The ball-flattening company
Column: Children are being denied birth certificates. And Shakira has a new boyfriend. And the sales tax is going up. The media are destroying people’s ability to think critically on a massive scale.
Column Children are denied a birth certificate. And Shakira has a new lover. And VAT is set to rise. The media are destroying discernment en masse, and those who are driving the decline of civilization, the petty bourgeoisie, like to depict it, fearfully, in orgiastic images. Burning Rome, etc. This probably wants to conceal the fact that dehumanization is progressing precisely because it makes use of banality, of details, of rules. In Switzerland, children are born who are denied a birth certificate by the authorities. Not bad? Without a birth certificate, these people do not legally exist. Although they exist in flesh and blood, they remain officially unborn. The world does not know them. They won't get a passport anywhere, they can't go to school, they can't get married ... You guessed it: we're talking about children of foreigners whose papers are incomplete. But the birth certificate does not give them any rights beyond their legal existence. And according to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, every child worldwide has the right to a certificate that seals their birth.
So how come? There are said to be around 200 such cases. The civil registrars who refuse to issue birth certificates cite regulations that are the result of stricter immigration and asylum laws. There is probably room for maneuver, and many officials make use of it. What drives the others? One of them told the Observer, who researched the story in 2006: "Our hands are tied." Is it the inhumanity of the subject? Anticipatory obedience, waving to the manic-repressive Minister Blocher. Sheer partisanship, the perfidy of spies, secretly exercising power behind the back of a society that, I hope, would hardly approve. Or does this refusal even reflect a hatred of oneself, a self-image in which man, the politikon zoon, degenerates into a bios? This is precisely the secret project of the new right.
It also gives us a few insights into the state of the media. When you read the reports about it, you don't quite know what to be more shocked about: The atrocity or the indifference with which our colleagues deal with it. Of course, outrage is a sterile feeling. Uncool anyway. Anyone who dares to refer to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child realizes this. Children are denied a birth certificate? Certainly, it has been researched and reported. And Shakira has a new lover and VAT will rise.
We live in a society of horizontal perception. Everything is equally unimportant. The main thing is to keep our heads down. It would be naïve to conclude that the media are insignificant. Their effect is precisely that they make horizontal perception the only possible one, that they destroy the ability to differentiate on a massive scale and tell themselves and everyone else every day: Move along, there's nothing to see.
P. S. March 26 marked the tenth anniversary of the entry into force of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in Switzerland.
P. S. 2: 25 years ago, a book was published by a Jewish emigrant in the USA that collected such small reports. It was called "Daily Fascism." It's still available, even on Amazon. Price: 1 cent.
Oliver Fahrni is a freelance publicist.
So how come? There are said to be around 200 such cases. The civil registrars who refuse to issue birth certificates cite regulations that are the result of stricter immigration and asylum laws. There is probably room for maneuver, and many officials make use of it. What drives the others? One of them told the Observer, who researched the story in 2006: "Our hands are tied." Is it the inhumanity of the subject? Anticipatory obedience, waving to the manic-repressive Minister Blocher. Sheer partisanship, the perfidy of spies, secretly exercising power behind the back of a society that, I hope, would hardly approve. Or does this refusal even reflect a hatred of oneself, a self-image in which man, the politikon zoon, degenerates into a bios? This is precisely the secret project of the new right.
It also gives us a few insights into the state of the media. When you read the reports about it, you don't quite know what to be more shocked about: The atrocity or the indifference with which our colleagues deal with it. Of course, outrage is a sterile feeling. Uncool anyway. Anyone who dares to refer to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child realizes this. Children are denied a birth certificate? Certainly, it has been researched and reported. And Shakira has a new lover and VAT will rise.
We live in a society of horizontal perception. Everything is equally unimportant. The main thing is to keep our heads down. It would be naïve to conclude that the media are insignificant. Their effect is precisely that they make horizontal perception the only possible one, that they destroy the ability to differentiate on a massive scale and tell themselves and everyone else every day: Move along, there's nothing to see.
P. S. March 26 marked the tenth anniversary of the entry into force of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in Switzerland.
P. S. 2: 25 years ago, a book was published by a Jewish emigrant in the USA that collected such small reports. It was called "Daily Fascism." It's still available, even on Amazon. Price: 1 cent.
Oliver Fahrni is a freelance publicist.
