Monsters,, only doing your job and Friday

Sayeeda Warsi

@SayeedaWarsi

People are sick & tired of racists If you ask for equal treatment you’re pushy If you object to being demonised you’re shutting down free speech If you raise concerns you’re ungrateful If you don’t laugh at racist jokes you’ve no sense of humour It’s so tiring & insulting


It's getting lighter each morning. The bulbs are emergiing in our back garden. The darkness is less and overwhelming and more peneteable. Yet 11 pm on Friday will bring a closing of outlook, philosophy and attitude. Not all Brexiteers are socially conservative and xenophobic but all those who are socially conservative and xenophobic are Brexiteers. The Venn diagram is clear and says it all. Never have I seen so many white men suffer from ontologically insecurity to such a profound level. Why is it that so many white males cannot imagine what it feels like to be black, brown, homosexual, transgender, disabled or a woman? It's really easy to deny, project and displace your fears, particularly because you don't notice the prejudice and discrimination because it's not aimed at you. It's easy to go along with 'a common sense" of reality that is white, male, straight and non disabled. It's easy to be like every body else who is like you. It's easier to spot the paedophile, the 'uppity one' and the 'threat" from those who are not like you.

To have empathy, understanding and perception requires imagination . It is not an easy task and many cannot or will not do it. We all have prejudices and we should seek to understand where they come from and how they work. There are few monsters said Primo Levi but the dangers are that many obey, listen and go along with them They are just doing their job and they are non political.The banality of evil comes from those just doing their job and act out the instructions of the monsters. There are no excuses yet on Friday at 11pm it will be seen as the will of the people. A great closing off of tolerance, outwood thought and understanding of other cultures is about to happen.

Perhaps Huawei 5g technology offers the socially conservative model of state capitalism new vigour and a new capacity of a surveillance. Perhaps human freedom and data privacy presents a threat to the new conservatism of Boris Johnson. Perhaps the Tories know that China is becoming the dominant world power as America slips . The modern conservative knows a new model of the state is coming and it is state capitalist in form and it's model China. A new Confucian age of neo conservatism is coming as we are ripped from Europe and become a new Singapore. Friday is a milestone upon this journey and with it we becomemore socially conservative and subject to surveillance.. after all we are good patriots who know our place and we have got our country back...eh? To be psychologically healthy you must be able to understand other perspectives and experiences...Friday is about the opposite

 Graham Law Indeed, a new dark age is coming as Britain withdraws from the world into isolationism and fearful self-exile. Brexit was never about the UK opening out to the whole world by leaving the confines of a small corner of it. Few of those who wants us to leave the EU would have hearts and minds open enough to embrace relationships with other parts of the world - beyond the parts, that is, where skins are mostly white and English is the first language. If Brexit was about freeing us up, then why do some many of its advocates want is to get into an even more restrictive partnership with Trump's America?

No, for its supporters, Brexit has always been about retreat, withdrawal, about self banishment, about turning back into comforting puritannical dullness from the horrors of contintental joie de vivre

Rage. Rage against the ravings of the right.

Race. Rage against the ravings of the right... whatever Friday brings it will not be pleasant. It's not even about the EU or indeed remain or leave . It's about what comes next, it's about what comes with it and who will be next. Whatever the Lexit campaign says , whatever criticism is levelled at the EU nothing compares to the shrinking of our outlook and perceptions. The 'other' will be next, the disabled, the benefit claimant and the different. On Friday the Street Gangs of the Far Right will brandish the Union Jack and cast their hateful eyes upon who they will come for next. There is a closing of the mind here on Brexit Island, a closing of tolerance, respect and understanding. I have no sympathy for the bland centrism of the #FBPE types yet I have a toxic fear of right wing natavists of the right and what they will do next and who.

At 11am on Friday the lights will go out as they did in an August over 100 years ago. It is not the EU I mourn for but instead a European attitude and the recognition of European History, Culture.and thought that will be lost in a flood of chlorinated chicken and the rank philisophy of the Trumpian rust belt. Those who celebrate the 'leavening" the most will know the history, literature and culture of Europe the least. For whom will the bells toll and boom the most? For the most vulnerable, the fragile and exposed. They will come for those of different cultures and ethnicities, identities and sexualuties. Friday will bring a post modern neo fascism scratched upon a 50p coin and those who march behind it the reality of the Mail, Star and Daily Express....Rage, rage against the coming of the Far Right...this is the age of Mark Francois, Farage and Fascism. I hear the kipper 'ex pats" living in Spain celebrate Brexit and yet they still remain. In the words of Leonard Cohen 'every soul is like a minnow , every mind is like a shark" And like the Emperor clothes they do not see they are economic migrants clinging to white fragility and ontological insecurity. They know not what they do or indeed who they are. .Rage, rage against the coming of the far right. Auschwitz has been liberated but 75 years and now xenophobia and prejudice close in once more, hate crimes surround us... Rage rage....against the shadows of the fascist night. the ghosts of Kristallnacht walks in that darkness..and the glass shines in the streets..