Note on our own behalf

Lately, there seems to have been an increasing amount of speculation in about Expressis-Verbis and our intentions as a non-profit association.

Obviously, we have still not formulated the purpose of the company, which we have presented in detail on our “About Us” page, in a sufficiently comprehensible and transparent manner. If our presentation does indeed leave too much room for interpretation, we will be happy to remedy this deficiency in the following lines.

We are not doing this to justify ourselves to our critics, who usually do not even have the decency to familiarise themselves with the content we publish. We do this for our readers and subscribers.

In particular, enquiries are piling up as to whether we are not secretly the organiser of the Marche Blanche Silencieuse. We have indeed reported several times (here and here) on this unique and moving event in Luxembourg’s history, and may continue to do so.

This marche seems to us as exciting in its regularity, in its scale, and in the moral panic it creates in the press, as it is difficult to see through the diverse motivations of the participants. An accurate understanding of this peaceful uprising, which the press has generally shown only dismissive prejudice and aggressive contempt for, may take a lot of time and work.

In this context, at any rate, the question should also be allowed as to what would be so bad about being an organiser or participant in a movement that unites so many people peacefully around democratic demands?

Since when has it become a political imposition to express one’s concerns and fears publicly? Of course, the compositions of such large crowds are never homogeneous, as we know from all larger demos and events. Is it the fault of true-hearted football fans that sometimes, mostly at big games, a few hooligans intrude on the masses for purposes that have nothing to do with the game?

Moreover, there are also more and more attempts to portray us as fundamental opponents of vaccination, virus deniers, conspiracy theorists and, among our most ardent and imaginative opponents, even as anti-Semites and right-wing radicals. Seriously, how else should we respond to such hair-raising absurdities than to continue with our work towards education, discussion, and information?

Understandably, we can only comment on the content that we actually publish and represent. We are therefore happy to leave the immoderate fantasies of some opponents and unfortunately also journalists to their authors. At present, the burden of proof also falls on those wishing for a witch hunt.

Increasingly, there sometimes seem to be almost no limits to these fantasies, which throw the nastiest missteps at us and like to lump us in with the darkest figures.

We have already written about the desperate attempts to avoid meaningless signal words such as “Schwurbler”, discourses and arguments in the simplest and most lazy way imaginable. Unfortunately, it appears that we will have to get used to such simplistic moralizing and disregard until further notice.

It seems agreed that any critical analysis that goes beyond petty questions of detail, and works through the principles of the democratic constitutional state, the social and psychological significance of current health policies, or the often surprising number-crunching of official communications, disqualifies its representatives in advance as “conspiracy theorists”, “virus deniers” or “vaccination opponents”.

That is why we have decided to publish our internal charter as well. It is a set of rules that all our members must read, know and sign before applying to Expressis-Verbis as active staff. The rules and regulations have also been linked on the “Here you can help” page.

We hope that this will clear up a few more doubts.

The Board of Expressis-Verbis