Europe grapples with COVID protests
Violent demonstrations against lockdowns, vaccine mandates a growing problem for governments
As Europe confronts a dangerous COVID-19 surge, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets and clashed with police to protest tough new lockdown measures.
On Nov 20-21, violent protests spread from the Netherlands to neighboring Belgium, where police in Brussels used tear gas and water cannons to contain rioters.
In Croatia and Italy, demonstrators also marched to protest pandemic measures, and in Austria, tens of thousands took to the streets of Vienna to oppose plans to make vaccination compulsory.
The backdrop to the protests is a pandemic surge that has seen infections across the European Union quadruple in recent weeks, particularly in countries with low vaccination rates. Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and areas of eastern
Europe are among the hot spots.
On one level, the protests can be seen as an expression of frustration at the prospect of further stringent lockdown measures. Young people in particular, who believe they are at minimal risk, oppose rules that require vaccine passports for entry to bars and restaurants.
Others who might otherwise accept the benefits of vaccines are opposed on principle to them being made compulsory for all.
Then there are those, inspired by months of consuming fake news on social media, who believe both the virus and the vaccine are fake and part of some ill-defined plot to undermine their rights.
The one unifying factor in the protests has been the presence of far-right groups who have seized the opportunity to sow public distrust in governments.
Groups such as Austria’s Freedom Party and the Dutch Forum for
Democracy have been prominent in the COVID-skeptic, anti-vaccination movement. In March, ahead of elections in the Netherlands, Forum’s leader Thierry Baudet described lockdown measures as “corona dictatorship” and cast doubt on the existence of the virus.
That sentiment was echoed by Austrian Freedom Party leader Herbert Kickl, who denounced government measures as totalitarian.
In Italy in mid-October, members of the neo-fascist Forza Nova party were accused of playing a leading role in violent protests against measures requiring workers to show proof of vaccination.
Just as they have exploited public fears about immigration to garner support, these far-right groups appear to have consciously latched on to the pandemic as an opportunity to sow dissent. As with immigration, they have used misinformation to exploit the fears of ordinary citizens who would not normally be attracted to them on ideological grounds.
They have sought to politicize what is essentially a nonpolitical public health issue by trying to convince people that wearing a medical mask or having a vaccine shot is somehow a surrender of their rights.
In the face of vaccine hesitancy, which is particularly prevalent in eastern Europe, governments and health authorities have so far focused on persuasion campaigns.
As infections surge, they have opted for coercive measures to protect their populations. That risks playing into the hands of groups seeking to exploit the situation.
Moderate politicians are aware of the dangers of reducing unvaccinated people to a status equivalent to second-class citizens. Germany’s Green Party co-leader Robert Habeck said that new rules to contain the pandemic amounted to a “lockdown for the unvaccinated”.
The anti-vaccination movement has had limited success, at least in western Europe where a majority of people have opted to receive COVID-19 shots. Many of them may now share the exasperation of their governments that a minority risks prolonging the pandemic.
It is an environment in which European states risk being pushed into a divisive “them and us” situation that would be welcomed by the groups that helped generate it.
Governments and health authorities need to ramp up their campaigns of persuasion among vulnerable groups that have been misled, but avoid draconian measures that target the minority that remain unconvinced.