Anti-lockdown protesters embarrass, alienate and endanger us

Embarrassing: the anti-lockdown rally in Sydney last month. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Flavio Brancaleone

What makes you want to punch a horse? What littleness lies within that would make a person hit, in the face no less, that most noble and beautiful of creatures, as Australia witnessed in the not too distant past during a march in Sydney against Covid restrictions? The image that went viral was shocking. Imagine the horse, its bewilderment, caught in the melee of loud, emotional, seething people. These are humans? Yes, in all their ugliness.

It felt like the fabric of Australia was being torn as I witnessed scenes from those protests. It reminded me of the discombobulation felt during the Cronulla riots. This is my country? As Rachel Cusk wrote in Second Place, “I don’t think I realised how many parts of life there were, until each one of them began to release its capacity for badness.”

It was felt this January, too, with the storming of the US Capitol. These people were not “patriots”. They did their country a great disservice, just as our anti-lockdown protesters do to all Australians. They embarrass us, alienate us and more urgently, endanger us. They risk bringing the virus home to their loved ones, risk creating a super-spreader event.

On the weekend of the protests a vibrant young woman from central Sydney, in her 30s, died from Covid. No underlying health conditions. Her brother and boyfriend had to farewell her from behind glass. What would it take for these protesters to wear a mask, obey social distancing rules, and remain indoors except for essential reasons? How many deaths? How many images of overwhelmed hospitals? How many dying unvaccinated people telling social media they really wish, actually, they’d had the jab?

As the protest images flashed up on my TV screen I felt besieged by my own country. Who are these fragile people? Where is the resilient, plucky Australian spirit of endurance? Don’t they want us to beat this insidious virus together? These people seem disconnected and supremely selfish, apparently caring so little for their fellow Australians, the vast majority of whom are trying to do the right thing. This feels like revenge of the powerless, but they’re only prolonging the agony. For all of us.

The god of Covid thrives on human fallibility. These type of events display our species’ weakness, impotence, stupidity. The worst of us rage against a loss of control, and by doing so only prolong the danger. Covid will only eventually be defeated by discipline, scrupulous adherence to the rules, and science. Do we really want to let it rip while so few of us are vaccinated?

I’ve lost a friend to Covid. A dear, good man who went too young, an Aussie expat in the UK who always seemed larger than life; twinkly, laconic, the best of us. This disease is cruel and merciless. I’m angry at the Berejiklian Government whose lax health regulations allowed an unvaxxed limo driver to transport international aircrew to a quarantine hotel; then its petulant refusal to follow the lead of Victoria by going hard and fast into lockdown. The NSW Government had almost 18 months to fine tune its protocols and failed to do so in that time. I’m also angry at the Morrison Government for failing to secure adequate supplies of vaccines earlier this year when they were so desperately needed. What a panicky, infuriating mess these past months have been.

But even though I’m hugely frustrated at government mishandling at state and federal levels, I do not want to be one of those who compound and prolong the situation by taking to the streets, maskless and in great numbers, and punching passing animals. The galling selfishness of that mass dive into ugliness. We have a civic responsibility to abide and endure. Patiently. Together. To see this out. Surely we all have a common purpose, to quash this wily beast?