| Jun. 10th, 2009 @ 11:49 pm I feel I have to get this off my chest |
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Feeling for the Day::  contemplative
I've been hearing a lot about the fascism of the far right parties in the past few days, and to be honest, I am sick of it already. I'm sick of it for entirely different reasons than many of you, I suspect.
Yes, the BNP are composed of violent thugs, but the fact is, they managed to get 6.2% of the vote. That's three times the number of the SNP. Let's be frank here. We all know what the BNP stand for, but the fact of the matter is that just under a million people voted for them, and in a democratic system we must respect that vote. I keep hearing about the people that died in WWII for the right to vote freely, for the right to democracy, well that freedom is exactly the one that sticks in your craw. We are literally damned by our own system.
We don't have to agree with their choice, we may hate them for it, we may wish they were never born, we may choose to protest their very existence, but they are a legitimate political party and they now represent us in Europe. I've heard of plans to ban their existence, to alter the system to lessen their impact, but that will only drive their cause underground and that will help no-one.
Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman [1].
Let them argue in public, we must raise our game to win the debate without submitting falling into the trap ourselves.
I found myself shouting at the Channel 4 news on TV on Tuesday [2], not at the BNP, but at Margaret Hodge MP, and at Krishnan Guru-Murthy, who both aggressively interrupted Andrew Brons repeatedly and persistently. Clearly the emotions were running high, but the end result of it was the BNP MEP came out of it looking like a reasonable bloke with well thought out arguments (albeit with the undertone of everything the BNP stands for), and the two supposedly right minded liberals came away looking like petty juveniles in comparison.
Fighting fire with fire does not work. Violence and hate only cause to spawn more voilence and hate.
I'm not going to condemn those that decided to vote for of the BNP. That is an easy path to take, but it will just as easily lead to failure. The strength of their numbers is too large and consistent to ignore. It is by systematically driving these parties to the sidelines that is part of the problem. By demonising them and their supporters, we are causing them to believe ever more strongly in their cause. To marginalise their beliefs and prejudices will convince them that they are right to believe that the current system has utterly failed them, driven them to the point of extremism.
I have a strong suspicion that the atmosphere of intolerance and the Government's sudden lurch to the right has brought an environment where people feel that they are not heard, not understood, and not important.
In such an environment, far away from the light, a sinister darkness will inevitably grow.
When people feel that their opinions are not counted, are not heard and not valuable; when the rights of the common man to justice and fair play are trampled upon; when the lives of few and many are shown to be cheap; when the ruling classes decide that they are above the law and vote to conceal their tracks; when suspicion and fear are the tone set by those in authority; when these things come to pass, is it all that surprising that the fascists have come to power?
We have been warned for years of sleepwalking into a surveillance society, and yet are surprised to wake up in the middle of the night.
It is time to cast light on this whole sorry system of politics. It is time for a new system of accountability for the Commons, for the MPs who govern on our behalf and for the parties who insist on enforcing the party line. They have shown us that they can not be trusted to make decisions for the common good on their own, so we must ensure that we make it our business to lift their head out of the trough and make them pay attention.
They must be held accountable.
Where they fail, we must be willing to demand more of our public servants. Equally, where they succeed, they must be held up as a model for others to follow. We must be willing to keep our share of the watch.
Banks may fail, businesses may become bankrupt, but our freedom and values can never be allowed to slip quietly into the night. Our rights, hard won by our ancestors, come with the unwritten responsibility to defend them with equal vigour.
We must be willing to defend these values of fairness, tolerance and equality. These are the cornerstones of what it means to be British, and what we must preserve for the next generation. My greatest hope is that our children are able to enjoy the freedoms we once took for granted. |
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