I'm afraid of those who are afraid of the vaccine 

Miljenko Jergovic / www.jergovic.com

Let me clarify things from the beginning: yes, I will be vaccinated, even unconditionally, against Covid-19. Not out of turn and with interventions in favor, but when it's my turn, after vaccinating elderly fellow citizens who wish to do so and all those fifty percents of Health workers, so much so that, according to a meanwhile refuted survey, it is intended to be vaccinated. It does not matter to me what kind of vaccine. I like the Russian vaccine "sputnik", while the German, or rather German-American, the belief induced by Beszlem Türeci and Ugur Sahini, the Turkish couple behind the manufacturers of this vaccine. Although they belong to the richest German class, to which I do not feel social solidarity, the fact that they are of Turkish immigrant origin, makes them symbolically important to me. Does not it seem to you that there is some fictional or romantic justice in the fact that just before Christmas 2020, Europe hung its hopes for the rescue of two immigrants, who, if they were to approach its borders today, would be beaten up, had their cell phones and money is taken away, and returned to their own Asia?

But let’s get back to the vaccine. Why get vaccinated? I myself have never been vaccinated against the flu, nor do I intend to do so before, God bless us, you step into old age. Yes, it is clear that Covid-19, at least at this stage of our human relationship with the virus, is worse than most seasonal flu, but there is something else that scares me about it and pushes me to get vaccinated. I knew the first Croat to die from Covid. I also knew some others who died after him: overweight, sick, elderly. I do not like at all the idea that, from a friend or acquaintance who is nice and overweight, from a sick, from an elderly friend-because most of the people I have in mind are elderly, with whom I associate and talk with a lot of desire, one day I will get infected. And something else: there is something Hitlerian about this virus unbearably. No, no, I'm not saying it was created in the lab. I do not deal here with any conspiracy theories. But the fact that he kills the sick, the hypersensitive, that he kills the elderly, who are no longer able to work and fight, seems to me to be Hitlerite. Well, then you may not be vaccinated ...

Am I afraid of the risk of vaccination? What risk are we talking about, the risks to life in general, or the risk from the vaccine? In these ten months that the epidemic lasts, people, along with all the other seasons, have become victims of statistics. When a life situation turns into a statistical balance, every risk is extremely large and creepy. So it is with vaccination. But so is the fatal disease from Covid-19. The only difference is that the chance of dying from this disease, or more likely of killing someone close to you who is hypersensitive to your virus, is incomparably greater than the chance of ending up with an allergic reaction to the vaccine. doctor. There is no statistical possibility that vaccination against any deadly disease will kill them.

Should vaccination be mandatory? I think it should not. People should not be forced to act reasonably because imposing on reason is in itself unreasonable. But I also think that vaccination should be the standard of civilized behavior within the community. It is civilized, say, to wear a mask indoors, no matter what a man thinks in his intimacy, whether or not the mask protects him from the virus. Just as it is civilizing to walk the streets wearing trousers, and no, so to speak, with your butt exposed. During the summer pants have no function other than to protect us from the gaze of others in our privacy. Or do we wear pants because we are ashamed? Yes, shame would be enough and a justified reason to be vaccinated.

But this vaccine has another important function, in addition to immunizing us in relation to this vicious virus, which has taken root in our lives to such an extent that it seems to us that life before it did not even exist. This other function is protection from collective madness. If we get vaccinated, we will not go crazy. If we are vaccinated we will simply stop thinking about what we think now. Let us say that we will get rid of that priest from Rijeka, who these days spreads the extremely unpleasant lie according to which the vaccine is produced from the human fruits of abortion, and thus tries to put together two campaigns: that for the prevention of abortion and that against vaccination. If they get together they will be stronger, he thinks. And maybe he's right. If we have nothing to do with that man, before his arguments we can only shut our mouths and get vaccinated so that we no longer think about him and others like him. This epidemic is about to pass, with or without the vaccine. It will pass causing more or less dead. It will pass, but it will impoverish society completely, or to the extent that society will have to defend itself wisely, in the medical (psychological) and economic sense. But what will not pass, and with which each will have to fight for himself, each in his heart and in his head, are the increasing madness, which threatens to blow up the community, and not only the community, but what each of us holds in our heads and hearts. And for that, it is important to be vaccinated.

Do I even understand people who are afraid of vaccines? I have no, as I had for those classmates in elementary and junior high school, who turned yellow and fainted when in the middle of the class the nurse in a white apron appeared and informed us that during the big break we had to be vaccinated. They were afraid of the needle bite. Adults are afraid of something else. They are afraid of what is in the vaccine. As for me, I am telling you this honestly, I am afraid of their fear. Even those who are afraid of the vaccine and I who are afraid of them, we are afraid of the unknown. And that, in a way, is something normal. It is not uncommon to be afraid of the unknown, but you should not be afraid of others for what you yourself are afraid of. It would be best to help.

* Translated for Politiko.al: Xhelal Fejza

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