Propaganda, censorship, authoritarianism, irrationality, betrayal of science, institutionalized discrimination, collective psychosis, and moral degeneration of citizens; for many like me, the world, into which we have been dragged under the pretext of the dangers of the pandemic, is a nightmare from which we try in vain to wake up. We are understanding that this world of fear and lies is real. In this regard, frustration, disappointment, and anger are everyday feelings.
Remember the barbarities of past times
What we live takes us to the preambles of the greatest barbarities experienced by humanity. Our warnings offend purists of history, unable to see patterns, draw lessons and raise alarms when the paths taken lead to the precipice. We are surprised that those people who are offended by an analogy are not insulted by injustice, evil, and lies. It frustrates that those pleasers are our neighbors, friends and family. We are disappointed to learn that those we esteemed would once have raised their arms in salute to the most despicable beings.
Uncertainty overwhelms us as we watch the last glimmers of freedom fade. We are terrified of a world devoid of agency, of warmth, of optimism, of humanity. We see how, as in other moments of history, the masses are in a kind of trance. Their obedient submission and complicity are allowing those who hold power to snatch inch by inch what until 2 years ago were basic rights that humanity had won with blood.
We do not accept impositions
Those of us who do not accept the imposition of this quasi-totalitarian system have reached the point where we do not care what they think of us. At this point our disappointment is much greater than the repudiation that our thinking can cause.
We have decided to build what the dissident and later Czechoslovak president Václav Havel would call: “parallel structures”. We will be moral enclaves in an immoral world. We will informally promote an existential revolution, living life in a human way with: reason, conscience and responsibility.
In our context, this means that: we will live without fear, we will teach our children the value of freedom and we will build for them, if necessary, a new world based on our principles and values. Our dissidence will be a beacon of light for those who are still in the shadows. We will be the greatest threat to those who use lies to subdue. They will hate us, they will want to intimidate us, but they will not be able to break us: we are free and, even if they ever chain us, we will continue to be that way.
