Selma, injustice and deliberate ig-norance

Just watched Selma. Have you seen it? Pain, inspiration, anger, joy, pissed off, elated, desperate, full. Those are just a few of the emotions that I experienced in a 2 hour film. How does that actually compare to the lives of those who live through this? I doubt it would even come close. I couldn’t help but draw parallels with the march of the refugees who dragged their feet hundreds/thousands of miles to reach sanctuary — many of whom are still travelling, many of whom have not/will not make it.

Here’s my problem. I see these things. I witness them. I feel immense pain and suffering, I cry, and yet I do nothing. Sure, I might donate to a charity or two, I might even say a prayer, but what does that actually mean? It’s so easy. It’s too easy.

I know I need to do more, as do most of us, and on a Friday night, after a glass of wine and an emotional movie I feel passionate enough to move the world — to leave my job and travel across the universe to right the wrongs that exist. But the truth is that when dawn breaks and life resumes, I forget — and I guess most of you do too. Part of this is instinct — it’s our natural human instinct, our brain shutting that down, protecting us from this fight, there are even studies to evidence this, we tell ourselves, it’s unavoidable. But, it’s also a conscious act — a deliberate ig-norance of the truth, because let’s face it, our lives are too difficult, too painful to take on someone elses battle.

But here’s the thing — it’s not someone elses battle — it’s our collective battle. Whatever religion you belong to, whatever faith you have, whatever you believe, we are indisputably connected — whether you’ve read Foucault’s Four Similitudes, or Hegel’s philosophy, or you just rely on your own instinctive basic understanding that we as human beings, whether black, white, purple, green, muslim, christian, hindu, old, young, presidential or ‘commoner’, are all one.

And so when the media or Donald Trump blames all the world’s muslims for the latest suicide bomber, when the UK government blames the poor & ‘benefit scroungers’ for the cuts that they have to make and when David Cameron makes loose comments about the ‘bunch of migrants’ in Calais— this is not something to ignore, to laugh off or to laugh at — it is something to take personally. Very personally.

Do you understand that this could be you? It could be me.

So this is my pledge. To you, the world, and to myself. I am determined that I won’t lead my life entirely selfishly (one has to be realistic), that I will make an impact and a difference, and that I will do — just do. I will stand up to this system that is skewed to benefit the rich and powerful, I will say no to the cuts and austerity and penalisation and demonisation of the poor and vulnerable. I will be true to myself and my core and will not be distracted by life’s materialism.

Epiphany.

This, all this, the system, the adverts, the 9–5, the bullshit media, it’s just one big distraction to move us further and further from the truth, from the right and from the light.

Some epiphany — I realised this long ago, just buried my head.

It won’t be buried any more.