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Western leaders now use ruthless rhetoric against the vaccine free, calling them extremists, dangerous, outcasts, no longer citizens. Demonising minorities is back – and it’s a sign of our post-Christian times.

History does not look kindly upon societies — or political leaders — who demonise and ostracise minorities.

Following two horrific world wars last century, rafts of international human rights treaties were drawn up to ensure humanity’s dark chapters wouldn’t be repeated. These documents were aimed at protecting individuals based on a broad range of characteristics — whether their ethnicity, religion, ability, gender, or sexual orientation.

Building on this, Western nations have codified laws and anti-discrimination frameworks to further protect minorities.

While human rights are often viewed as a secular project, the idea that every life is precious can clearly be traced to the teachings of Jesus Christ and the civilising power of the Christian faith. As I have previously documented:

From the earliest days of the church, through the Middle Ages and the Reformation and into the modern world, followers of Jesus have played a central role in framing human rights and making them global.

It’s Open Season on the Unvaccinated

Given the West’s apparently deep commitment to human rights, it has come as a shock to see our base instinct for prejudice rise again during the Covid-19 saga. If the rhetoric of our political class is anything to go by, it is now open season on the unvaccinated.

I’m not talking about our leaders’ desire to vaccinate as many people as possible. Governments have made their vaccination aims quite clear and are entitled to encourage their citizens to do what they believe is best for them.

What I take issue with is the deliberate otherising of the vaccine free, as though they pose a unique threat to society and deserve the vitriol of their leaders and fellow countrymen.

Why Freedom of Conscience Must Be Protected

While some people are simply choosing not to be vaccinated, this is not uniformly the case. There are people for whom vaccination poses a genuine medical threat. Others have recovered from Covid-19 and do not wish to be forced into an obviously unnecessary procedure.

Many people are opposed to vaccination on sincere moral or religious grounds. Like any conscience issue, forcing someone to take a treatment against their will is an affront to their human dignity. Picture yourself being forced to eat a slug. While the analogy isn’t perfect, the sense of disgust this arouses in you is how many people feel about vaccination.

Someone’s vaccination status is not their ‘identity’: it is not a protected characteristic. But if the West’s progress towards freedom of conscience means anything, it must mean respecting those who make their own informed decisions about what goes into their body.

Now that we know vaccinated people can freely spread the virus, it is patently false to claim that the vaccine free are uniquely dangerous. And it is both misleading and immoral for our leaders to use words and phrases that pit the majority against them.

Trudeau: “Extremists, Often Misogynists, Often Racists”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been particularly notorious for this. “When people see that we’re in lockdowns, or serious public health restrictions right now because of the risk posed to all of us by unvaccinated people, people get angry,” he told reporters earlier this month.

Recently, a video resurfaced from September in which Trudeau, speaking in French, said of those opposed to vaccination:

They are extremists who don’t believe in science, they’re often misogynists, also often racists… And we have to make a choice in terms of leaders, in terms of the country. Do we tolerate these people?

Trudeau’s comments come close to inciting or promoting hatred — actions that are illegal under Canada’s Criminal Code.

Macron: “No Longer Citizens”

During a recent interview with the newspaper Le Parisien, French President Emmanuel Macron made extremely incendiary comments.

“I’m not for p*ssing off the French. Now the unvaccinated, I really want to p*ss them off,” he said. “And so, we’re going to keep doing it, until the end. This is the strategy.”

Furthermore, Macron alleged that those not vaccinated were “undermining the solidity of the nation” — and he even claimed that they “are no longer citizens”.

These are shocking remarks, especially in light of France’s strong focus on hate speech laws.

Ardern: “Two Different Classes of People”

In October last year, New Zealand Prime Minister was asked by a reporter, “So you’ve basically said… two different classes of people: If you’re vaccinated or if you’re unvaccinated, you have all these rights if you are vaccinated.”

Smugly and without hesitation, Ardern replied, “That is what it is. So yep. Yep.”

Imagine this being said about people exercising their conscience on any other matter.

Bennett: “As If You’re Walking Around With a Machine Gun”

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has also become known for his strong rhetoric against the vaccine free.

During an online Q and A session last year, he told his audience, “When you don’t get vaccinated, you’re endangering yourself, you’re endangering those around you, and it’s life-threatening.”

Despite multiple studies showing that vaccinated people are also spreading the virus, Bennett went on to make a seditious comparison. “It’s as if you’re walking around with a machine gun firing Delta variants at people,” he said.

Comparing any class of people with mass murderers is despicable. Why is the legacy media failing to hold leaders like Bennett to account for such remarks?

Berejiklian: “I would not want to be anywhere with them”

Australian political leaders have likewise been extremely inflammatory in some of their remarks about those refusing the jab. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is fond of calling Covid a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” despite the high rates of vaccinated people also getting infected.

Before her political downfall, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian went out of her way to demonise a minority of her constituents. “It would be extremely careless and reckless if anybody welcomed someone who wasn’t [vaccinated],” she said during a press conference last September. “I myself would not want to be anywhere with someone who’s not vaccinated.”

Does the Collective Trump the Individual?

Western societies have never been perfect and have never treated minority groups perfectly. But it has been a long time since we have heard consistent provocation from our leaders against a minority — until now.

Vaccination makes sense for many people and there is good evidence that it reduces the likelihood of severe disease and death. But demonising people is never the right way to achieve policy goals.

These are dangerous developments, and they appear to be a rising hallmark of the post-Christian West. We are forgetting Jesus’ affirmation of the Imago Dei in every precious soul, his instructions about “the least of these”, and his heart to leave the ninety-nine to go after the one.

In place of this, the Western mindset is shifting back towards the collective at the expense of the conscience of the individual. We are moving to a precarious situation that can — and possibly will — be exploited by authoritarians in the years ahead.

The question our societies now must ask is: do the rights of the collective trump those of the individual?

History has sober warnings for us if we get the answer wrong.

Image by Craig Adderley on Pexels.