Thread by @ChenderMLA

Feeling reflective on this icy morning. It’s been a week of upsetting news, and I’ve digested it isolating with family like so many others due to successive Covid infections. Here are some thoughts on the moment we find ourselves in. 🧵

The week began with a barrage of angry messages from a constituent and former supporter. They wrote, earnestly, about how vaccine mandates are just like the lessons they learned about nazi Germany in grade school and said they didn’t need a response.

I will respond here. I have dozens of relatives who died in the Holocaust. I learned about the holocaust from my grandmother, who survived. About her childhood in an increasingly fascist Europe. Moving from country to country as things got worse.

Not because her parents resented the restrictions, because they feared for their lives. I learned about the loss of her great grandparents and cousins in Poland to a nazi firing squad. About the death of her dearest Aunt at Auschwitz.

Both of my grandmothers escaped as teenagers, alone with only the clothes on their backs. My grandfather escaped detention, on foot, into the forest. Freedom didn’t really enter into it, the project was to survive.

If WWII taught us anything, it's that we need to remember our interdependence. That our futures are all bound up together. That collective action is more important than individual freedom.

Covid has been deeply disruptive to our lives. In uneven ways. Public health directives have not been perfect, or perfectly logical. But their purpose is to SAVE LIVES, any assertion to the contrary is based in conspiracy. 43 Nova Scotians have died in the past two months.

In many ways our systems have failed. And they continue to be strained. The choices made by governments have favoured some, and neglected others. But here we are.

I know that the only way good way out is together. Jews never had that choice. The Star of David marked them for death.

Our work is to reform our institutions and challenge government responses where needed so that they work for us all, to keep us all safe, healthy, and thriving. Eyes on the prize--the friends, family and communities we hold dear.

This work is not accomplished by accommodating extreme and hateful views. We can only get through this by supporting each other and working together. And fighting when we need to. With kindness and strength. (end)