Once upon a time, politics was a gentleman’s profession where opposing sides traded blows on issues rather than at each other.
Just as boxers embrace each other after a boxing match, politicians used to go out together for drinks after heated parliamentary sessions.
The emerging of the politics of hate has poisoned the political atmosphere
Politicians no longer view each other as opponents but as enemies.
It’s right that MPs security is strengthen.
But in a democracy like hours, except we replicate the Westminster fortress nationwide, it would be impossible to fully protect each and every MP.
What is required is for politicians themselves to start behaving like the ladies and gentlemen they were in yester years.
To quote John Gardner, “Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world’s ills and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all”.
Divisive politics is always seeking villains.
It is those villains who ends up consuming the very politicians.
Remember the French revolution.
Civilisation is defined as the intelligent management of human emotion.
We who consider ourselves civilised people supposed to be able to disagree without hating each other.
Describing Sir David Amess Killing as an act of terrorism masks the deeper societal issues.
We as a society need to condemn any attempt at the politics of hate…The politics of them and us.
For it is this politics of hate that inspire the level of barbarity we just witnessed.
To quote USDA Chief Scientist Cathie Woteki “Ignorance allows people to disregard the consequences of their actions. And sometimes it leads to consequences even they did not intend”.
Let’s use the killing of Sir David Amess to start a new type of politics. A politics that recognise our different view points without highlighting our individual differences.
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