People do not want war

Hatred is born of fear and raised by ignorance. And that ignorance sprouts its tender leaves long before it develops its thorns. We accepted the greenery bursting from the soil of indifference, exhaustion and spite because we didn’t know their names then and once we knew it was too late.

The indifferent, caught unawares by the passing pleasures and pain of worldly things; the exhausted, weary and hungry and broken by worldly demands; and the spiteful who lived for the days of greed and vengeance to extract their needs from the world—all ending up where they ended up. We know now, from history and the slow careful collection of the way things were, just where those places they ended up were.

But we are seemingly outside of history now that it is being quickly reformulated or eradicated—racing at Space-Age speed in a whirlwind without the same time to learn the lessons we once would learn to prevent or at least mitigate the bad things. Now we have to learn at a frantic pace for the sake of the future.

And we have not yet learned the lessons of the C*vid response as we should. Not at all. Because learning those lessons is harder than anything we could want to learn. But learn them we must. For the future. If that matters. For the children so that they might not go wild-eyed into the sunrises of their lives without the wisdom of the ages at their back. And it doesn’t matter if you believe or don’t believe the official narrative of the C*vid response or not. It does not matter a bit. The lessons are to be learned by us all so we might teach and prevent the bad or at least mitigate it if we can.

We must teach the children about hate. Because we are living in times of fear. That fear lies hidden inside all that we witness now. It is woven into the day-to-day as if the darkness of past events has been unravelled and rethreaded into our lives.

Perhaps we can pull at any given hanging bit of thread and it will unravel the world. The world as it has been made to be, full of that fear. Perhaps we can. Perhaps we can’t. It was once enough to know that it was there. In the day-to-day. But that is not enough now. To just know. The fears are now birthing hate and that hate will be our destiny. Unless. Always the unless.

We cannot teach if we have not learned the lessons ourselves. Honesty. Strength. Humility. In the time of deception, weakness and pride. It is a tall order. And we need to begin to understand what the fear response when C*vid hit did to us all, here at least in the Western world. And good heavens, did we have fear unlike anything at the time!

If we go back and remember. We were seeing pictures of people in China dropping dead on the street, howling as they were locked into their apartment buildings, lungs covered in ice-like structures, and in Italy churches and churchyards were filled with the dead. Huge passenger ships were brought to the harbour in New York City to act as supplemental hospitals. On the cruise ship Princess, most were expected to die. And we did not know if it was created in a lab or if we could catch it from handling paper money or any surface. We were a terrified mess. And paranoid. At least for a little while we were.

We pondered our own and human existence in an existential crisis unlike one we’ve lived to see before in our lifetime. What if the world of humans just died! An exhausting, depressing, horrible time was had by most. And we praised our brave heroes: the medical professions, the clerks in stores and businesses, the drivers and delivery people. We thought them brave and socially responsible like saints in the making.

And the governments responded. We were locked and masked up. Prohibited from so many things. There were harsh repercussions if we didn’t. Here in Quebec police would raid houses when neighbours reported more than the required number of people were having a get-together. They were called if people refused to wear a mask. Businesses and restaurants advertised how safe they were. If you didn’t wear a mask you weren’t welcome. You could walk your dog only at certain hours and could only stay within a certain perimeter. The police were there to ensure this.

People were separated from loved ones. The very old or fragile died alone in hospitals and nursing homes. The young were so isolated they were falling into mental health issues and suicidal thoughts. The old, the focus of the safety campaign were made guilty that all this was being done to “save grandma,” a choice they might not have made had they been given the choice.

Strange signs appeared telling us where to walk or stand and who could not walk or stand there. Those not complying were criminalized not just by the government but by their fellow humans. People alone in their cars wore masks—a visible sign of the kind of mental anguish this whole thing caused. Who would do that? If not someone made so afraid. Travel restricted. People were put into quarantine “camps” by law. Friends and families broke up. Fear reigned. And wherever there is fear, there is hate.

It was not like this in other countries. Other countries such as Sweden simply protected the fragile and frail and carried on. African countries without the resources did nothing and it was as if C*vid never even happened. They would fare far better than us ultimately. But that is neither here nor there, the real lessons came with the vaccine. That is where we learned the ultimate power of governments. And that is where the lessons lie for all of us, pro or con.

Life without a vaccine in Canada and elsewhere was made into a hell world for those who did not follow the party line. You would lose your job and status if you refused to be inoculated in many cases. You were threatened with legal suits, criminal charges, quarantine. If you protested enough, even without violence, such as the truckers protest of 2022, you could see your bank account frozen, be thrown into prison without a bail hearing for years, thrown into a mental asylum for forced treatment (as one priest discovered trying to feed the poor and comfort his congregation), lose your right to use social media or to speak out, have false stories made up about you to facilitate the crackdown.

In other words, you became a criminal.

Now, whether you believe that was the right thing to do or not is not the issue. Well, not the issue I’m trying to point out. The issue I’m trying to point out is how much do you trust your government? Because this is the power they have. They can lock you down. They can throw you in prison. They can quarantine you. They can label you and throw you to the wolves. They can close down your bank account. They can restrict your travel. They can ruin your relationships vicariously. They can come into your home. They can do this because fear reigns. Whether you follow or whether you don’t depends on you.

Whether you believe this was the right response or not, at least understand that all of these tactics and responses by governments are not essentially different than those of Stalin or Hitler or any other repressive regime historically at the time of crisis. And everything depends on whether the human rights that were violated are given back when the crisis is over. Governments, just by virtue of being governments can be very persuasive; particularly when they own the media listened to by the majority. How much then, do you trust your government?

Whether you agreed or disagreed human rights were violated during the C*vid response people watched these things happen to their fellow citizens. Most of them agreed. Most of them participated in condemnation of their fellow citizens. Just as they did in Germany and Russia and China during the totalitarian regimes. They believed their governments. So you’d better bloody know if your government is doing the right thing lest we repeat history. They have unbelievable power. Do not fall for a reason to hate. When our own prime minister spoke of the unvaccinated as deplorable sub-humans he didn’t know what to do with, what does that remind you of? Step outside what may be your own bias and look at it objectively.

Right now we are continuing to lose human rights such as freedom of speech. And when that goes, it all goes. Support or don’t support what is going on but it is imperative it is understood by one and all the ramifications that can come of it. It is no coincidence that at times like this, war arrives. A government is there to serve the people and people do not want war.

A government is obliged to take informed, honest and reasonable action for the sake of the people who elected them in a democracy. Did our government’s, and are our governments acting in a democracy or not? Were they fiscally responsible? Did they have our interests at heart? Do they? How much do you trust your government on all the things that make up a democracy?

Whether you agree or disagree on how the C*vid response happened, the precedent has been set and it is continuing into all the other arenas. The control is not going away. Do not fall for a reason to hate. Do not fall for any reason to hate your fellow citizens particularly. Change the course of history we seem to be on by refusing to let fear run the show. That is my hope. And that takes true soul-searching and courage. It is worth the effort.

Syvlia Shawcross is a writer based in Canada. You can read more of her work on her SubStack.