Censorship and the road to apartheid

I find the current state of the world extremely concerning. For weeks I have tiptoed on social media and things have started building up inside me until they have come to a point where something must be said (or written). The reason I have tiptoed on social media and the internet is because of the censorship occurring online at the moment. Groups, posts and people’s accounts are being removed, and the global narrative is becoming more and more one sided. Regardless of “which side” you are on this should concern everyone, as we are no longer allowed freedom of speech or freedom of choice. Following this is segregation of the people, as views on current issues become more and more polar opposites.

This article is not about my beliefs or feelings, the decisions I make for myself or which side I am on, rather it is the concern that people’s beliefs and decisions get them censored, segregated and suppressed. This is discrimination, this is segregation, this is apartheid. (Apartheid means segregation in Dutch, and we are headed there globally).

From 1937 to 1939 the Jewish people were not allowed to go to cinemas, public events and sometimes not even allowed on the streets of Germany. We all know what happened in the years after. Have we forgotten this part of history? Have we forgotten the principles so many of our grandparents have fought for? The freedoms that were hard earned in those years? And are we so confident in our own righteousness that we happily throw those freedoms away? The situation in the world today makes a mockery of the sacrifices of the past. Even if we cannot come together on other issues, surely we can come together on this.

The Jewish people were forced to wear a mark showing they were Jewish and were shunned by the rest of German society. We are now being forced to wear a different mark, but still a mark. A mark which identifies our medical choice, a mark which shows everyone a medical decision which should be our freedom of choice and a personal and private decision. Do we really want to discriminate against people for making a different lifestyle choice than us? What about you? Do you live differently than others? Are you a woman, gay, black, muslim, jewish, christian, punk, goth or wish to identify as such? Are you being discriminated against because of that? How is this different?

If we allow this apartheid to occur, our freedoms will be open to more erosion. Now it is focused on one particular thing, but this opens the authority of governing bodies up to further inhibit our personal freedom. This coercion, this censorship, this enforced segregation of those who do and those who don’t is opening us all up to the possibility of dictatorial leadership in currently democratic societies, even under the guise of democracy.

Lest we forget…. Let us not forget the sacrifices our forefathers made to offer us the freedoms of today. Let us not forget Nuremberg for two reasons. One is the Nuremberg Laws, which were the law for the protection of German Blood and German Honour and the Reich Citizenship Law. These enabled the persecution of the Jews, Romani (Gypsy) people, special needs and gay people.
The other is the Nuremberg Code, which is the most complete and authoritative statement of the law of informed consent to human experimentation. This was instated after the inhumane experimentation by the German Third Reich on living human beings and is accepted worldwide.

We do not want to reinstate the first, and we want to abide by the second. Let us not forget, let us be united, at least in this, before it is too late and our freedoms have disappeared.

Author: Zaia Kendall

Zaia grew up in a family of musicians in Holland, and has a background in top sport (snow skiing) and web development and design. She co-founded the PRI Luganville and PRI Sunshine Coast Inc (now PermEco Inc.) with Tom, and runs the “invisible structures”, like finances, business administration, website design and maintenance, writes articles and records and edits videos. She assists Tom in running the Kendall Permaculture Farm and supervising other volunteers. She is an active member of several musical projects and bands, involved in community music and runs percussion and marimba workshops, is the percussion leader for the Woodford Folk Festival People’s Orchestra and composes as well as plays music. She is passionate about community music and loves seeing people discover that they can play!