William Nattrass
Lockdown resentment is growing in Europe
'Traitors to the nation,' read placards carried by protestors in Prague this week, depicting government figures who have imposed new lockdown restrictions on the unvaccinated. Anger has been bubbling under the surface in eastern and central Europe. But as new lockdowns are imposed and governments consider making vaccines compulsory, this resentment is now threatening to burst out into the open.
Czech protests have been mild compared to the unrest seen in other European countries. Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte described recent riots in Rotterdam as 'pure violence,' with police firing warning shots at protestors and inflicting multiple injuries. In Brussels, tear gas and water cannons were used to contain a 35,000-strong protest which turned violent. Further protests are taking place this weekend throughout Europe, as well as further afield from Australia to the Caribbean.
It’s clear that the prospect of a return to tough Covid measures is proving the final straw for many. Austria has been rocked by particularly large protests against its return to lockdown and controversial move to consider making vaccines compulsory.
Nearby countries such as Germany and the Czech Republic look increasingly likely to follow suit on both lockdown and vaccines – and with feelings already running high, more protests can be expected if they choose to go down the Austrian path. The divisive atmosphere is a far cry from the praise heaped on central European countries for much of the pandemic, for their supposed success in getting populations onside by communicating the scientific basis for lockdown measures.
A new cynicism is instead taking hold. And although resentment appears to be greatest among the unvaccinated, anger is growing among the jabbed too. As in the UK, governments in Europe have held up vaccination as the golden ticket out of the Covid crisis; yet once again leaders are hitting the panic button. Austrian chancellor Alexander Schallenberg has said the country's current lockdown will last no more than 20 days, while a lockdown now imposed in neighbouring Slovakia will supposedly last only two weeks. But bitter experience has made people wary about these promises, and with winter approaching it’s hard to believe that restrictions, once imposed, will be lifted anytime soon.
Anger is exacerbated by the example set in the UK, where, despite high numbers of cases, full lockdown measures haven’t yet been reintroduced. The arrival of the new Omicron variant is complicating matters, but many on the Continent have been left wondering why the UK has so far been able to ride out its latest Covid wave while their countries haven’t.
The answer lies partly in the fact that daily death rates are already higher in countries with relatively low vaccine uptake, like the Czech Republic and Slovakia, than they are in Britain. But it’s also important to remember that, in many cases, European governments never clearly handed back responsibility on Covid to the people. Not all of these countries had a ‘Freedom Day’, when control over the lives of citizens was relinquished. And b continuing to mandate rules such as mask wearing and the requirement to show Covid documentation as part of day-to-day life throughout the summer, European governments kept the lives of citizens in their hands.
This has made the reintroduction of tougher restrictions far less of a leap for these countries than it would be in Britain. While the UK fiercely debates new measures, including the return of mandatory face masks in shops and on trains as announced by Boris Johnson yesterday, this amounts to little more than what many in Europe have faced throughout the summer.
In this context, it’s clear that there was a deep symbolic significance in the shedding of restrictions on ‘Freedom Day’ – decried at the time by many on the other side of the Channel as dangerous, ridiculous or both. The event marked a fundamental shift in attitudes towards state intervention on Covid in the UK; a vital step which governments in mainland Europe never took.
In the absence of any such covenant between the state and the people on a return to the principle of individual self-determination, European countries are now slipping all too easily back into the rut of tough lockdown restrictions. Having refused to hand back responsibility to the people when they could, governments will find it difficult to avoid the path of ever tighter state controls in the months ahead. And as another winter of discontent looms, recent examples of civil unrest in Europe could be just the tip of the iceberg.
