Masks / Personal Freedom /

If I fear infection, because wearing of masks, as the regulations require, is not enforced on German trains, I should not travel by train, the service director on my train to Paris told me last week. Is that the right attitude?

 

Almost everything a state does infringes upon a citizen’s personal freedom: the state take our money in taxation, it forces us in certain situations to serve in an army, it prevents us from harming others and it even tries to prevent us from harming ourselves.

 

Some people consider mouth and nose masks an infringement of their personal freedom. True, these masks are not very convenient but why are feelings running so high? Violent demonstration against the “lie of the pandemic” have been reported in various countries. Recently, even in Germany, a country which has up to now managed Corona extremely well. There are, of course, always the “usual suspects”, those who feel that the state is too strong, or that their liberty, whatever that may be, is being trampled upon. And there are always those, who flee to wild conspiracy theories, in order to make sense of a world which is too much for them.

We are living in unusual times, most of us have not experienced such limitations before. For most of us these are not just unusual but unprecedented times. And here mainly local leaders are failing. The opposition to masks seems to be partly the result of a failure to communicate the right message, a message of respect for the fellow person, the love-thy-neighbour message. So, for example, chaos in Frankfurt is the personal failure of Peter Feldmann, the city’s mayor, who failed to communicate with the revelling crowds, who for weeks, systematically broke the regulations in his city. It is up to every local and communal leader to produce the atmosphere of thoughtfulness and consideration.

Just do it.