Our special guest James K. Galbraith and David Adler tackled all your burning Green New Deal questions, including:
Why does Europe need a Green New Deal for Europe?
What the hell is the Green New Deal for Europe?
Why is the EU’s Green Deal *not* a Green New Deal for Europe?
And what is the future of the global Green New Deal movement?
Missed it? You can watch it back by clicking above.
About DiEMTV
Switch on the television from the future! We call it TV because we like retro-futurism. But it’s much more than TV. In times of global pandemics, DiEM TV is special online and completely free series to understand the current crisis and offer tools and hope to get out of it stronger and more united in building the World After Coronavirus.
On 19 March, Mario Draghi held a press conference at Palazzo Chigi to present a bill containing the highest tax amnesty in the last five years
Whilst the 32 billion appropriation for the decree had been “found” by Giuseppe Conte, three months after the last Ristori Decree, the ‘government of the best’, well behind schedule, presented its “Significant, very substantial response to poverty”.
Draghi was initially asked by Forza Italia and Lega, to indiscriminately cancel tax liabilities that should have been paid to the Treasury in the years 2000-2015. In the Support decree issued in the Official Gazette on March 22, liabilities with a residual amount of 5,000 euros are cancelled for tax evaders. The highest tax amnesty in recent years, as estimated by Skytg24, amounting to 58 billion euros.
Whereas Conte’s team were derided by the media in the past for the motto “We shall abolish poverty” associated with the citizenship income (basic income), few have challenged Draghi’s response to poverty which is basically nothing more than a tax amnesty. The media managed to find another reason to sanctify Draghi, praising his frankness when other governments attributed romantic epithets, such as Fiscal Peace, to the cancellation of tax bills.
A meaningful response to poverty? Draghi, “Words matter!”
Preliminary statistics from 4 March 2021 point out a tough headline: One million more people in absolute poverty in 2020. The incidence of absolute poverty is calculated on the minimum monthly expenditure needed to acquire a basket of goods and services. To provide an example, the poverty threshold for a three-person household in Milan is 1,578 euros. According to the Italian National Institute of Statistics, 335,000 households crossed the threshold of absolute poverty from 2019 to 2020.
There is also another form of poverty that has been on the rise in recent years, and that’s homelessness, of which we have little data. According to the last ISTAT survey of 2015, the estimated homeless population in Italy is 50,724 people, with Milan and Rome “hosting” nearly 40 percent of them. We opened January 2021 with the dramatic news of 9 frostbite deaths in the streets of Rome, whilst a month later a 75 year-old man died of hypothermia in Milan. What measures has the government taken for these poor people in the midst of a pandemic? Fines.
There has been no shortage of surreal news of 400 euro fines to the homeless. In the meantime, Italians have shown solidarity in every possible way: large baskets with bread, water, and face masks provided by citizens, bakeries and food stores, made available in the streets. There are places that have changed shape to help the most vulnerable. It is the case of an Arci club in Rome that was transformed into a night shelter for the homeless and, according to Ansa, has triggered a vortex of solidarity in the neighbourhood. Is this the sort of poverty Mario Draghi intends to combat through the tax amnesty?
The Minister of Economy and Finance, Daniele Franco, announced in a meeting with Bloomberg that in the coming quarters, government aid will even be reduced. In the slow return to “normality” the government intends to interrupt redundancy payments, freeze reliefs and economic support to commercial activities. In the “normalisation” of Draghi’s dreams, citizens struggle alone for survival.
According to the teachings of the British economist John Maynard Keynes, poorer households are the ones with the highest propensity to consume, so subsidies to them immediately turn into aggregate demand. A study conducted by the Bank of Italy, shows indeed that in absence of social protection measures, inequality in our country would dramatically increase.
With regard to the tax amnesty, some scientific studies suggest avoiding this measure since it entails further costs for the state. Moreover, among tax reductions, it seems to be the least effective. The Italian Prime Minister has constantly repeated the mantra of good debts – bad debts, without ever providing us with practical examples. Eventually the chickens come home to roost.
It is questionable, however, how a tax amnesty should combat poverty. Specifically:
1- If most of the fiscal credits are uncollectible as Draghi himself says, with the debtors being deceased, bankrupt or having no intention of paying, it is not clear how this would bring money into the pockets of people who are living below the absolute poverty threshold;
2- How does the tax amnesty in the Support Decree, theoretically linked to the pandemic, help those who are suffering economically because of the current crisis, when the cancelled tax bills refer to the decade 2000-2010?
3- It is true that there is an income ceiling of 30,000 euros to benefit from the amnesty. We are certain, however, that the government is well aware that tax evasion in Italy is not only present through the non-payment of taxes, but also through fraudulent tax returns and irregular employees. These are behaviours which trigger immense costs for our society and economy.
With the latest decree, the government has opted for an unfair measure that further opens the door to moral hazard in the area of tax evasion
The decree provides for a reform of debt collection to combat tax evasion that should be presented within 60 days. In the meantime, however, doubts remain. For example, why does the Premier want to eliminate cashback – an incentive for electronic payments which refunds a quote of the expenses made by debit/credit card to households?
The 2020 report by the Ministry of Economy and Finance on Unobserved Economy and on Tax and Contribution Evasion indicated that “the microeconomic analysis confirms the existence of a causal link between the increase in VAT revenue and the introduction of the obligation of electronic invoicing”. At the urging of Forza Italia and Lega parties, Draghi seems intent on cancelling a form of incentive for electronic invoicing.
The economy that Draghi supports has nothing to do with Keynes. The obsession with the deficit and the cancellation of tax credits are perfect examples of how the government aims to limit state intervention in the economy. So, in the midst of a pandemic, they tell us that in order to fight poverty they will cancel debts and penalties to tax evaders.
According to the economic theory that the government follows, more state spending today means more taxes tomorrow. The climax will be when Draghi announces that in order to pay today’s deficit (of which the amnesty is a part) taxes will have to be raised for everyone.
Yet, he himself declared in 2010 that “The amnesty is a brake on growth because it requires higher taxes for those who pay them, reduces resources for social policies, hinders interventions in favour of citizens with modest incomes.” And he was right, cutting taxes to tax evaders does not generate growth in a deep crisis such as the current one, nor can it help to fight poverty. For those who did not pay taxes, the cancellation of the liability does not constitute a relief or a stimulus to consumption/investment, since that money would have never entered the coffers of the State.
Keynes said, “The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward.” The reward, however, is paid by the community for the benefit of the less honest. If Draghi were actually a Keynesian, he would further stimulate household spending by poor families, giving a boost to aggregate demand and nurturing expectations for a rapid recovery through policies which are consistent with the principle of equality in its substantial meaning as formulated in the Italian Constitution.
The data, the statements of Draghi himself, and the first measures implemented show us a fragile Prime Minister who needs the private consultancy of McKinsey to draw up a recovery plan for the country, and denies his convictions in order to please the “varied majority” that supports him.
CC member Fotini Bakadima made a statement on behalf of DiEM25 and the Progressive International on the prosecution of HDP politicians in Turkey. Istanbul 2 DSC also emitted a statement on ‘Democratic decay and uncertainty in Turkey’.
James K. Galbraith and David Adler tackled all your burning Green New Deal questions on DiEM TV.
Yanis Varoufakis called out Mario Draghi’s outrageous deployment of McKinsey.
The Green New Deal for Europe took part in a Digital Global Climate Strike with a tweet-storm. DiEM25 activists, supporters and followers flooded the European Parliament with green transition proposals, and we’ve collectively reached more than 15.6 million people in just one day! See the results on GNDE Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts!
The movement’s arts and culture platform DiEM Voice held an open call on the theme of Julian Assange and his liberation, which is now closed. The team is reviewing your submissions! You will be able to see the exhibition on Voice’s new website, launching mid April. More news on this coming very soon!
Our Campaign Accelerator project selected three new initiatives; including a campaign to save the cliffs in the Algarve from being privatised, and to save Plečnik Stadium of Ljubljana.
The Rentvolution! campaign led by our members across Europe continues on! This is an urgent matter due to another wave of lockdowns spreading throughout Europe.
People’s Gatherings were hosted in Serbia, Brussels, and Amsterdam — to name a few. Are you a DiEMer in Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania or Slovakia? Tell us what issues matter to you!
Internal Actions
We are creating Provisional National Collectives (PNC) for countries that did not meet the eligibility criteria for National Collective elections. Candidacies for France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Turkey and the Czech Republic are still open, but should happen as fast as possible via [email protected].
We welcome two new DSCs in countries where we haven’t had one: The Vilnius 1 DSC, our first DiEM25 activist group in Lithuania and the Tel Aviv 1 DSC, the first ever established in Israel!
Learn about what DiEM25 members are doing… and how you can get involved. Monthly coordination calls are being organised by the CC with members from all corners of Europe! During these calls we focus on the two big pan-European initiatives of the CC, namely the Campaign Accelerator and the Peoples’ Gatherings.
Here is the schedule for the calls, we hope to see you in one of them, soon (please keep the days in mind, as these calls will recur first and second Wednesday of each month, using the same link): Register for your call through our calendar!
Our Green New Deal for Europe team has established regular bi-weekly meetings, every other Thursday at 6PM CET. Join our next one!
This Month in DiEM25: April!
People’s Gatherings offers our grassroots members the tools to discuss the issues relevant to their communities. Become a Gatherings organiser today and play your part in shaping our national political programmes! Download the questionnaires ad People’s Gathering Pack on the page to host your own Gathering, and attend our biweekly open call if you have any questions!
The Green New Deal for Europe campaign is restructuring and taking up speed again. With the new strategy, actions and goals we are heading towards a just and sustainable Europe! We need you to get involved, so reach out to us at [email protected]!
DiEM Voice is relaunching! In two weeks time, our website and the “Raise your Voice for Assange” online exhibition will go live! We are also hosting a People’s Gathering in Portugal on the arts and culture sector after COVID19 on 15 April at 19:00 CET (register here). Last but not least, DiEM Voice is also launching its first task force: a graphic designers team that will support DiEM25 groups to find the creative support they need for their actions!
If you wish to send a point to be included in the next newsletter, or want to help to draft it, please contact us at [email protected].
On 24 March 2021, the Supreme Court of Brazil declared Sergio Moro to have been biased in one of the biggest and most publicised corruption trials in the history of the country. All of the trials and corruption charges held against Lula Ignacio da Silva, the former president, have been dropped.
What happened? Was Lula really corrupt or did his imprisonment, timed to stop his candidacy in the 2018 General elections, pave the way for Bolsonaro’s presidency? Before his conviction, Lula’s election projection was at a solid 35% to Bolsonaro’s 13%.As long as the former president was in the running, Bolsonaro and his right wing agenda stood no chance of winning.
A wave of popular discontent swept Brasil with the 2013 Passe Livre demonstrations that started in Rio de Janeiro and took over the largest cities in Brazil, fast on the heels of the 2011 Arab Spring and Occupy Wall street movements. In 2014, the country was to host the FIFA World Cup, and huge construction projects peppered the state capitals. The 2014 World Cup and the Rio Olympics of 2016 had been awarded to Brazil during the Lula presidencies and were a confirmation that the country had made it into the big boys club: by 2011 it was the fifth global economic power and a founding member of BRICS in 2009.
Brazil as a state was created from what was left of a portuguese slave colony. Its economy built on agricultural and mineral commodities using the colonial extractivist model and low-wage workforce model inherited from the slave trade. The wave of discontent sweeping the country from 2013 and directed at the successive PT governments post 2008 world financial crisis (after the economic highs of 2009-2011) was seen as an opportunity by the elites to take back control of the country and its resources: even more so after the discovery of the huge oil reserves, known as the Pre-sal, in the sea beds on the Rio de Janeiro coastline.
Lula’s two presidencies had achieved unprecedented social mobility
They took millions of people out of poverty, and rendered Brazil a world economic and environmental leader. In response, hatred against Lula and his workers party was stoked daily for years:
“Today we are living in times when hatred against the PT is stoked 24 hours a day. It is the party that has advanced social policies the most in this country. The party that in a mere 12 years changed the history of this country. We gave workers a face; we gave a face and citizenship to the poor. All the things they never had. That’s why the hatred is fostered by people who don’t know how to share public spaces with people who came from below.”
Indeed Brazil’s economic miracle had a face: the people, the new middle class rising from poverty and abjection that started to populate malls, max their brand new credit cards, take holidays in europe and disneyland in florida.
The media empires owned by some of the wealthiest families in Brazil (Globo and Folha group) had waged a relentless war on Lula and his PT workers party ever since the 70s, at the beginning of his career as a metallurgic worker unionist. Lula famously said during the corruption trials orchestrated against him that he had never had any judicial privacy. His life was scrutinised and publicised right from the beginning of his political career in 1972, looking for ways to stop his ascendancy to the presidency. His first election attempt was marred by lies and manipulation by the media.
The 2016 judicial overthrow of the fourth PT government in a row was the culmination of years of work by the country’s right wing reactionary forces led by billionaire elites that called to its aid the vast network of neo-pentecostal congregations, US intelligence services, the military as well as parts of its judiciary in the anti-corruption Car Wash task force. As revealed through numerous leaks, the coup was the only way an oligarch-serving right-wing government could be installed, by-passing completely any democratic processes. A coup articulated and empowered by the largest media empire in the country that paved the way for Bolsonaro and his neo-fascist government.
After the judicial coup of 2016 there has been a steady erosion of all social and economic advances won by the people of Brazil. This has taken place through a string of legislative maneuvers, exacerbated in the Bolsonaro presidency and its programmed dismantling of the country’s social and economic infrastructures, environmental protections and international position: policies supported and advanced by the media and elites that see social mobility to be in the way of its business model. In fact, the brazilian elite and its economic power are among the ones that least believe in the distribution of wealth or in giving back to the country and its people. Indeed:
“For elites who extract their wealth from chunks in the state, productivity and social mobility are irrelevant.”
With the election of Bolsonaro, Brazil has entered in full swing in its own right-wing counterrevolution
Unfortunately, the media and its owners won an important battle. At the time of writing this article the country is ripped apart by a covid death toll that counts more than 3,000 deaths daily. It is also suffering from an economy marred by a return to poverty for millions of brazilians, the selling off of state assets to private investors, the end of social and education policies that had benefited millions of the poor and working class, as well as an unprecedented destruction of the Amazon Rainforest and its resources at the hands of illegal loggers and miners. Ecocide in the forests and genocide of the indigenous populations hark back to the destructive policies of elite and military dictatorships. Bolsonaro and his sons — 3 out of 4 being elected officials — are apologists of the 1964 military coup and have defended the right to commemorate it on 31 March.
Bolsonaro, far from being an inept and incompetent president lacking maturity as is often portrayed, is totally aligned with other right wing and neo-fascist leaders in policy and stance. His mentors and ideological leaders are extreme right wing figures like the homegrown Olavo de Carvalho and Steve Bannon, who has been recruiting the Bolsonaro clan to his apocalyptic world views.
A mainstream media narrative has started to emerge placing Lula and Bolsonaro as two extremist populists, making a possible election run off in 2022 between the two a difficult and complicated choice. But make no mistake: Lula in his comeback speech defended public education and health, science, and preached dialogue with all sectors of society. His polarisation is against Bolsonaro’s authoritarianism and politics of death. While the elites may decry the return of Lula as a danger to their hegemony, the country, the continent, is on the point of ecological and economic collapse.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect DiEM25’s official policies or positions.
Photo: Lula embraced after the announcement from the STF.
The Rentvolution campaign highlights housing issues across Europe
DiEM25 Volunteers organised a protest, together with a People’s Gathering, in The Hague on 27 March 2021. The demonstration coincided with the European Housing Action Day across 78 cities on the continent. The event hosted by DSC Zuid Holland — co-organised with Bond Precaire Woonvormen and Migrante Netherlands — took place adjacent to the National Parliament. At this centrally located place we were very visible to many people with beautiful banners, striking jackets and our warm hearts.
Opening the event, Melvin Boekholt (DiEM25) decried the escalating costs of housing in the Netherlands, highlighting the neoliberal privatisation of the basic human right of housing in this country. Pointing to solutions, he emphasised the need for citizens to unite in order to shift the public debate towards outcomes that social movements such as the European Action Coalition on Housing and DiEM25, envision to restore housing into the hands of the public.
Next was Pim van der Heiden from the Bond Precaire Woonvorm (BPW) — a civil society organisation that fights for the rights of those in precarious housing situations. Noting the rapid increase in homelessness in the Netherlands, he underlined the political causes of this failure under successive cabinets of Prime Minister Rutte, who have marginalised the interests of the population in favour of the very rich and of corporate landlords.
The protesters also heard from Jean-Pierre de Breed, a nurse by profession, whose eviction was cancelled at the last moment thanks to the intervention of BPW. We were also honoured to host Joanna Lerio, representing Migrante Netherlands. She detailed the additional barriers facing migrants in the already tight housing market and concluded with a traditional song in which migrants extend their request for support once they have arrived.
After the round of speeches, DiEM25 members invited participants to discuss the future of housing politics through the People’s Gathering. This citizen engagement project provides a space for people to communicate their ideas towards addressing critical issues in their locality, region or nation. The feedback from those assembled on the day will be used to develop policy positions on the housing issue and eventually a national political programme for the Netherlands.
The demonstration was part of the Rentvolution campaign, and was therefore widely supported throughout Europe. In addition to our protest in The Hague, DiEM25 members organised and took part in actions in Rome, Lisbon, Luxembourg, Berlin, Brussels, Lyon and other key cities.
Lisbon
In Lisbon, DiEMers participated in the residents assembly organised by two local associations, Habita and Stop Despejos, who shared the motto of “housing for people, not profit”. We had the opportunity to listen to first-hand accounts of the victims of the housing crisis, with many having been evicted with no alternative. In the speech we gave at the assembly, we highlighted that housing speculation in Portugal, in particular in Lisbon, is out of control — while the country has 730 thousand empty houses, many live on the streets and in precarious dwellings. DiEMers made it clear that it was these people, not investors, who should be protected by the state, for the sake of human dignity.
Berlin
In Berlin, about 2,000 people marched in the streets under the banner of “stopping the rent madness” and stopping the transformation of this unique city into yet another heavily financialised European capital where the population has been displaced and gentrified away. The housing situation in the city is at crisis point, and the tendency of private corporate funds to buy up previously social housing has accelerated recently. At the same time there is currently a window of opportunity to enact bold new policies. Recently a five-year rent freeze was passed by the city’s centre-left government, and campaigns such as the referendum campaign Deutsche Wohnen & Co. Enteignen have given new popular momentum to the demand to reverse the mass privatisation of housing by expropriating corporate landlords. This has led to a situation where tenants spend thousands of euro per year just for dividends to corporations’ shareholders. DiEM25 members are active in helping to gather some of the 175,000 signatures needed to ensure that the people of Berlin can vote to end the mass privatisation of their rent payments, and make affordable housing into a right in this city.
Brussels
Photo: Banner reads: ‘Housing for all!’ at Brussels protest.
In Brussels, there were mostly grassroots activists and social workers opposing evictions and helping squatters. While the situation varies from country to country and even, as in Belgium, from region to region (moratoriums on evictions here but not there, different legislations), something is certain : the COVID crisis will worsen the situation of the most vulnerable. Brussels already has thousands of homeless people. This is why DiEMers carried this sign in Brussels on Sunday:
Photo: Signs read: ‘Rehouse the homeless. Don’t throw more people on the street.’
Lyon
In Lyon, several hundreds of people participated in the march organized by la CALLE starting at the Sans-Soucis metro station chosen for its proximity to a current squat. The action focused mainly on the problem of expulsions of squatters and renters despite the ongoing health crises as well as expressing solidarity with all subjected to precarious living conditions, including non-documented workers and students.
The struggle continues!
DiEM25 members plan to engage further with civic organisations throughout Europe. Equally important are further engagements with citizenry through concrete proposals of the movement.
Join us to further strengthen these positive developments! Contact us by reaching out to [email protected].
Image derived from work of Patricia Enriquez, Zuid Holland 1 DSC, the Netherlands. Stefan Haas and Amir Kiyaei are members of the Zuid Holland 1 DSC in the Netherlands.
My mother thinks it’s ok for me to be queer, as long as it doesn’t show. It’s even ok for me to be trans as long as I don’t wear those wigs: ‘you just don’t see people going around like that’. I’m allowed to be who I am, as long as it’s not visible, as long as it’s not announced, as long as it’s not seen and produced in the public sphere.
A lot of the battles being waged against the trans and queer community are about which public spaces we are allowed to inhabit with our queer bodies: public spaces like bathrooms and legal spaces of gender recognition, the ability to wear what we want, professional spaces we fit in, or even allowing us to be called the name we choose. Indeed, “Gender non-conforming people are framed as the problem. Not: gender norms. The onus is on us to modify what we look like to make other people more comfortable. Never for them to stop attacking us.”
I have been incessantly policed by the people around me, in all spaces where I have shared any kind of coexistence
We constantly police each other in all of our interactions and conversation, from what we wear, to how we move, what and how we speak about and how we interact with each other’s bodies. All trans and gender-non-conforming people are aware of the restrictions under which we are expected to exist, and we pay for it with constant discriminations that escalate from daily aggressions to bodily harm, violence, and death. Trans women historically have a very low life expectancy as a result.
The problem remains an issue of performance, of the unacceptability of the visible characteristics that could point to trans identity. In the very same way that arguments have been used against the over-zealousness of the queer community to visibly declare itself: ‘you can do what you want in the bedroom as long as you don’t wave it in anyone’s face’. This conflation of sexual preference with gender dissidence is revelatory of how policed sexual practices are.
The aim of this policing is the subordination of non-reproductive sexual acts to the heterosexual prerogative. In the same way, trans people are structurally subordinated: we are expected to disappear ourselves to reaffirm and confirm cis-heterosexual privilege in social, political and medical spheres. As Maurizio Meloni states, “Science and knowledge are the plastic objects of power, but so is politics the plastic object of scientific facts and expert claims. Therefore, power and truth, matters of fact and matters of concern, loop back to each other.”
My own place in the family as a gender-non-conforming individual, from an early age, has been one of subordination: I have been explicitly denied equality and relevance violently, consistently and continuously to the detriment of my mental, physical and emotional health. The oppressive nature of the family nucleus and the defense of its supremacy over everything else has cost me, and the vast majority of trans people, dearly.
Aleardo Zanghellini explains for example that “Structural subordination on the basis of sex dominates gender-critical analysis to the virtual exclusion of everything else.” This kind of erasure means we trans folks have had no role models growing up, or are tokenistically or negatively portrayed, our histories are not taught in schools, and the stories that are told of us are invariably tragic and laced with hate and prejudice.
For many of us just breathing and living is a story of survival and conquests. Nothing we may have is given to us. No dignity is ever afforded us: when we are not an abomination, we are a danger. Unwelcome. For me, to be here writing these words with a lucid mind and rational awareness of the contexts I exist in is a miracle. I wasn’t supposed to be here, I wasn’t supposed to have a story to tell, I wasn’t supposed to have an opinion worth defending.
The very nature of trans identity and its dissident potential makes the search for a way to exist urgent: gender dissidents have had to find a language and construct families, that by their very nature are places of activism and resistance. My visibility in itself is political, which makes activism and movement building, whether within DiEM25 or my work in disadvantaged and violent communities, an obvious and logical extension of that very visibility. It is not just about a matter of survival but also the right to thrive.
As Sari Reisner (trans doctor and researcher) says in the Lancet “Gender diversity exists in every culture and geographic context. It is to be celebrated, not pathologised.” And so here I am, in my transfeminine beauty and power, unashamed and celebrating life. I choose to be visible. I choose to be seen. I choose to celebrate myself conscious of what that means for me and for all of us.
Society’s problem with me is that I am unapologetic to its norms and their intent at stifling dissent
My unwillingness to disappear is held against me as a sign of mental and clinical disorders. My visibility, and all queer visibility, is not seen as positive or desirable. It is singled out as abhorrent, kitsch, over-the-top, exuberant and camp: queer bodies exceed the confines of good and acceptable taste and are defined as dangerous in opposition to the virile, white, heterosexual european male, establishing and reproducing its supremacy.
The importance of visibility is about the ability to participate in life in a dignified manner and to have our medical, legal, and social needs met. Indeed, “The needs of transgender people are little understood in all sectors of society.”This means that trans stories deserve the right to see the light of day, to contribute to our collective vision, to move the discourse and the debate beyond the cul-de-sac we are faced with in this historic moment: we need a plurality of voices, with a wealth and breadth of visions and possibilities.
The gender binary system is the very cornerstone of the ruthless capitalism and colonial patriarchy that has laid waste to a planet that is fast losing all its beauty, for the sake of a binary do-or-die scenario where only the very few can afford the privileges to abstract themselves from the violence of the reality billions have to face every day.
Trans Visibility is dissidence, it is polemic because it questions the “existing power, gender and racial structures invented by modernity” and its colonial supremacy of destruction.
Barbra Boustier is a member of the thematic group on Gender (Gender 1 DSC) at DiEM25.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect DiEM25’s official policies or positions.
You might not know it, but there’s a vast, well-organised international grassroots effort to address the gaps in our governments’ response to COVID-19. It counts among its members parents and scientists. And it’s already claimed some serious victories: creating outbreak reporting mechanisms, winning legal cases, and shifting politicians’ plans to tackle the virus.
In this interview for DiEM TV I spoke to Vicky van der Togt, founder of the Zero Covid Alliance and a central figure in this grassroots mobilisation. It was a fascinating talk, despite the internet issues. I hope you’ll find it as eye-opening as I did.
Read the edited transcript below!
How it all began
VICKY: I’m Vicky. I live in the Netherlands. I worked as a communications expert and I used to run a platform for sustainable living.
But then last year, in March, I got hit by COVID. I got infected. This was back when in the Netherlands, they talked about COVID as if it was the flu, and it only hit the elderly. That made me think, well, I’m only 28… if it only hits the elderly, then why am I so sick? So that started to get me thinking on all of this.
MEHRAN: That was last March that you got COVID. But you’re still suffering from the symptoms of COVID today.
VICKY: Yes. I’m still suffering. That’s really the thing about COVID that a lot of people still don’t know about, sadly. It really hits a lot of people my age as well, and kids as well. And they go on to have long-term symptoms.
And these are not necessarily the people that end up in the hospital. So they don’t end up in the data, with hospital admissions.
So that got me thinking, if I am in that group that’s not being talked about, how many people are in this situation?
MEHRAN: And you started your grassroots action with a Twitter poll. Tell us about that.
VICKY: So back in March , I was already sick and I spent my days online. And I saw so many people mentioning that they were sick at home. And they didn’t have access to testing.
I decided to do a Twitter poll. I got so many responses. 400 people.
These numbers showed that we didn’t really have a clue how many people were sick at that moment. I reached out to a journalist, who decided to reach out to our CDC to see how many people were tested.
MEHRAN: The Centre for Disease Control equivalent in Holland.
VICKY: Yeah. At that point, they only did 3000 tests, most of them people that they tested twice or even three times. That gives you an idea of how unclear it was, the amount that were already infected.
It’s crazy that we were dealing with such a severe disease and the organisations that were there to protect us, weren’t doing their job! And at that point I was still, like “I live in the Netherlands, with a good healthcare system”. But yeah, that bubble burst really quickly.
MEHRAN: And so this kicked off a series of grassroots actions that you did, first at local level, culminating in you creating at the end of last year the Zero COVID Alliance.
VICKY: In the Netherlands there was this group, pushing against the chosen strategy. And back then, there were only a couple of groups worldwide doing the same thing. Of course I was sick for the first couple of months, so I wasn’t a member from the start. But when I joined, it was evident that we were the only ones out there fighting against this.
So we decided, if we want to show the outside world what’s happening in our countries, we really have to amplify our voices, with international collaboration.
So first I had the hope that someone else would take this on, and would make this umbrella organisation, of all these COVID efforts around the world. But nothing was happening. So, I just decided to do it myself.
The Zero COVID Alliance is to do advocacy work, is to educate people, is to support people, is to provide resources, PPE, information, about how to deal with this virus.
The Zero Covid Strategy, and the challenges involved
MEHRAN: Can you explain what is the Zero COVID strategy?
VICKY: A Zero COVID movement means that we want to contain this virus. And get to a low amount of numbers so that we can go back to normal life.
Because what the chosen strategy has done for most countries is that we ended up in these yo-yo lockdowns. Most countries implemented lockdowns, and then cases fell, and then they opened up again. But that is not a sustainable strategy. It just makes sure that we keep in this circle. And in between, it’s not safe for all of us, because everyone that’s at risk has a risk of either becoming severely sick from their initial disease, or getting Long COVID .
MEHRAN: Zero COVID, this is not a fringe movement. Jeremy Corbyn is a proponent of this strategy. There are countries outside Europe that are successfully striving for Zero COVID… New Zealand is the example that always gets mentioned, but also countries across Asia.
So, tell me about the people that are involved in the movement.
VICKY: Yeah, there are big names involved. There are scientists involved, there are journalists involved. Politicians, you name it. We even have some A-list celebrities who got Long COVID themselves. So they know how serious this disease is.
If you ask anyone who has worked with infectious disease, they all know that the way to deal with this is to contain it. This is the way to go. Because we’ve seen that the alternative hasn’t worked.
MEHRAN: We’re talking about competing strategies of living with the virus and eliminating the virus. Why do you think that first option is the trajectory that European governments are on at the moment?
VICKY: It is really a short term plan. A lot of governments now have seen how their economies have really suffered due to this virus, and they want a quick fix. So reopening shops or reopening the bars and restaurants, it seems like an easy fix. But really in the long-term, it will cause suffering. If you end up in a lock down because of that reopening, you will have to do it all over again.
Of course, there are also lobby groups involved, pressuring governments around the world to reopen as quickly as possible. There are a lot of reasons why a government would decide not to go for a Zero COVID strategy. I just haven’t heard a good one yet.
MEHRAN: Imagine I’m a decision maker and I say, “OK Vicky, I’m going to listen to you. Tell me the top three things I need to do to get on board with this Zero COVID strategy right now”. What would you say to me?
VICKY: What we have to do is go back to these measures that break this chain of infections. A safe amount of time for quarantine would be ten days. And we even see now with the UK variant, there is a need for 20 days. We have to trace and isolate people that got infected.
These are the basic principles of how to deal with infectious diseases. All of this is stated in pandemic plans from governments around the world. So they really know how to do it. Now it’s just a matter of them actually acting on it.
MEHRAN: But from a strategic communications point of view, I would imagine that it might be quite hard to convince people, who are weary of — as you call it — ‘yo-yo lockdowns’ without end dates, and businesses which are close to bankruptcy or gone. To say: ‘Well, here’s a harder lockdown enforced, and a stricter regime of testing and tracing’, and so on.
So, how do you square that circle in the campaign?
VICKY: I hear what you’re saying. And that is also a result of the last year. People have already heard everything about lockdowns, how it was going to be temporary.
But when you really look at the type of lockdowns that countries have implemented, it hasn’t actually been a lockdown. And the communication that goes with that, has also been lacking.
So what is necessary is a 180 change. Proactively informing your population on what you’re doing. Where outbreaks are.
One of the things that really stood out to us, as a movement, is how governments around the world decided not to keep track of outbreaks in schools. And therefore parents don’t actually know, if there is an outbreak in their school, how many infections there are and what the school is going to do about it.
Grassroots wins against COVID
MEHRAN: You have some examples of grassroots groups that have stepped in to fill this gap, with regard to reporting the number of cases in schools.
These are informal groups. They’re not NGOs, there’s no funding. They’re just parents who’ve got together.
What did they do and how did it work?
VICKY: In the Netherlands we have a school hotline run by a group of concerned parents. Who decided to work with a data company to enable parents throughout the country to report infections in their schools.
And this is happening in Germany. In Canada as well. And there is now another initiative in Switzerland.
It is great that this is happening. But it is really sad that it is necessary, just because governments aren’t willing to do it themselves.
MEHRAN: There was another example, a legal case, that you were involved in I think, in Holland. About prosecuting parents for keeping their kids off school. Tell me about that.
Yeah, so in the Netherlands, we have mandatory in-school education, even in a pandemic. That in itself wouldn’t be a problem. But at the same time, there wasn’t social distancing in schools. There wasn’t proper ventilation, kids weren’t being tested, and parents weren’t being informed about outbreaks. So parents got prosecuted for keeping their kids at home.
We decided to reach out to all these parents and take action. Luckily we found the best lawyer in the country who was willing to take this on. So we decided to sue the state. We had to do a crowdfunding campaign to fund this lawsuit. We managed to collect 20,000 euros.
Eventually we got the final verdict in January. The judge clearly came out to say that we are living in a pandemic, and it would be a shame to prosecute parents who want to keep their kids at home.
And this verdict, resulted in that mandatory education in the Netherlands is now suspended .
MEHRAN: Wow. Well done.
VICKY: Thank you.
COVID myths busted
MEHRAN: I don’t want to get back to doom and gloom, but since you’re so central to this campaign, you must be swimming in proof points and arguments and studies and data. Are there any myths that you can burst for us, when it comes to COVID?
VICKY: The biggest one probably is that, this is just the flu and we should treat it as such.
This is not influenza. This is SARS 2. It causes damage to the heart, damage to the brain. It can have long-term effects in both young and old people.
Another myth is that kids don’t transmit this virus.
And one thing I’d really like people to speak up about is that COVID is airborne. It can spread through the air. And this is not being communicated by governments.
MEHRAN: The CDC in the US has announced that it was airborne, right?
VICKY: Yeah. The CDC luckily has now come out with a statement that it is airborne. But a lot of governments still listen to their own centers for disease control. And therefore there are no measures implemented that take airborne transmission into account.
MEHRAN: What are the implications then? What are the things that we’re doing today, thinking that it’s not airborne, that are not protecting us given that it is?
VICKY: So in a lot of countries, they ask people to wear a mask in a restaurant. But when they sit down at a table, they can take off their mask and have their meal. Of course, this is not going to work with an airborne disease. It doesn’t actually do anything. You can just as well get infected at your table while eating your burger, than as you would at the door.
How anyone can join the fight against the disease
MEHRAN: What about someone that’s watching that thinks “Well look, I want to get more involved’. Where should they be reaching out?
VICKY: There are really three ways of doing it.
The first is bottom up. You try to get a sense of what is needed in your community. Are the people that are getting sick? Do they have groceries? Are they supported? That is one thing that everyone can do. When I got infected, people offered to do groceries for me. And if they hadn’t, I wouldn’t be able to actually feed myself.
If you want to take it one level up, try to reach out to the local media. Write op-eds, to share the information from your country. Or you could just start with reaching out to your community centre. As long as you can keep people informed of what is going on, if you decide to be that voice, there are so many ways of making small and big changes.
And then you have the last level: top down. So reach out to policymakers. Everyone can do that. Email addresses are online, there are telephone numbers — for example, your ministry of health — that you can reach out to and share what you have seen happening. Or that you see that in your area that a change is needed.
MEHRAN: Something that I find is often a barrier for people to do this: they often don’t have the arguments. The links to the studies. Where would you point people to? Do you have a resource so they don’t have to spend their time doing lots of internet research?
VICKY: We have our own website, with lots of resources on there. All our partners have that as well.
At the same time, we are part of a huge international network, EndCoronaVirus. They have this Slack workspace for I think 6,000 volunteers from all around the world.
And this contains scientists, journalists, community managers. Teachers, students, people from every sector. And they all share their resources. And news from around the world, for people to get up to date on the latest things regarding COVID.
MEHRAN: The two websites that Vicky just mentioned, for people watching in case they didn’t catch it because we’re holding onto the internet connection by a thread here (!): ZeroCOVIDAlliance.org, Vicky’s umbrella group. And EndCoronaVirus.org, the US group.
I’ve been on that Slack, EndCoronaVirus.org, for several weeks now. Anybody can join and I’ve been blown away by the amount of information and data. And it’s all so well organised. So anybody that wants to get active pushing policymakers or journalist, or just to help people in the community, can certainly find proof points, arguments, strategies, tactics over there.
Why Vicky chooses activism over Netflix
I’d like to ask you something Vicky, I mean more on a personal note now. You’ve got Long COVID and I understand that the symptoms kind of come and go, but they’re still pretty severe. We were going to do this interview a couple of weeks ago, and unfortunately you had to cancel because you were not well enough.
So — why do you do this? Why aren’t you just sitting, watching Netflix, trying to get better?
VICKY: You’re actually catching me on a good day. It wouldn’t have worked if we’d talked yesterday. It really changes that fast.
I’ve been on the couch for the three months that I was sick, and I think I’ve seen everything on Netflix there is to see. So I’m kind of down on series and movies. So if anyone has some recommendations, please reach out!
But why I do this… honestly, I got so sick myself, and I’ve spoken to so many people around the world, people my age, people younger, people older, who have been sick for almost a year. Some even for, what is it, 14 months now.
And collectively we want to do everything to prevent other people from feeling like us. My neighbour’s dad died from this. It hits everyone so hard.
And knowing that there is a way out of this, knowing that people are just uninformed… that has been so frustrating to me. That, honestly, it felt like I didn’t have a choice. I just had to speak up about this to do everything I can. And I just hope that as many people as possible feel the same about that.
Book/documentary recommendations
MEHRAN: Thank you. And as a last question: do you have two or three books, articles, anything that you can recommend, where people could learn more about the topics that we’re discussing today?
VICKY: So many articles came out just on Zero COVID. So, if there’s one thing I can tell everyone, is: simply just Google it sometime. Just see what’s out there.
Aside from that, I have two documentaries. One is called, “We Heard the Bells”. Watch that to get a sense of how earlier pandemics evolved and how long it took, and what people had to do to deal with it.
And at the same time I have this documentary, it is simply called “Pandemic”. On Netflix. It features scientists, who also looked at the Spanish flu. They really go into what creates pandemics, how we should deal with them, how we can prevent them in the future.
It’s a real must-watch. Because we are now in a pandemic, but zoonotic diseases are of all times. And we can just as well be in another pandemic in ten years. And we have to do everything to prevent that from happening.
MEHRAN: So I guess the message is, ‘do watch Netflix, but watch Pandemic on Netflix, and then get active’.
OK, I think we can close it there. Vicky, thank you for the chat. Really enjoyed speaking to you and it’s been very informative and insightful. All the best.
Watch the Progressive International’s assessment on the drastic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic
On the anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is easy to feel like everything has changed. But it hasn’t.
The past year is remarkable not for the lessons that we learned, but for the determination of governments, philanthropists, and pharmaceutical corporations to preserve a broken status quo.
There are only two choices. One path leads us backwards — to a planet of neglect, where the global rich shield themselves with the bodies of the global poor. The other leads to life — to a planet of care, equality, and popular sovereignty.
Since the anniversary of COVID-19, the Progressive International have been writing a ‘Manifesto for Human Life’ — and asking the public to join us.
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