Friday, June 17, 2016

Here we go again - I'm so tired of the hate

I feel numb. Sick with shock and fear. I really don't know where we are going as a country. The murder of Jo Cox MP, if it is to mean anything, has to wake us up to the hatred and bile that ferments everywhere.

This referendum wasn't necessary. It isn't about a law, or a treaty, it's about something far bigger than can be summed up in one question. So the campaign to Leave has made it about immigration. No matter that our trading island will be less well able to police our waters, process in Calais, or support refugees in continental Europe.

We are living in an era of post-truth politics. It doesn't seem to matter what the evidence is, just what facts suit your prejudices. The answer "it's complicated" isn't good enough any more, it has to be the easy answer, the anger, the war cry, the condemnation. There has to be someone to blame, someone to hate.

Fascists declare direct action against Sadiq Khan. That UKIP poster. I don't know any more than any other twit with a keyboard whether it flipped a troubled mind, but he didn't do it last week, or last year. He did it yesterday and now our nation is denied a talented servant and her family is robbed of a mother and a lover. Awful.

There were people yesterday afternoon literally willing the murderer to be a Muslim so they could say 'I told you so'. As facts emerge about Tommy Mair, then that gets used by others as evidence of a right wing coup, a white supremacist assassination. Social media enables others to make snap judgements - me included - the latest being an army of instant experts on mental health. I'm weary of it.

I'm tired of the anger, tired of the sullen insolence that demands a voice, a right without a care for the consequences. Where's the love? The joy? 

I applaud, by the way, the "thank your MP" hashtag. I imagine our Tory MP works hard, so do some of our councillors, so do people who deliver leaflets or knock on doors. Yet it seems like open season on us all. Some of my political opponents get under my skin from time to time, but we have to take responsibility here for the dehumanising language we use and the way we all conduct ourselves.


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