HAVE YOU GO IT?
As a society we are becoming more polarised in our views. This has become increasingly true over the past forty or so years, and is now reaching worrying levels. The old
left vs right has spread into pro and anti EU, pro and anti Indy, pro and anti abortion, pro and anti vaccines, etc etc. Whilst the dividing lines are blurred, it seems true that many of those in 'anti' categories will fall into the whole group of them. Then there's criticism of the media, with the left seeing the BBC as a tory government mouthpiece, and the right saying that is too much influenced by progressive causes. Here in Scotland Indy supporters feel the media is against them, but then so do the unionists!
Increasingly I find there's one word that seems to determine if people fall to one side of the arguments, or the other. That word is empathy. And nothing demonstrated that divide quite like one of the most important public demonstrations of last year, the Kenmure Street Protest in May.
If you're unfamiliar with the incident, and haven't got time to follow the link, it happened when a Home Office immigration van tried to remove two Sikh men from their home in Glasgow because of alleged immigration offences. The men were long standing members of the local community, and those neighbours rallied round in numbers, and alerted activist organisations, so that the immigration officers found their van locked in place by a huge, and ever growing, crowd of people determined not to let these men be taken away. The police were called, and eventually they advised the release of the men. The van went without them.
Reactions were split, each side vehement that they had right on their side. The SNP, Labour and Greens all commended the humanitarian response of the locals. The tories condemned the action for breaking the law. But if it's bad law, and badly implemented too, who's to say what's right?
Ultimately your personal response to these events came down to the word I used above. Empathetic people were able to place themselves in the position of these poor men, being dragged away from everything they new, without warning, early in the morning. Others saw it in more black and white terms, without considering any of the human aspects.
Which side were you on? Do you have empathy or not? I'm very much on the side of the protestors.
