How often in the last year have you lamented “We thought this – racism, hatred, thuggery … – had been stopped”? It seemed tolerance was becoming the norm. Hmm, the last few days have shown that all we have done is suppressed it and now the genie is out of the bottle again. Suppression never works. How often has History taught us that? Now we find it full in our faces yet again.
I have absolutely despaired over time with the horrific escalation of racist and xenophobic attacks over the last few years, yet in the last few weeks, I have been reminded that all the good work that so many institutions did to – what we all hoped and thought – eradicate racism, xenophobia and thuggery, was actually suppression. All we’ve done is pushed it underground, we haven’t changed the grass roots, the deep down, personal racist, xenophobic, thuggish mentality of ‘these people’.
Seeing the video of xenophobic thugs lying in wait for the Italian fans to leave the Wembley stands, shocked me, not just because of the awful scenes, vile and disgusting behaviour towards their fellow humans. They also shocked me because of the AGE of the perpetrators. When I remember back to the news report of the thuggery of the English fans between 50 and 25 odd years ago, I remember YOUNG faces, young, ‘disaffected’ men – now I see older men – those same thugs, just older. Somehow, I’d got it into my head that thuggery was a ‘young man’s thing’, that they would grow out of it. It would seem not, their inclinations have simply been suppressed and now that we have a ‘carte blanche’ these people – and of course their now adult children – feel they can express their disgusting inhumanity once again with absolutely no sanction. They found their voice and they feel they have ‘won’.
Going back over the ages, suppression has never worked. Eventually the disaffected rise and overcome. In the main, this has been a force for good. Freedom from slavery, serfdom, release from the bonds of Apartheid are what immediately come to mind, but this, this is something else indeed. Last year, a good start was made by the BLM movement, witness the reaction of so very many good people to the sickening racism against our three lions, however, we all need to do more. We truly do need to change the mindset of these vile people. For that we need strong leadership, not weasel words and certainly not hypocrisy or the cultural divisions that are being erroneously sown.
Positive thoughts and blessings to you all – thank you for bearing with me on my socio political rants. Hopefully a Holistic blog is waiting in the wings.