In recent weeks, an offensive has been launched against me in the Flemish media. I've been accused of being a liar, a far-right extremist, a conspiracy theorist, controlled opposition, and of indoctrinating my students. I've quietly listened to every voice that felt called to make itself heard. And I have the impression that everyone who had something to say has now done so.

Now I'm going to say a word for myself.

I think I have some right to respond to a story about myself. Members of the media apparently disagree. As eagerly as they speak of me, they have obstinately refused to speak to me. But isn't it a fundamental precept of humanity—that everyone has the right to tell their side of the story?

Granted, the media has had a certain inhibition about me for some time. For example, there was an uncomfortable silence in the press when my book The Psychology of Totalitarianism was translated into ten languages ??earlier this year and sold tens of thousands of copies.

Why such silence? Perhaps for this reason: that people might start to take seriously the idea that the corona crisis was primarily a psycho-social phenomenon that marked the transition to a technocratic system, a system in which the government would attempt to claim decision-making rights over its citizens and, step by step, take control of all private space.