Let’s be scared. Let’s demonise people.

This is the message sweeping across countries at the moment, around the world, as we continue to move further to the right in terms of politics and governing people. Suppressing people and voices.

Thinking about my weekend in London at the Defeating Narratives of Division conference hosted by the Ella Baker School of Organising, and coming home to see peaceful protests in L.A. around the over stretching arms of Federal Officials and illegal immigration raids on communities being portrayed as chaos and unruly and needs to be stopped with military force. Trump, man!

What the fuck is happening right now? What false narratives fuelled by fear and intimidation are catching like wildfire and are taking hold? What is happening to democracy and fairness and justice?

I too am scared. I’ve been told by some to have fear and anxiety and start panicking in order to take action. Time is running out. Passing on this narrative of fear is making us on the so-called left no better than those on the right whose fuel is fear.

We have to be pushing back against these fears. Not disallowing them but acknowledging them and choosing to fuel our movement with love and solidarity and joy. We can come together as we have the power and spread a message of love and welcome and togetherness and there is no way that message can be twisted or used against us.

It is plain to see that communities who stand together, even if from different cultures and races and heritages, are powerful and those who are crooked and authoritarian are scared of this. Scared of us taking back our power and saying no, enough!

I’ll be writing more on this in the weeks to come. But for now I just had to mark this moment of disgust at what is happening around the world but how there is much to be celebrating and reinforcing and elevating. Stories of love and solidarity and people taking back their agency and power. Thinking of Burkina Faso here and other African nations who are standing up and saying enough is enough.

But all in good time, and for me ‘good’ time is slow time. Taking the time to bring about lasting change on our own terms.

More to follow.