Va pensiero (pt. 2)

Oh, my homeland, so lovely and so lost! Oh memory, so dear and so dead!

As promised, here is a bit more information about my two main inspirations (motivations).

With respect to my chosen title, Die Fackel 2.0, I wish to highlight but a very brief list of considerations, in particular beginning with Kraus’ anti-war masterpiece, The Last Days of Mankind (1915-19, full German text via Projekt Gutenberg, an abridged English version may be obtained at the Internet Archive), in which the satirist took aim at the wide-spread euphoria that had engulfed as its leaders happily led a large segment of the European peoples to their rendezvous with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Death, Famine, War, and Conquest (via Wikipedia).

In these past strange days, weeks, months, and, yes, years of Covid-19, which occur on top of rising Russo- and Sinophobia on part of the U.S.-led alliances across the world, one would have to be a misanthrope and sado-masochist not to fear the spectre of war. It is 2021, and the infamous Doomsday Clock, run by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, is set at ‘100 seconds to midnight’. One does not have to be a parent (I am) to try to contribute to turning back the clock.

As regards the theme I alluded to in my first post, Verdi’s beautiful Va pensiero, one cannot fail to mention the past 19 months.

All over the world, we the people have been treated like prisoners by the governments that—let’s face it—claim to represent us. While that may have been justifiable on medical grounds or for reasons related to public health in early 2020, we all need to remember: it would take merely two weeks, or 14 days, ‘to flatten the curve’.

Well, look at us all, now.

It’s 18 or 19 months later, and governmental restrictions on civil liberties, fundamental, if not inalienable, rights are still on the books. Speaking of books, I wish to remind everyone that, while these measures may be grounded in this or that piece of legislation, for the most part these restrictions have been imposed by executive authority.

What’s the difference, you may ask?

I’m glad you did, for one doesn’t have to be a legal scholar to understand the relationship between primary and secondary legislation (which even Wikipedia lists correctly [on 26 Sept. 2021]): primary legislation is created by representation-in-parliament, while secondary legislation, per Wikipedia, is ‘also called delegated legislation or subordinate legislation’, with the primary and secondary legislation ‘created respectively by the legislative and executive branches of government’ (my emphases).

Note the clear and distinct fact that ‘primary’ comes before ‘secondary’ (doh), which means that governmental actions—or those of regulatory bodies, such as, say, public health authorities, for that matter—are deriving their power from legislation passed by parliament, such as laws that afford the government special powers to deal with public health emergencies.

Recognition thereof, then, begs two central questions, I submit:

1. How good (or bad) would you consider your representatives’ sincerity in holding government to account since early 2020?

2. What are the odds that parliament will, eventually, rein in government once the present crisis is over?

These are, of course, tricky questions, and they do not apply to each and everyone in the same manner. If, say, you’re in Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, Sweden), life is almost back to ‘normal’, whatever that might mean. If you’re not in northern Europe, however, SARS-CoV2 and Covid-19 are one of, if not the, overarching determinant of your life these days.

If you think it shouldn’t be, these considerations may be for you. I, for one, don’t think that any sane person should allow government a free hand to impose itself on the people. I know it’s a timeworn, if not outright old-fashioned, trope, but Benjamin Franklin was right:

‘Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.’

As explained by Benjamin Wittes, editor-in-chief of Lawfare and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in an interview with NPR back in 2015: ‘It is a quotation that defends the authority of a legislature to govern in the interests of collective security’ (my emphasis).

If you still think, 18 or 19 months (and counting) after governments all over the globe told us it would take ‘two weeks to flatten the curve’, that those who determine the state of emergency to endure are our government, we should all remember what Carl Schmitt had to say about this:

Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.

And herein I found the reason why I became increasingly worried over these past 18 or 19 months. You know, back in school we were taught that ‘all power derives from the people’, but somewhere in the not-too-remote past, this quintessential knowledge has apparently (mostly) vanished.

Hence, the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Nabucco.

Fly, my thoughts, on wings of gold
Go settle upon the slopes and the hills,
Where, soft and mild, the sweet airs
Of my native land smell fragrant!

Greet the banks of the Jordan
And Zion’s toppled towers.
Oh, my homeland, so lovely and so lost!
Oh memory, so dear and so dead!