Yesterday I wrote a piece about the riots off the back of the murder of three children in Southport. I talked about how the media and the government have been irresponsible about labelling all the protesters (please note, I make a distinction between protesters and rioters) as far right thugs. It’s not really helpful, it only adds to the polarisation rather than addressing people’s genuine concerns.
However, I don’t think it’s a good idea to just look at complex societal issues from one perspective, I want to add some nuance. Imagine you’re a young British Muslim. You work hard in the gig economy just to make ends meet. You contribute to society and just want to live your life in peace. You’re not an Islamic extremist but when you’re out in the streets, sometimes you get that look from people as if you’re about to blow them up. It must get very frustrating and make you a bit fed up and disillusioned.
Some terrible murder occurs and automatically people jump to conclusions and assume it’s an Islamist terrorist. Racist thugs make a beeline for the nearest Mosque and try to antagonise you. They are threatening your family. They are making you feel unsafe in your own community and they make no distinction between decent, honest peaceful people like you and nut jobs that hate you and consider you as infidels just as much as they hate none Muslims.
It’s not nice, is it? It’s going to make you a bit angry and defensive, isn’t it? In the press there are lots of people calling out Islamic Extremism and complaining about a lack of integration and demanding a response from the Muslim community. It’s collective guilt. Suddenly everyone who looks a bit Asian is fair game yet you’re told you should be mixing more with people that clearly hate you. You were born in Britain, you don’t know any other country but somehow you’re not welcome and told to “go home” on your own streets.
I can empathise with that feeling. I’ve experienced it myself from another context. Whenever there is a female victim of a horrendous violent crime like rape or murder there are protests calling for men, as a group to be curfewed. Half of the population is labelled as “a problem” and told they must do something about a small minority of criminals that think violence is acceptable. Collective guilt and shame doesn’t solve anything, it just hardens people’s opinions, creating an “us” group and a “them” group.
This is why I wrote that article yesterday in the first place. The media were creating an enemy group and collectivising lots of people from lots of different backgrounds as “the far right”. It’s no different from labelling all Muslims as terrorists or all men as potential rapists.
I think we need to understand human nature if we want to improve things. A lot of the things that we do are driven by a portion of our brains that we share with nearly all mammals. Humans are just one species amongst many fighting for survival in the natural world and we have these instincts to fear people different from ourselves because those mammals that developed those instincts were less likely to be eaten by predators, be it from the same species or other species. It’s a survival instinct that has served us well in many ways but this tribalistic behaviour doesn’t help in a modern world with larger populations living together side by side.
Racism is not something that white people do and darker skinned people are the only victims of. It is not about an oppressor class and the oppressed. It’s a fundamental feature of human nature, all nature in fact. It’s something we’ve all got in common. When I say this some people are going to see it as an endorsement of racism and that’s not the case. Stating that something “is”, is not the same as saying that something “should be”.
The great thing about human beings is that we’re an incredibly adaptable species with neuroplasticity. We can’t erase our “lizard brains” but by understanding what is going on, we can work around them. The only way to stop any form of discrimination against another group is to stop categorising people into another group. We have to look for what we have in common, which often is much more than that which divides us. When we stop seeing one group of people as bad, and our own position as entirely virtuous and justified, maybe then we can bring people together.
We need to tolerate our differences and try to understand them. I’m not talking about tolerating thugs trying to burn down Mosques or extremist religious zealots calling for slitting the throats of anyone they deem to be inferior. I am not calling for the appeal to moderation fallacy, whereby we automatically assume the truth is somewhere in the middle, because it’s not. What I’m calling for is to take the heat and the emotion out of situations and try to imagine what the world looks like from other perspectives than your own and use our empathy to relate to that person. That’s how you stop people becoming more extreme.
Don’t bother trying to argue with those that are already too far gone. Those that want to legitimise violence against other people or groups. They do exist, and they’re poisonous, but also lets not assume that the extremes are representative of the majority either. The hand of friendship between people with very different opinions will do more to create peace than any protest, any angry rant.
Let us take the example of Daryl Davis, the black American blues musician that befriended members of the Ku Klux Klan. By listening to them and making them feel heard he disarmed their hatred and persuaded hundred of members to change their attitudes through dialogue. Read more about Davis here.
That is how you do it, not “anti-racist” placards or organisations like “Hope Not Hate” whipping up fears with their lists of non-existent far right protests. Not calling people fascist or racist or “far right”. The simple art of getting people together and having a chat, getting to know each other. De-escalating tensions, not pouring petrol on them. No weapons, no face masks, no banners or chants. Just talking and giving each other the benefit of doubt. If that person responds with violence, walk away.
I’ll leave you with my favourite quote of all time from Fredrich Nietzsche
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
Rant Over 