Beautiful words from Jonathan Kent, with which I wholeheartedly agree:
"There is a dividing line in our society. On one side are people of all faiths and none who just want to live alongside one another in peace, make friends, raise their families and build a future together. On the other are the bigots, the fanatics, the intolerant who want to divide us and stir up conflict and hate. We defeat them by refusing to be divided, by refusing to hate, by refusing to change our values. Manchester has been magnificent, reminding us how inspiring people can be at the worst of times. Thoughts with all those affected."
These are important words. And measured. I rarely make comments on social media on such issues. Keep calm and carry on is the message. I know the worst human beings can be, and I'm not impressed. I don't judge life and its possibilities by that miserable standard. And we shouldn't adjust our behaviour to that standard.
I'm reading people calling for peace and solidarity being abused as 'dummies' who should go an live with ISIS. The call for co-existence comes from people who are far from 'dummies'. It's coming from the Manchester people themselves. It's not peace at any price, it is peace with justice. Check Manchester's history of radical and socialist politics, the city knows all about justice. It doesn't need lessons from those unfamiliar with either the term or the meaning. We know well that it matters a great deal with whom we cooperate, and to what ends, and we know well not to allow extremists of all kinds to divide loyalties between wholly false and utterly malevolent positions. And there's no cooperation or co-existence with any such positions. You don't protect liberty this way at all; that's the way you lose it. The protectors are the executioners of liberty, always have been, always will be. And the way they foster and exploit division and peddle their politics with relish on the back of misery is obscene. Lacking standards, such people are capable of protecting nothing, for they value nothing.
That's the problem with 'realism' in politics, it sets a benchmark so low as to be achievable, but not worthy of achievement. Such realism is just nowhere near real enough and has more the quality of fantasy. It isn't true to the nature of human beings, and it betrays our societies to the worst impulses. It’s a complete perversion of the best inclinations of people, and we need to be vigilant in insulating ourselves from the corrupted political agenda at work here.
Let's get this straight, the bigots, the fanatics, and the intolerant love each other and their first port of call is each other, ignoring the rest of us, the vast majority, who are caught in between the extremes. They seek to suck the rest of us into their world-hating neurosis. No, a call for co-existence doesn't mean living with ISIS; and it doesn't mean being like them either, fighting fire with fire. It means rejecting utterly false dichotomies. We don't want to live with ISIS, and we don't want to live with you either - the world can lose the extremes that breed and feed off each other. . The motto on the Manchester coat of arms has it right: Concilio et Labore, which translates as 'by wisdom and effort' or 'by counsel and work', a phrase which has its origins in Ecclesiastes. With the bees as a symbol of industriousness, the coat of arms portrays Manchester as an outer-looking city of global trade and industry, built on courage, strength and discipline and filled with peace and harmony. These are the qualities we need, and human beings have them, they are beyond the capabilities of no one. Political opportunists have no place here, they can peddle their fears and fantasies and stoke their divisions elsewhere.
The overwhelming majority of people are decent. That's the most impressive fact here, which those looking to foster and exploit division should give some thought to, should such 'realists' ever develop the nerve and the nous so to do. I'll say this loud and clear to those who have used this to peddle their own political prejudices, looking forward to war and exclusion with an unconcealed and shameless relish - YOU DON'T SPEAK FOR MANCHESTER PEOPLE, ONLY FOR YOURSELVES AND YOUR OWN POISONOUS AGENDA! AND YOU KNOW AND UNDERSTAND NOTHING! You know nothing because you never listen, and you never listen because you may come to learn something you don't want to know. It's much easier to just confirm your own prejudices, and take the world further on down the destructive cycle of reprisal and counter-reprisal. That never ends well.
There are a lot of political opportunists out there who show no sympathy whatsoever for people and their suffering, whose first concern is to exploit misery to peddle their own political agendas, whose political interests behind the pretense to defend people are only all too apparent. The message I'm getting from the people of Manchester is loud and it is clear, and one you should heed - it is a message of love and solidarity, a message of mutual self-giving, and of not returning and thereby reinforcing bigotry and hatred, and to hell with those with their own political agendas who, in seeking only to confirm their own divisive, hate-filled, death-dealing politics, merely reinforce their own prejudice. Such people understand nothing, and lack the nerve and the nous to even begin to understand. Such people only serve to make matters worse, and seek power and influence in the ruins of human hopes. These are the kind of people who stir these things in the first place and attempt to send the world to extremes, with the appeal that we choose their side over the others'. If you ask the question 'why?' then at least try to answer it without prejudice.
One day, in coming to comprehend ourselves, coming to find a home or a homeland with which we can identify, a world without depersonalization and alienation, we will come to see how little at home we are in ourselves in a world of depersonalisation and alienation. And we start the process of coming back to our senses by refusing to be enlisted in causes designed to dominate others, causes which, ultimately, will destroy civilised life on Earth.
And there is hope in this regard.
There are few sights more inspiring than the countless numbers of people who, in the face of the thoughtless, world-hating hubris that is coming out of the political world all too often these days, continue resolutely to give voice to humane values, with the spirit of solidarity, freedom, moral clarity, sense of purpose and devotion to common decency. Those who seek to manipulate tragic events to serve their own political purposes know none of these things. No wonder they seek to divide and dissolve such standards into the worst humans can be - it's the only political vocabulary that they know. In need of protection, these are the last people to be trusted. We've seen their handiwork, we've seen the consequences of their realpolitik. I wouldn't send them out for a loaf. I doubt they could manage that without causing division, death and destruction.
I have enough Manchester connections in my past to be able to say something personal here - I proudly count myself an alumni of Manchester Metropolitan University. I spent a decade researching the principle of 'rational freedom' in the city. I also wrote "Recovering the Meta-narrative of the Good City: Manchester as a Post-Industrial City" from research materials gathered whilst working in Manchester.
(https://www.academia.edu/657107/RECOVERING_THE_META-NARRATIVE_OF_THE_GOOD_CITY)
I know Manchester. And I know freedom and justice and the wisdom and effort it takes to achieve a life co-existence. This principle holds that the freedom of each is conditional upon and co-existent with the freedom of all. I stand by that principle. It's not peace at any price - justice lies at the core of a true peace. And to those who think that such a principle of peaceful co-existence amounts to compromising with the forces that would divide and destroy us, I shall say in my best Mancunian accent: go and give your 'ead a wobble! Because you talk bobbins! You don't speak for the Mancs, and you show no concern for them either. So stop pretending you do. We know what your agenda is, and the bulk of people reject it, not out of ignorance of threats and dangers, but in full awareness of them and how they come from more sides than one.