Massimo Cacciari, Giorgio Agamben — About the “green pass” decree
English translation of the joint piece by Massimo Cacciari and Girogio Agamben
The discrimination of a category of people, who automatically become second-class citizens, is in itself a very serious matter, the consequences of which can be dramatic for democratic life. It is being dealt with, with the so-called green pass, with unconscious lightness. Every despotic regime has always operated through practices of discrimination, at the beginning maybe contained and then rampant. It is no coincidence that in China they say they want to continue with tracking and monitoring even at the end of the pandemic. And it is worth remembering the “internal passport” that citizens of the Soviet Union had to show to the authorities for each movement. When then a political exponent comes to address those who do not vaccinate using a fascist jargon as “we will purge them with the green pass” there is really to fear to be already beyond any constitutional guarantee.
Woe if the vaccine turns into a sort of political-religious symbol. This would not only represent an intolerable anti-democratic drift, but would conflict with the same scientific evidence. No one invites not to vaccinate! One thing is to support the usefulness of the vaccine, however, another, completely different, to remain silent about the fact that we are still in a phase of “mass testing” and that on many fundamental aspects of the problem the scientific debate is completely open. The Official Journal of the European Parliament of June 15 u.s. states clearly: “It is necessary to avoid direct or indirect discrimination against people who are not vaccinated, even those who have chosen not to be vaccinated.” And how could it be otherwise? The vaccinated can not only infect, but can still get sick: in England out of 117 new deaths 50 had received the double dose. In Israel it is estimated that the vaccine covers 64% of those who received it. The same pharmaceutical companies have officially declared that it is not possible to predict the long-term damage of the vaccine, not having had time to carry out all the tests of genotoxicity and carcinogenicity. “Nature” has calculated that it will still be physiological that 15% of the population will not take the vaccine. We will therefore have to stay with the pass until when?
Everyone is threatened by discriminatory practices. Paradoxically, those “enabled” by the green pass even more than the non-vaccinated (which a propaganda regime would like to pass as “enemies of science” and perhaps proponents of magical practices), since all their movements would be controlled and you could never come to know how and by whom. The need to discriminate is as old as the society, and certainly was already present in ours, but to make it law today is something that the democratic conscience can not accept and against which it must immediately react.
July 26, 2021
