A Split Decision
On the 23rd of June 2016 the UK was asked to make a decision on its future. I wrote a blog about it just a few days before in my usual optimistic frame of mind. I voted remain because I believe a united world is where we should be headed. I do, however, understand that although I sense that is where we shall end up, humanity has to go through many teething issues before we choose the simple road. The answer is always simple but when humanity has gone through thousands of years oppression and pain, clarity is not an attribute we would be expected to have gained as a whole. I remain, as I said, optimistic.
When I was able to clear my mind, a few days after the disbelief of what happened had passed, I realised that far more than a simple yes/no vote had occurred. I soon recognised that a huge amount of anger had been unveiled. Having been given the chance to make their feelings known, those that voted as a protest, made it obvious that their anger had always been there. The country was no different to how it was before the referendum but now everyone was aware of it. Bringing this anger out in the open is important as I have been feeling too long that repressed emotions lie at the heart of our country’s issues.
For the last few decades we have, as a nation, been working to remove sexism and racism from our way of being. However, if this only done by passing a few laws and changing the way people speak and behave in public, although many people will choose to change the way they feel towards others, many will just be changing their actions only. If we do not change the way we feel, these negative emotions that are kept repressed and not dealt with or voiced will eventually rise up like the ugly monster we are seeing today. Now it is open season to voice racist remarks. I feel the result of the referendum has now given those who feel they have ‘won’ but who have always felt oppressed - and so naturally transfer that feeling to the other - a sense of righteousness in oppressing those who they feel are outside their sense of 'family'. How long is it going to take before we all realise that we all brothers and sisters and that this understanding is our only way forward to peace?
My first reaction was that this has undone all the years of trying to make this country a more tolerant and open-hearted country. Then I realised that we obviously had never succeeded as this feeling of intolerance has never gone away it has just been covered with a veneer of improved behaviour. So where can we go from here. The small majority of people are speaking out but, however painful it is hear to these remarks, I do not for a moment believe that all those who voted to leave are racist, just as not all those who voted to remain are completely tolerant. No one is immune from feelings of arrogance, intolerance or lack of self-worth to name a few of the emotions that are at play here. There is much work to be done and much to learn. Sadly I feel our country is now going to have to learn the hard way. I find it hard to believe that there is not an option of simply not pressing the Brexit button, as many other countries have done. (Pulling out the ‘but that would be undemocratic’ phrase at this point I find laughable with our Government’s history). But as banks and businesses are already preparing to move out the country and our politicians are still more concerned about their own face than the country’s needs we are all going to have take the brunt in some way or another.
I see every crossroads as an opportunity and although I feel the referendum was perhaps one of the most divisive political moments in our history (other than being taken to war countless times) I also believe we can see this as a real chance to look at our country in a whole new light. Building walls, I believe is the easy way out. There are much better choices to be made, however hard they may seem. This is something for 'the people' to work towards as I can’t see the politicians making any changes. While they still work within their own laws of self-interest and bandy around words such as democracy and transparency we know there is no hope there. We live in a country where democracy has been twisted so that it is meaningless and where lies are a way of life. The combined efforts of the Government, media and the city have left the people so much in the dark as to the real truth I don’t think anyone knows what is true anymore
Sadly, I wonder that perhaps the only way that we can lift our country up to a new way of living is to sink so far into the obscurity a post Brexit world will put us in - a world where all the ‘Great’-ness will be shaken out of the mindset of the British - that the only way forward will be to throw away all the lies and fears, hatred and choose to come together in a way that serves us all, However, contrived that might sound, that is the only right way forward and I am doing everything I can to make that a reality in my world right now.
Got to start somewhere, one step at a time.
