Only by examining the beliefs we unquestioningly hold can we move past current divisions. For remainers, it’s vital to keep ideals in mind and time to fight a bigger battle
I was living in Norwich when the Brexit referendum happened. The city voted remain, an island of European feeling separated from Cambridge – the next dot in the remainer archipelago – by 60 miles of rural and small town leaverdom. One morning not long afterwards, in the small hours, a local deli selling Romanian produce was firebombed. No one was hurt, although people were sleeping in a flat over the shop when it happened. A crowdfunding appeal quickly raised almost £30,000 for the damaged business.
A few days later I went with my infant son to a rally for tolerance held in the market square in response to the attack. The numbers were pitifully few. I remember looking round at my fellow demonstrators, the elderly liberals and the hippies, and thinking none of us would be much good in a street fight. Tolerance was all very well, but what if we had to defend ourselves? My psychic response to the leaver neurosis of remainers as “the arrogant elite” was an equally neurotic identification with the persecuted of history, as if the 52% were about to systematically Other and repress the 48% en masse.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Vcxr3j
via
0 Comments