Australia, the paradise of home-grown orange pickers, a land of wild and violent natural beauty seems today, together with neighboring New Zealand, to be the vanguard of the most stringent and incomprehensible measures aimed at containing the Covid pandemic. Thus, after having put Alice Springs in lockdown at the end of June for a single infected person - a city that is more than eight hundred kilometers from the nearest urban center - in an article published in early August in the Chinese newspaper Global Times, Australia returns to honor of the chronicles thanks to the signature of the journalist Lu Xue who in turn cites Professor Chen Hong, former director of the Australian Studies Center of the East China Normal University who defines the decision to send military personnel for the containment of the covid as a "draconian measure among the nations ". Words like this appearing in an important Chinese newspaper should raise some alarm bells, if we consider the policies implemented by the Asian giant.
Harsh repression
Images of protests and riots from the land of the kangaroos circulate on the network, where the obligation of the mask is also foreseen outside, under penalty of payment of a fine of 500 Australian dollars (AUD) and where those who demonstrate without authorization can risk up to a 5,500 (AUD) fine. In an article by Rebecca Davis, which appeared on Yahoo News Australia, the journalist reports on political proposals that advocate the application of penalties of up to 11,000 AUD for those who spread disinformation on the net. The notorious fake news. One of the most disturbing incidents occurred in September last year, when a pregnant woman is taken and arrested in her home in front of her children, with the accusation linked to a protest post posted on Facebook by the same (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-54007824):
When asked what the arrest is about, one officer says: "It's in relation to a Facebook post, in relation to a lockdown protest you put on just that day".
But that's not all of course: videos are circulating like that of Dr. Kerry Chant, Chief Health Officer in New South Wales, who advises against starting even a simple conversation with one's neighbors to avoid contagion, or of the excessive power of police regarding searches and even the removal of minors if there is a suspicion that the rules indicated by the government are not strictly followed to stem the virus. A land where drones control who wears the mask or who goes too far from their home (https://www.unsw.edu.au/news/2020/04/-pandemic-drones—useful-for-enforcing-social-distancing–or-fo).
Protests and clashes continue
Even in these days, street demonstrations continue (those that in Europe are defined as "square") with orange vests, construction workers in this case, in Melbourne - a city that beats Buenos Aires for the duration of lockdown - protagonists of clashes with the police but also in many other cities, where, according to some protesters, in addition to having to face the brutality of the police (
), the social platform Facebook would have disabled the possibility of live direct. Needless to say, if such episodes had occurred in Russia instead of Australia, for example, we would witness the daily indignation of unified networks, corroborated by the usual champions of the freedoms that are so popular in the so-called West.https://twitter.com/LozzaFox/status/1441335995002093587?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1441335995002093587%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsummit.news%2F2021%2F09%2F24%2Fmore-disgusting-police-brutality-in-australia-as-orange-vest-protests-continue%2F
- LozzaFox
Australia against Covid: a cocktail of brutality and Orwellian repression
To close this brief overview of disturbing colors, we mention two enigmatic episodes: we start from the story of a man arrested and taken by force to a medical containment facility. The man, a father of two children, was even reported by his wife to the police based on his opinions on Covid management and the second who remembers, for the intimidation modality, that of the aforementioned mother, where a Australian citizen receives a visit to the home of three policemen who question him about his potential intentions to participate or not in the demonstrations we have already mentioned.
Episodes that have the flavor of those dystopias that we have found in literature and filmography. The clearly unattainable goal of what could easily be defined as a post-democracy, is to keep contagion zero, overwhelming any kind of right. The fear is that the laboratories to be feared are mainly those of social engineering rather than those of another type and that the most deadly viruses are those of disinformation and deliberate, cruel and instrumental social division. Almost as if it were one of those labyrinths where rats are tested and conditioned by specific reinforcements and / or punishments to obtain a certain result of behaviors.
In Australia, the positive Covids transferred by the army to quarantine camps
It is recent news that in the Northern Territory the Australian army is allegedly accompanying the positive to Covid at the large facility in Howard Springs, three hundred kilometers from Darwin, after nine new cases have been identified in the indigenous community of Binjari which was immediately placed in lockdown with the neighboring Rockhole community.
Both in a recent video that reached two million views in a few hours (
), and in a post on Facebook that implicitly reaffirms the intent to pursue a policy aimed at "zero Covid cases" in Australia, Michael Gunner, chief minister of the Northern Territory states that a transfer of both positive and suspected positive residents to the Howard Springs quarantine facilities is highly possible: "It's highly likely that more residents will be transferred to Howard Springs today, either as positive cases or as close contacts ".https://twitter.com/BernieSpofforth/status/1462740215571918849?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1462740215571918849%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fcovid-19%2Faustralian-army-begins-transferring-covid-positive-cases-contacts-quarantine-camps
- BernieSpofforth
Of the move to Howard Springs which in his welcome booklet advises: "Instead of considering this quarantine as a" prison ", try to see it as a moment to get to know yourself again, reflect, detoxify the media and so on" , would take care of the Australian army.
Again quoting the words of Minister Michael Gunner: “I contacted the Prime Minister last night. We are grateful for the support of about 20 ADF personnel, as well as army trucks to assist with the transfer of positive cases and close contacts - and to support the communities ".
That the reasons are linked to the difficulty of tracing and monitoring the residents of indigenous communities is of little importance to dismiss the fact, precisely because the same reasons could be adduced for anyone and everywhere. Australia and New Zealand, the new face of post-democracies.