Unrest

Friday Fragment #22

The unrest, by which I mean the riots, by which I mean the racism of the last week was an ugly reminder of the palpable tensions that have been simmering in this country for more than a decade. And that tensility has seamed its way through generations: years that it would be easy to grow tired of keeping count, but of which we must not stop counting. That unrest, tragically, is already sewn into a future so far-off that not one of us will live long enough to lament it. There is no quick way to cut the thread – no tool that is large or sharp enough – but the needle can be blunted, its progress obstructed. There were many who took to the streets to defend their community. And they came out to amplify a wider and more significant message, to show their support and compassion for communities more fearful or threatened, and for people whose identity had been minimised, irreducibly, once again, to skin colour. Over several days and nights, pigmentation would become the objectionable umbrella characteristic for a faith, ideology and status that a few malign actors with far-reaching, hate-filled influence could exploit. The dog whistle of immigration became an excuse to attack and threaten fellow citizens, and to terrify and further isolate those who have been abandoned to commandeered Holiday Inns and the no-man’s land of a self-sabotaged British asylum system. In our digitally lawless age, real power lies ever more with the excessively super-rich and the super-influential who believe in the freedom of speech, but not in accountability for their words. They wish to deregulate themselves from systems that they rely upon to control and entrench others. The owner of a social media platform can reach 200 million people in a few short hours. No leader or government can fight misinformation and quell inflammatory language at such scale and speed. And even if they could, there is still smoke from the less volatile but no less vile touch-papers that were lit years ago, day after day, on the front pages of our national newspapers; flames that were fanned daily by those in political office and by those in the media only too happy to provide both oxygen and fuel. To paraphrase the late Jonathan Miller, whose useful words have been shared by many this week, fear and horror are not a natural reaction to the myriad problems of human co-existence, until such point as someone tells us that they are an appropriate response. I found solace this week in listening once again to the translation of a speech given by Albert Camus in 1946 titled, ‘La Crise de l’Homme’: ‘We can contemplate the death or the torture of a human being with a feeling of indifference, friendly concern, scientific interest or simple passivity. Yes, there is a human crisis. Human suffering is accepted as a somewhat boring obligation on a par with getting supplies or having to stand in line for an ounce of butter. It’s too easy in this matter to simply accuse Hitler and say that since the beast is dead its venom is gone. We know perfectly well that the venom is not gone, that each of us carries it in our own hearts. And we can sense this by the way that nations, political parties and individuals continue to regard one another with the vestiges of anger.’ While Camus’ words might not uplift, they do shed clarity on the difficulties of his age and the ones that have followed. They speak too of the need for nuance, and of an underlying morality that must seek to bring people together and then hold them together. The most hopeful of all of the news articles I’ve read this last week was this one.

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