Dreams

The fourth of a short (?) series on the EU Referendum

I dream of Geoff (not his real name), a client from long ago.  An urbane, cultured man G. worked for many years in Asia and the Far East.  When we met he was very ill, very ill indeed.  He was a British refugee from East Anglia, driven out of the small market town that no longer felt like home - too many unfamiliar faces, languages, behaviours.  Life no longer felt normal or comfortable so he decided to move.  G. was a well-educated worldly man, nothing boorish or philistine about him.  But his sense of identity, previously sustained by a familiar intact culture was challenged, threatened by the sheer scale of change and difference.  He could neither cope nor adapt and fled north, seeking solace in this far corner of Scotland.  He did not regret his decision but he deeply resented feeling pushed into it, feeling pushed out.  

G is long dead, in the months I knew him and even after death he gave me many gifts.  One of them was the realization of just how hard it us for us to adapt and grow, to embrace change and difference.  That for many it is is impossible.  If this wise and humble man could not adapt to the influx of migrant workers what hope for others less privileged than him?  Multiculturalism, human rights, integration are noble ideals, not easy to live for any of us.  I knew this truth all those years ago but had conveniently buried my knowing.

I live in a small town so culturally homogenous that I sometimes go to the city for the stimulus of even visual diversity.  My dream visitor reminded me, that living anywhere close to these ideals, practicing what we preach, is not easy.  They are aspirations not lived realities.  It is a huge ask of people to embrace difference on the scale required by open borders, migrants just as much as the home community.  In rural Scotland we are not in the front line of immigration pressures, yet.  We are relatively protected, unchallenged.  It was easier for us to vote ‘remain.’

I had been ignoring the rumblings of fear and discontent all these years since I first understood G’s predicament and his anguish about it.  I cried now for the unheard, the unseen, the bitter, the disconnected for everyone who voted ‘leave’ in the hope of relief.  I cried for the folly of politicians capable of spinning a good yarn, guilty of believing their own propaganda.  I cried for the man in Yorkshire acting out his discontent in violence.  

Most of all I cried for our incapacity to really listen deeply to ourselves and to each other, to the precious uniqueness of each and every point of view.  I cried for my own intolerance and judgement of those who had a different opinion from me.  Ordinary British people whose life experiences had led them to a different conclusion, as if their’s was somehow less valid, inferior.  I cried every time I heard them vilified as xenophobes, idiots, fuckwits.   What did we think we were doing inviting foreigners into a country that could not even embrace the differences amongst its own people?  Such hubris.  Our hearts and heads are so very young, so unstable, so afraid beneath the anger, blame and judgement.

A friend sent me this link.