Ever Hopeful for Humanity
I laid in bed last night and listened to my quiet house, not knowing what was happening in cities and towns around us, but grateful that my humans were here, safe.
The videos and photos on the news channels and socials in the last few days, have left me sick with worry.
A constant nausea that doesn’t abate.
Rolling questions with no answers; how are we back here again, only 79 years after the second World War ended? How has this spurious hatred taken hold, and where will it lead?
My hard-wired positive outlook has had to work round the clock, to battle this sense of existential despair. It hangs over the constant flood of grimness that keeps media outlets in business, and supports keeping this life forever frozen in a state of the same old, same old.
I woke this morning, and reached for my phone, opening the news app.
It was 6.58 am on the 8th of August 2024, and for me, it’s worth documenting; my Hope is not just intact. It’s overwhelming.
The reports were full of ‘Community unity and the police defeated challenges,’ (The Guardian.) ‘Thousands of counter protestors take to the UK streets.’ (Sky News.) ‘Huge counter-protests quell riots.’ (The Telegraph)
The images and videos this morning show people, all people, coming out in force to support each other, to show that peace is the voice of the many. To show that we are human, our hearts beat the same, and we will not stand idlily by.
I’m a person who believes in the importance of education, and I don’t just mean letters and numbers. I believe there should be world history and politics taught in schools ~ not for children to be tested on, but so they become adults with an everyday understanding of the world.
I realise teaching basic politics would see a major shift in who does and doesn’t get voted for. I also realise this is why societal structure and ‘how politics functions’ isn’t taught in schools ~ because it’s childs-play to make people believe the propaganda if you’ve kept them in the dark.
And now, more than ever clarity is called for, and I’d started to wonder if my stalwart belief in basic human decency had taken one knock too many.
But no. We’ve got it in us to do better, the action of every single person who came out yesterday shows it, and it makes me joyful.
Jx
