Why The Past Couple of Years I’d a Stark Reminder Why the Battle Between Love and Hate is Ongoing
Now whether you have been taking a break from the news feeds, be it local or national, not watching the TV or reading the news papers no doubt you have become aware of the ever ongoing battle between the political left and right.
Here’s some examples I can think of; last year there was the situation of the horrific incident in which three young girls were killed at a Taylor Swift themed dance class, the aftermath led to riots which was triggered by misinformation on the internet.
It was because of misinformation, in other words people not getting their facts right and put false names of the suspect on the internet. As usual the incident became a battle involving those from the political far right. I just found it deeply disgusting that someone chose to select a moment of people’s grieving and add incorrect details knowing fully well it could possibly start a massive riot.
Another situation was the horrific, vile act which led to the death of the late Jo Cox, referred to as many as The People’s Politician, and when you read about her you can understand why. No doubt like so many I read about her and what she had done prior to being a politician I just thought to my why we couldn’t have more people in politics like her.
Her infamous saying in Parliament
“We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us”
Now this was a woman who was a prime example of someone who wanted to help bring people together through love, peaceful co-existence but most of all through unity. What she tried to get people to grasp was that as a society we were greater than the sum of our parts in that things can improve when they join together.
A while after I first of this it reminded about the aftermath of the assassination of Martin Luther King. Yes, that was way before my time as it was in the 60’s but there was lots of talk about it on the internet. I just find it sad as I find it brutally tragic in that two ordinary people really push things just to try and bring people as they strongly believed in and that being why they were killed.
Like many others, those old enough to remember that is, I can remember the London Terror Attacks in 2005. For me it was just like any other regular day, I was out in town having a wander about and browsed into an electronic hardware store complete with TV’s etc. One of the TV’s was on and just remembered being partially transfixed to the screen as reports were coming in about the horrific attacks in London. For me though it wasn’t just the attack that got my attention but the political reaction as well.
Though they’ve thankfully become quiet (fingers crossed that it’s permanent) the then Far Right political group, the BNP, took advantage of the atrocities, using it to get people to listen to them. I just found completely diabolical that a group of semi-educated morons would stood that low to use a tragedy just so they could exploit it for their own agenda.
Yet it serves as a continuing reminder of how when it comes to Far Right groups such as English Defence League, Britain First and National Action, their method of using hatred isn’t to be underestimated. It’s those same attitudes which enabled the bigots to march back into the White House for a second term, it’s also the same type of bigotry which helped fuel the process that led to the UK leaving the EU. And let’s face it since Twitter underwent new ownership and became X the flare ups only seem to have become even louder
A couple of weeks ago when I was getting a tattoo in town I came across a Stop The Far Right demonstration. I have to admit that it just reminded me of the same demonstrations I came across during my university days. Though I asked myself what they hoped to achieve I stopped to remind myself that if they didn’t take a stand then the Far Right groups would take advantage of this and promote hatred and try to cause divisions on a grassroots level. It is for those reasons I remembered why groups like STFR need to take their counter stand and not give up
For whilst groups like Hope Not Hate continue to help unite the people we cannot ignore the threats and intimation posed by groups such as the BNP, EDL and BF. We must never allow them to turn hatred into a weapon and use incidents like the Manchester Arena Bombing and London Bridge Attackers into weapons for propaganda.
