Second-class citizens
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, July 16, 2021
As happens whenever a despotic emergency regime is established and constitutional guarantees are suspended, the result is, such as occurred to the Jews under fascism, the discrimination of a category of people, who automatically become second-class citizens. This is the aim of the creation of the so-called green pass. That it is a discrimination based on personal convictions rather than on an objective scientific certainty is proven by the fact that the debate about the safety and efficacy of vaccines is still ongoing in the scientific community, given that according to the opinion of doctors and scientists — that are worth being taken seriously — such vaccines were produced quickly and without adequate testing.
Despite this, those who stick to their free and well-founded conviction and refuse to get vaccinated will be excluded from social life. That the vaccine is thus transformed in a sort of political-religious symbol aimed at creating discrimination among citizens is evident in the irresponsible statement of a politician, who, referring to those who do not get vaccinated, said, apparently oblivious of his fascist jargon: “we will purge them with the green pass”. The “green card” constitutes those who do not have it in bearers of a virtual yellow star.
It is a fact whose political gravity could not be overstated. What does a country become by creating a discriminated class? How can one accept living together with second-class citizens? The need to discriminate is as ancient as society and forms of discrimination were certainly present also in our so-called democratic societies, but that these factual discriminations are sanctioned by law is a barbarism that we cannot accept.
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, July 16, 2021
As happens whenever a despotic emergency regime is established and constitutional guarantees are suspended, the result is, such as occurred to the Jews under fascism, the discrimination of a category of people, who automatically become second-class citizens. This is the aim of the creation of the so-called green pass. That it is a discrimination based on personal convictions rather than on an objective scientific certainty is proven by the fact that the debate about the safety and efficacy of vaccines is still ongoing in the scientific community, given that according to the opinion of doctors and scientists — that are worth being taken seriously — such vaccines were produced quickly and without adequate testing.
Despite this, those who stick to their free and well-founded conviction and refuse to get vaccinated will be excluded from social life. That the vaccine is thus transformed in a sort of political-religious symbol aimed at creating discrimination among citizens is evident in the irresponsible statement of a politician, who, referring to those who do not get vaccinated, said, apparently oblivious of his fascist jargon: “we will purge them with the green pass”. The “green card” constitutes those who do not have it in bearers of a virtual yellow star.
It is a fact whose political gravity could not be overstated. What does a country become by creating a discriminated class? How can one accept living together with second-class citizens? The need to discriminate is as ancient as society and forms of discrimination were certainly present also in our so-called democratic societies, but that these factual discriminations are sanctioned by law is a barbarism that we cannot accept.
(English translation by Nobody’s Perfect)
Enrico Baj, Kiss Me I’m Italian, 1972. Courtesy of WikiArt.
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