Sweden and Japan are as far away as China is near

Italian Health Minister Speranza hopes that the sense of responsibility would prevail so to avoid a new quarantine by Andrea Monti – Originally published in Italian by Infosec.News

The Minister’s statement reveals that the government has already decided to enforce a new global lockdown (or that it is every day more likely.)
Putting aside the past political controversies, right now the options are unavoidable: either we enforce self-restraint, or the government will do it on our behalf.
We have already experienced what a quarantine looks like, and we can imagine what might happens when we read news such as that of the assault in Livorno by a Carabinieri patrol carried out not by dangerous criminals, but by citizens out of control.

Vaccines and therapies aside, past and recent history teaches us that epidemics are contained first of all by staying away from each other (all the more, all the better) which does not necessarily mean “quarantine” as Japan and Sweden teach. In these countries, the observance of such an elementary principle did not need a deluge of inapplicable, ineffective and therefore useless edicts, but only individual common sense.

The government’s attempt, therefore, seems to be that of experimenting with a North-Eastern approach to the COVID-19 containment. A commendable choice, capable of sprouting the weapons of those who cry out to the “health dictatorship”. Therefore, we must ask them: if you are so worried about “freedom”, why do you not do your part by helping to avoid opportunities for contagion instead of fomenting them?

The answer – in general terms – to this question involves addressing two aspects: political exploitation and social fatigue generated by the global situation.

It is quite clear that the needs arising from the pandemic fueled a political strategy that unscrupulously instrumentalises the concept of “freedom” and which does not care about the consequences of such a strategy, no matter how dire. As if to say: “the surgery was successful, the patient died”.

Rather than championing “ideals” carefully and longtime hidden under the carpet in the name of “I own the right”, now is the time to cooperate.

The structural, almost genetic Italian unwillingness to take on some of the burden generated by the pandemic accentuates the effects of social fatigue, which add to the adverse effects caused by the country’s economic and financial conditions. Add, moreover, the perception of the lack of a practical project to prevent the ship from sinking, supported by the analysis of glances, proxemics and micro-movements of the faces of politicians and grand commis during interviews and public outings.

The result is simple enough to calculate: public disorder, police intervention, feeding the delusions of conspiracy-makers, even more disorder, and on to disintegration or dictatorship, invoked as a last resort.

As dystopian as the scenario might be, the elements to realise it are all there. Before we go down this road, we should ask ourselves: why, when faced with a simple solution based on a sense of responsibility, do we ask for another one that is irrational as well as dangerous?

One possible answer is: “because individual rights as a counterbalance to duty have been replaced by überrights, i.e. by individual and individualised claims in the name of which what applies to itself must bind everyone else. The überdright might seems an abstract philosophical concept. However, in reality, it has extremely real consequences because it undermines the foundation of civil coexistence, namely the social and legal recognition of the existence of “others”.

If this is so, then it explains why the Minister’s words of hope become desperate words, and why while Sweden and Japan are fading away at the horizon, China is getting closer and closer.

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