2023-08-26 21:30:00
TRIBUNE/OPINION – While the media talks about the Eris variant… While the masks return to the faces… While the Minister of Health says that we must “take back the reflex of putting on a mask”… We must get out of amnesia, this amnesia that leads to apathy, in order to act, in order to be a political actor, for oneself and for everyone. Identify the same dysfunctions, for so-called health purposes, but also climatic, but also terror. See these common points which lead to ever more restrictions, suppression of fundamental freedoms, to more and more controls over everything, even over the most everyday and trivial acts, from dematerialization to an all-digital for a mechanistic mode, towards single thought to follow only meaningless and contradictory injunctions; to become obedient without conscience, to function like puppets. Part two: the return of masks?
I. Mandatory mask: a measure, without measure, a de-measure
Never has the mask supposed to fight against the epidemic been so badly worn. With the obligation (1), these are masks that are constantly touched, crushed, put in pockets, taken out for a few minutes to buy the wand that we use. They are damp from being worn too long. Worse, we will keep them for days, as long as they hold. All this is very far from the essential recommendations to follow to wear them as effectively as possible. An efficiency which remains even there quite relative: it is only a tool, whose probabilities of efficiency are measured in percentage, which is by far the zero risk that too many want to believe.
Because there is a physiological need not to wear them too long. The human being, which is an animal, has the essential function of breathing. Which means, for simplicity, taking in oxygen when inhaling and releasing CO2 when exhaling. Not to reinject his own CO2 into his body, as evidenced by this feeling of shortness of breath, these headaches, which are explained by a lack of oxygenation.
In addition to the psychological aspect of closure with what is similar to a muzzle, the organic component requires sparing use. And above all to favor physical distances. Which is not very pleasant socially either, I grant you. But being able to breathe well, for his physical and mental balance is essential (2).
Masks placed on the dashboard of a car, August 6, 2020. Man driving, in his car… July 24, 2023.
With Prime Minister Jean Castex, it is a new step that has been made so that he can mark his territory and register in the memory of the French, by obliging the latter.
With his teammate Macron, this couple wanted to be authoritative under the guise of effectiveness against a virus. Convincing? Many are those decerebrated by fear who have approved, thinking that thus they participate at their small level in the health resolution, by having a little power over the annihilation of the coronavirus. What is certain in terms of results is inevitably the resurgence of a society of control, coercion, and infantilization.
The downward spiral of freedoms, intelligence and democracy continues, when one could hope for a level after these last months of restrictions. The perverse cycle starts again. Mistrust towards everyone, thus muzzled, as well as their sensory isolation, is accentuated. In addition to giving credence to a means, which looks more and more like superstition.
Who will perhaps even succeed in making some people believe that if there is no “second wave”, that it is thanks to him, ex Mr. deconfinement who has become head of government! That in view of the forced and risky use of the mask, of this disproportionate use that it brings between putting on this mask for too long or touching it permanently, if there is none, it is that the epidemic had said the final word, that the risk was no longer…
We have the victories that we can!
II. Do we still have the “right to breathe”?
Originally, it was a right to have healthy air, and therefore to demand that air quality be taken into account, assuming the fight against atmospheric pollution. A legitimate right after all, to which, one suspects, Anne Hidalgo’s anti-car policy refers, which does not really give nuance, resembling a fad, even a relentlessness, where the motorist becomes guilty of all the ills associated with pollution.
This right to breathe, which I claim, in view of a new dancer from this mayor, re-elected yet with a record abstention rate and who calls for this mask not only compulsory in closed places, but also outside!
Is it motivated by a real danger and convincing figures, could it be a measure limited in time, in relation to concrete results? No. Only based on “maybe”, “it could be”… Whether at the level of the contaminations that would have occurred, or at the level of a real usefulness in the face of a danger, a seriousness…
But does she know that wearing a mask is preventing people from breathing healthily. It’s forcing you to breathe your C02 / carbon dioxide – yes the same as in particular that cars emit! -, which normally leaves your lungs to let in a new supply of oxygen (3). It is not at all a detail for the health of our organism. Breathing is one of the essential fundamental elements to oxygenate our cells, our brain, our tissues. Altered, our whole body is deficient.
You can’t prevent someone else’s breathing, with such inconsistency! Except in case of emergency and absolute necessity. That the risk of disturbing the breathing of others in a limited time, is less serious than a virus; not in a “probable hypothetical”, that maybe, that we could warn if ever…
It’s time to come to terms with it. Recall that the probable is not not what East.
Decisions are made by a few people in a “Scientific Council” (4), barely ten, supposed to give an opinion, not even confronted with other opinions, finding themselves with disproportionate power. Politicians seem to obey them blindly, more exactly to unload on them… When the time comes for reckoning, for the (in)validity of their decisions. “It’s not us!”these rulers will say, “they are the scientists who told us what to do!”…
In practical terms, all of this amounts to basing these decisions on a few people qualified as scientists – scientists not meaning to hold the truth, nor to be right! – which condition the lives of nearly 70 million citizens! What legal liability are they liable for in the event of errors of assessment already committed? In one opinion, it becomes a dictateon contingencies…
The executive power has become omnipotent king. Where are the checks and balances?
Where is the legal power at this time of epidemic? Where is the judiciary? Where is the right? Where are the critical analyzes of the situation, of these cascades of figures? When are we going to get out of arbitrariness, excitement, announcement effects? Is there a pilot on the plane ?
There too, we have the right to breathe, psychically speaking. Solving this epidemic is not the responsibility of citizens, and should not be done by attacking them, by affecting their physical and mental health with impunity. This logic of customs clearance also on us is unbearable. Matched in addition to this vagueness, to this putting in ignorance and fear, to submit ourselves, willingly or by force. If constraints are justified, it is a question of proving it to us concretely and with a limited duration in time.
This is what rulers who have the competence to govern would be like. People who would have that stature. Responsible people in short, and humble. Like a De Gaulle in the middle of a meltdown, seen as a fanatic who does not believe in the inevitable defeat. On the contrary of all these followers, who worryingly end up in other countries, taking the same coercive measures. Follow, do the same, to clear customs?
We deserve this “pilot”, who will change the course. Who will respect us in our freedoms and our free will. When leading is never submitting. And there, this epidemic and all the others can be overcome.
*Laurence Waki is a writer and philosopher. Find his texts on his site internet.
Notes :
(1) The first part of this text was written in its original version on July 17, 2020 and published on the website of Laurence Waki.
(2) Author’s note – Doctor Nicole Delépine offered a dissenting voice to the consensus, who can assume that all doctors are far from being able to make themselves heard by the general public, and especially by the government; although there can be no certainties in medicine.
(3) Author’s note – For precise medical insight into the need for breathing on health, see this link.
(4) This text, its second part, was written in its original version on August 5, 2020 and published on the website of Laurence Waki.
#return #mask