity to offer advice on people's mental healthy!

That’s not even getting into the actual documented damage that vaccines have caused many people affected by life changing side effects. That’s an equally pressing subject to address, but for another day.

Right now, we need to ask why are there so many peole that don’t seem to realise the dangers to them if vaccine passports are introduced?

As someone who is completely discriminated against and isolated by their usage, I’ll attest that they have no place whatsoever in any society, city or country that attempts to call itself civilised.

Just like all of the world's government's recent measures, they go too far, at too much cost, for little to no proven benefit.

Whatever you can do to resist them, I beg you that you do. Whatever it takes. No matter how small or how big.

We now stand at another crossroads in history.

I genuinely fear that Germany has sadly already embarked upon the wrong path and it will be too hard to change course now.

But it is not too late for your country.

Maybe it is not too late for mine, either.

Let us all hope that none of us are beyond redemption, just yet.