2020 – The State of Things

I’ve been reasonably quiet on here recently. Had another clear out and doing my best not to be dragged into what 2020 has become. It’s difficult and at the moment it’s difficult to be positive. I keep hearing and seeing things on the news and social media which are unbelievably biased. They’re all creating more division and hate and where it leads is nowhere good.

I’m tired.

I’ve watched videos, many I’ve seen before, many I haven’t. All of them violent from one race to another. If a race war was being pushed, I don’t think I could think of a better way to start one.

I try to write. If this does happen you won’t get to choose sides, your skin will do that ultimately.

Last year I was talking to a friend who came here fleeing the war in Kosovo. I found it incredible that friends turned on friends and neighbours fought neighbours. I have since studied more about this type of conflict but now I understand it could happen again.

Maybe I am being dramatic but again I am tired of it.

Yesterday we had another rampage, three people dead and a number injured.

Immediately the media and social media jumped on it.

I grew up with the threat of bombs in dustbins. I hoped we had passed that but now whenever I visit a city with my daughter there’s a possibility of some kind of attack. I hoped we wouldn’t be doing it again but here we are.

It’s difficult not to feel angry and I am not a pacifist, but I do believe this division is being pushed, maybe to get clicks or maybe for something more nefarious. Regardless of the reason, the result will be the same.

I expect this post will upset both sides of the argument but how much more upset can people be?

It’s just draining, trying not to be drawn and trying not to create more anger. It’s like a virus.

At the same time, we as a society and world have the same issues. While you are reading this, there is a slave somewhere now suffering, you might be buying what they make. Someone somewhere is being tortured. Elsewhere someone is being raped. There is someone somewhere right now suffering in some way that I hope you can only imagine. The West hides a lot of this suffering. There is a veneer of civilisation. We have things, we have poverty but is it as bad as a really poor person somewhere in the world?

This writing is partly prompted by recent public events but mostly by something closer to home.

In the past three months, there have been two suicides of people I know of indirectly, a friend of a friend type thing. A teenage boy and another young male. Both got to the point where they decided to take their own lives. Both have left a hole in the lives of dozens of people.

I don’t have a solution. It would be good if I did but I certainly don’t think the solution lies in what we have now. Rioting and violence won’t solve the issues we have. I worry that we will soon see revenge attacks. It could be statues being damaged or it could be nail bombs. Whatever it is will be followed by a reprisal and another and another.

I don’t want that. I don’t know if anyone sane does but here we are.

I have no solutions, only concerns. Maybe if we stop thinking in us and them or in sides, we could figure something out.