On a recent day off from the office, I did something I rarely do as of late: I went to the cinema to watch a film that wasn’t rated U. This was, I admit, purely an exercise in self pleasure and satisfaction. Like lying on the beach and reading a book without children tugging at your arms. In short, pure solitary bliss.
Anyway, the film I chose to watch was the new Hollywood blockbuster Independence day, basically the same as the original but twenty years later. Side Note: Do you know that the first Independence Day came out in 1996? Wow, time DOES fly.
Anyhow, as you might have imagined, the aliens attack the planet and lives of many people on this earth is in danger. No spoilers here. The film in question is one pyrotechnics show after the next, with explosion after the other. And I must admit I don’t really like watching such films, where I’m constantly on the edge of my seat, afraid of what will happen next. There are people out there who adore watching horror films, for example, where one maniacal killer stalks a young maiden around a leafy neighborhood, or a killer virus attacks all the passengers of a cruise ship. You know the ones I’m talking about. Well, for me, there is no fun in getting my heart aflutter and getting stressed. Especially on my day off.
Plus, if I want to get all worked up, all I need to do is watch the news. Over the past few days everything anyone has spoken about was the recent referendum in the UK, where Britons decided to leave the European Union. In a matter of hours, the British pound had collapsed to levels not seen in decades, and companies, particularly banks, had announced they would be pulling out of the UK.
What was strangest however, was that many of the people who voted LEAVE seemed not to even know what they were doing. Many Googled “What is the EU” after going to the polls wanting to leave it – not really knowing what IT was. In the words of one US late-night TV host, it’s the equivalent of googling “what if I don’t use contraception” on your way to the baby shower. It’s too late to complain.
What’s worse is that many of the slogans which enticed Brits to vote LEAVE were pure lies. It’s not really news. As the joke goes: One reason why lawyers make such good politicians, is that they are already used to lying through their teeth.
Apart from the economic and political effects of the referendum, perhaps the worst part of the seismic aftermath was the new wave of racism which has surfaced in the UK like a mythological creature bent on utter destruction. News outlets have had a field day reporting on abuse on members of various minorities in the UK.
One of the largest such communities were Poles, who were attacked on at least two fronts in a matter of days. The Polish Social and Cultural Association (POSK) in west London was the victim of one attack, when it was sprayed with some very unsavory grafitti which basically translated to “get out of here”.
In a separate incident, laminated cards reading “Leave the EU/No more Polish vermin” were sent through the letter boxes of Polish families. Other media reports which are equally if not more shocking said that fecal matter was also shoved through the front doors of Polish houses in Great Britain.
Is this what we have come to? A glance at the strengthening front of right-wing politics could be blamed on the crumbling of left-wing and liberal ideologies in the West. But does history not teach us a lesson. Can’t we all look back merely half a century ago to realise that we are slowly and alarmingly heading in a similar direction, where the friction between countries, including some which are still in a union – Scotland and the UK, and the UK and European Union as two cases in point, show that we can and SHOULD do better. Let us remember that “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”, and if Aristotle realized that in 350 BC, why are we, in 2016, allowing ourselves to forget?