The Great Forgetting
By Ken Avidor
Like many people, the years 2020 through 2022 were a nightmare for me. My family suffered greatly from the Covid lockdowns and mandates. I was not allowed to be with my mother when she died in hospice. One of my films was censored, I was mugged and injured in broad daylight documenting how the work-from-home order was turning Downtown Indianapolis into a deserted, open-air illegal drug market. So much more happened that I cannot talk about publicly. I have PTSD. I haven’t slept well for years.
But many people, particularly young, childless, privileged people who belong to the Laptop Class did not experience much hardship during the lockdowns. In fact, their memory of 2020-2022 is laced with nostalgia. For many of them, it was a time when millions came together to defeat a killer virus. They imagined themselves to be brave keyboard soldiers, storming the beaches of social media, defeating the dissemination of “disinformation.” And they did this all from the comfort of home. For them, it was a righteous cause; a battle between Good and Evil. They heaped glory on themselves for the harm they caused because one of the perks of being righteous is the license to burn witches which they indulged in with glee. So, it’s not surprising that they are itching to lock us down again… only this time, much harder!
I have documented as an artist and filmmaker, the devastation caused by the lockdowns, restrictions and mandates here in Indianapolis. Recently, the restrictions have lifted to a degree that has allowed Hoosiers to return to being the relaxed, fun-loving people they were before 2020. Mask-wearing, a symbol of compliance with the official fear-based Covid narrative has become rare.
The pervasive, unrelenting Covidian propaganda has been replaced with a more subtle taboo; we must move on and not discuss what happened in 2020-2022. If you ask questions about what happened or who was responsible, you are showing bad manners. You are playing “The Blame Game”.
Nowhere is this taboo more obvious than in the upcoming municipal elections here in Indianapolis. Usually, incumbents have to defend their records. Our current mayor should be questioned for his disastrous lockdown policies that destroyed much of the small, independent businesses downtown. But there is barely any mention of it.
Elections should offer the opportunity for citizens to challenge politicians for the mistakes they made in the past and to question their plans for the future, our future. The right of citizens to challenge candidates seeking public office is essential and is central to our system of representational government. It should not be considered impolite to interrogate politicians seeking to become “public servants.”
The leading candidate in Indianapolis City Council District 13, where I live is a newcomer to politics, a virtual unknown. I inquired on Twitter about whether he would support another lockdown and he said he would. In a subsequent tweet, the candidate said the lockdowns didn’t go far enough. He expressed his admiration for the brutal Covid lockdowns imposed on the Chinese people by the Chinese Communist Party. Needless to say, I was horrified by this fact, a fact that would not come to light if I had been polite and complied with the prevailing taboo.
I am a history buff and the Post-Covidian Era reminds me of what happened in much of Europe in the last century, particularly France after the defeat of Nazi Germany. Many people, in order to survive, collaborated to some degree with their Nazi occupiers. There are many gray shades between the very black deeds of the Vichy government and the spotless reputations of the partisan resistance. After the war, it was decided to just not talk about the Vichy period. When the 1969 film “The Sorrow and the Pity” was released about French collaboration during the war years, it was banned in France until 1981.
The current taboo about discussing the widespread compliance with the authoritarian Covid edicts of the last three years, and the taboo about discussing the period of Nazi occupation in France is similar except for one very important aspect, the French regime, the Vichy government which collaborated with the Nazis was brought to justice and the German Nazis were defeated. The perpetrators of the Covid crimes and their collaborators in government have yet to be held to account. The risk of erasing the history of authoritarianism is the resurgence of authoritarianism.
We must not flinch from asking questions and demanding answers about what happened. We must not worry about being rude. We must demand that evil deeds be dragged out into the light of day so they will not ever happen again.
Ken Avidor is an artist and filmmaker living in Indianapolis.
Follow him on Twitter: @avidor
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Children’s Health Defense.