The other day I boarded a train, homeward bound after a weekend trip to Edinburgh. I settled into my seat, mask hanging haphazardly on my chin as I sipped my cappuccino, grateful for a few hours’ breathing space. But as the train rushed along the north-eastern coastline I soon found myself far from relaxed, but rather with a rising irritation and a bizarre urge to throw something, or to scream protractedly like Mean Girls’ Regina George.
What could possibly give rise to such a feeling, you ask? Certainly no-one on the train was annoying me – nobody chewed too loudly or yelled down their phone. Perhaps it was a combination of things, including being a little tired – yet I realised that I recognised this strangled feeling, for it’s been living with me, increasingly, for many months.
That feeling is rage.
I have not said much on social media on any of the following, but as a matter of conscience, I’ll take this one opportunity to use my voice. Even if I’m wrong, at least I said what I thought.
I feel anger at what is happening in Australia right now- anger and dismay that people, even healthy, uninfected people, are being sent to quarantine camps.
I feel anger at what is happening in Austria and Germany, with mandatory vaccinations set to be introduced.
I feel anger at the lies, confusion and utter lack of logic propagated every single day by our leaders and our media outlets; by the same leaders who will not deign to play by their own rules.
I feel anger at the goalpost shifting, the firing of many of the same people we clapped for religiously every Thursday last year, the devastating cost to people’s livelihoods, children’s mental health, missed cancer screenings, and the never-ending merry-go-round we cannot get off.
I feel anger at the fact that I could see this awful trajectory since summer 2020 and was met with derision and scorn from some of the few I shared those thoughts with. I wanted to be wrong, as they suggested.
And mostly I feel anger at the fact that so few will speak up, if they even care at all.
I hate that this even needs to be said, but I am not an ‘anti-vaxxer’ as some of you might gleefully suggest. Ad hominems only further division. I have had all the usual jabs up until this point. I also acknowledge that the Covid vaccines seem to be reducing the likelihood of severe illness and death in those who would be otherwise vulnerable to severe illness and death. That is a good thing!! But I also acknowledge that statistics around the world paint a damning portrait of the vaccine’s ability to reduce transmission – meaning that:
a) you’re hardly, if at all, more responsible for killing somebody if you pass on the virus unvaccinated than if you are vaccinated, and
b) mandatory vaccinations and lockdowns for the unvaccinated are utterly insane, unscientific and disastrous for public trust.
Am I missing something here or is that not quite obvious? Even Bill Gates said a few weeks back that these vaccines don’t really reduce transmission (I won’t go and find the link because you can research it yourself). We’ve been lied to, over and over again.
Why am I getting so worked up about this, you may ask? Firstly, because it makes little sense to me. Why should young, healthy people have to get three shots in the space of a year, plus God knows how many more in future, for a virus they have such excellent chances of recovering from – when doing so won’t stop anyone else catching it?
I chose not to get vaccinated, for reasons I don’t need to go into here. I recovered fully from Covid (passed on to me by someone who’d had three jabs), yet despite my natural immunity, I cannot visit my own family abroad or go on holiday wherever I want. Instead people like me are constantly ridiculed and belittled, despite my being health-conscious and putting almost no burden on the NHS in my entire life.
It infuriates me to know that deep down, some do see that this doesn’t make sense, and yet, understandably, they’ll take the jabs because they were told it was the right thing to do, or because they cannot travel, or because they want to keep the peace – and despite all, they’re still living with restrictions just like me.
The second reason this bothers me so much is because throughout history, no-one has ever looked at behaviour like we’re seeing from various governments across the Western world, and said that those were the good guys.
I’m half German, as some of you know. My late grandfather lived through the Second World War and later through the Soviet occupation. He was once arrested by the Stasi and interrogated with a gun held to his head.
My father is Portuguese, and until the 1970s Portugal suffered under a Fascist dictatorship.
So I guess you could say that I am pretty anti-authoritarian, and never fully assume that a government has the people’s best interests at heart. Understanding how people have behaved in the past gives you a pretty good idea of how they will behave in the future, for human nature has not changed. Perhaps, too, my work on opposing abortion has also made me rather sceptical about the benevolence of our leaders: They permit the deaths of hundreds of unborn babies every day and use your tax money to fund it. Why would you assume they have the moral high ground?
In the past, Jews were scapegoated for the wrongs in Germany, and it did not end well. Scapegoating is never a good idea and that applies in this case too. Blaming a virus on those who choose, for whatever reason, not to be vaccinated, is unfair. The hostility shown from some towards such people is disgraceful to me. Please, I beg you, turn off the TV for a while, detach yourself from the fear narrative and remember that you are a human being created in God’s image. Remember your fellow human beings deserve kindness and dignity even if their choices differ to yours – yes, even if their choices seem ill-advised or stupid to you.
People make all kinds of health decisions every day that I do not agree with: Alcohol abuse, smoking, eating junk food on a regular basis, not exercising. Those poor lifestyle choices not only make them more susceptible to becoming seriously ill if they get Covid, but they also give them other health problems as well, sometimes chronic. I find it frustrating at times that my tax money goes towards funding their treatment – yet I’d never advocate banning alcohol, cigarettes or fast food. Of course, this is largely ignored, even though helping others take responsibility for their own general health would go a long way towards saving lives and bettering their overall well-being. Sadly, many think jabs and masks are the easy way out, and give little further thought to what health actually means.
There’s more I could say, but I’ll climb off my soapbox now. I don’t claim to be right about all of these thoughts I’ve shared, there’s lots I haven’t touched on, and I don’t claim to have all of the answers – I simply recognise that this is not the kind of society I dream of for my future children, and I felt compelled to say so.
If you disagree, no hard feelings. But if you’ve been starting to wonder if maybe there is something wrong with all this, you’re not alone.
In the midst of all this craziness, Jesus is still King. He is the only one who is pure, uncorrupted, and truly has your best interests at heart. I thank God that He is in control; that these things, as frustrating as they are, are temporal, and one day He will return in glory to make all things new.
Until then, pass me a paper bag, so I can scream to my heart’s content.
The Accessible Christian 
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