We have been fooled by alt-right politicians and the media. It’s time for the silent majority to take a stand.

                                                                                                                                                            Source: AFP / Justin Tallis

Look around you and you will notice very little positive news. It does exist, of course: there is water on Mars; a Thai youth football team was rescued using innovative techniques despite the odds against them; the Duchess of Sussex will probably wear something stunning to a public event some time soon. None of these are political issues, of course. In this field, things seem to be in utter meltdown. Everywhere.

Theresa May’s hijacking of Brexit. Trump’s infallibility despite overwhelming evidence he’s more than likely a big-time crook and a sleazy pervert. Viktor Orbán and his illiberal democracy. Poland’s PiS party taking away citizens’ rights. Spain’s unjustifiably rough treatment of Catalan separatists. Putin infiltrating Western democracy, to the extent he was able to poison a few civilians in the English countryside. But most of all, a large number of ordinary people who either don’t believe these things are actually happening, or worse, don’t wish to know about them because they’ll just make them have to do something that will require time and effort away from their busy lives.

People often try to remain superficially indifferent in order not to get press-ganged into something they are reluctant to do, like make a stand against injustice or read up on important issues, when they could be buying that ultra-important pair of boots on Amazon, or giving the dog a haircut. Others don't want to stick their heads above the parapet in case they have trouble further down the line. Yes, we all hate being accosted on the streets by clipboard warriors. I'm not talking about that. 

But...

Right now, we are about to go into a period of immeasurable darkness once again, and what are people doing about it? They're polishing their driveways or mowing the carpets. They're doing anything except confronting the most important issue facing our civilisation since 1936. The current coordinated effort by ruthless individuals like Aaron Banks, or Steve Bannon and his band of merry men and women to smash Western democracy and install right-wing regimes should be blasted all over the media in the same way the Cuban Missile Crisis was back in the sixties.

But it isn't. 

And the reasons are simple: firstly, people would be utterly petrified. Secondly, many news outlets are party to this invasion. And thirdly, people are more interested in things that are harmless, fun, or that raise anger and prejudice, which is why the newspapers contain stories of violent lesbians, immigrant sex predators, Polish thieves or Mexican murderers. Of course, none of ours acts remotely in that way, do they? Noooo... 

These headlines stand out because they are done by people who aren't in your tribe. The fact is, most of the homosexual people I know are virtually incapable of violence; all the immigrants that I know are more likely to offer me a drink and a chat; all Polish people I know are hard-working, efficient and cerebral, and I know a couple of Mexicans, and they're pretty chilled out dudes. The fact of the matter is, right-wingers, and by that I mean people in the alt-right movement will say "if we can make a few in those enemy groups out to be wicked people, we can fool some in our society that the rest are like that too." 

The alt-right is pushing hard against the new 21st-century norms and standards that most of us take for granted as a society, such as women's reproductive rights, choice of gender and sexuality, freedom of movement of goods and people within a trading bloc such as the EU, international programmes such as Erasmus, acceptance of climate change, and I am almost convinced that they are experimenting with wacko ideas such as the flat earthers and creationists to see how far they can push people's gullibility. 

Dividing society down very strong, defined lines of demarcation is one of the steps on the road to aggressively marginalising their enemies. Once they have cordoned them off, no matter how large their numbers are in comparison, they can try to gain power through promising certain positive measures that many will benefit from (see the PiS party's rollout of childcare payments in Poland). Then, after they have gained power, they can execute the other things in their manifestos where yes, they carry out what they said they would, but on the side introduce marginalising or restricting measures on their ideological opposites, such as gay people in Russia, or pro-choicers in some parts of the US. They may also try to manipulate the judiciary so that their policies are more easily enshrined in law, sometimes for generations to come.

If you think my opinions are unthinkable, I advise you to check out the current situation in Poland and Hungary. Their spinmasters will say that these are necessary measures to do with the security of the people, but it is more to do with the implementation of their nefarious ideology.

And in all this, the moderate people sit back, content with their twice-yearly holidays, TV packages, family cars and visits to the park. They want life to carry on for them, so they sit there pretending not to notice. Many of them will have voted for all types of parties and both sides of the 2016 Brexit referendum. It's not about one side or another, it's about the silent majority. It is these people that need to be engaged the most, as it is these people that will decide if the nasty guys get in or not.

Think about it: how many decent folk do you know (you know the type: friendly, upstanding, clever, etc.) but wore MAGA caps or stuck a Leave.EU banner in their windows? Many of them voted for Trump mainly because they couldn't stand the thought of Hillary in the White House; many voted Brexit because they felt excluded from society; and that's fair enough. But a lot of them were bombarded with propaganda on immigrants stealing jobs, property and children. They were conned into thinking a darker skin colour is a sure sign of a troublemaker. In the Brexit referendum, there was a twist in the tail: apparently, the full hospitals, blocked roads, lack of affordable housing and overcrowded schools were due to too many foreigners, and nothing to do with government under-investment over many decades.

And this is where we find ourselves today - in this ideological battle between right-wing rule breakers and fair-minded folk. It is not too late to halt this criminal ideological takeover of our society: we can get out the message to more decent, ordinary folk who vote certain ways out of tradition or class rather than for justice. I mean, it is still incredible how many people still want to vote Tory, despite their total mismanagement of the country and the Brexit process. Surely, these people can be persuaded to vote for another party. 

We need to halt the rush backwards towards the intolerance and prejudices of the past, and we need to start now. We need to push people's buttons to make them see we are being manipulated into a new era of segregation and fear. The reality is that we have never been more prosperous or contented than now, but it does not feel like that, because it's not in the interests of the alt-right and their friends in the media to portray it so. The alt-right needs to spread misery and doom, and that is what sells newspapers, so they leech off each other.

In order to stop this, we need to look at several aspects: firstly, who is subsidising all this activity, and why? Secondly, just how many fake profiles are there on niche Facebook groups, or the comments section of newspapers, spouting all kinds of aggressive nonsense to make out that there are so many more people out there with the same intolerant views? And thirdly, how can we make a difference in fighting back? 

I have myself come up against a neo-fascist recently on Facebook, and it wasn't pretty. When I challenged his views, he accused me of being weak-willed and lacking in coherence (if anyone knows me, they know that is exactly the opposite of what I am). This was despite me banging on vehemently for long, sweeping paragraphs about why he was wrong in every single syllable of his nonsense. I provided evidence and links too. But no, it was dismissed with a figurative sweep of his hands, and a literal one over the "block user" option on his Facebook profile. Just before he did, like some super-villain getting a rush by telling his victim how he's going to kill him, he announced he was going to block me, so I had a millisecond to react, and I managed to accuse him of being a coward because he didn't want to debate.

What happened there was what is happening everywhere at the moment. The Orwellian 2 + 2 = 5 dogma is well and truly alive in these people: it is the twisting of everything to the benefit of the lie. The fact he was the one who more or less called me a snowflake, and yet it was he who blocked me out of unwillingness to have his views challenged, demonstrates a fragility, vanity and feebleness in the minds of these people that can be used against them. By assuring you hold the truth, and enough of your allies rally round you, you can defeat these guys. But here is the catch: nearly nobody will. 

I recently had a guy living below me whose premise on this Earth was to get through life without making too much of a ripple. Even if he saw an injustice, he kept out of it. He told me of his "triumphs" at escaping from having to deal with thugs and drug pushers at a bar he used to work in. He disapproved of my outspokenness, not that I took heed of that. These people need to be railed against for their utter refusal to stand up and be counted in these, the most programmatic of days. We cannot afford to just give up and let the alt-right overrun us. We need to give them a good shake to awaken their spirits and get them motivated to do something, even if it is to put their X on a ballot sheet every 4 or 5 years somewhere other than their default choice.

Just remember what John Stuart Mill said: "Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing." 

Don't bring your religion into politics and count on my respect

I have been utterly astounded by the number of people whom I have come across, on Facebook, in the media, or in person, who vote for political leaders based on one point only, no matter how relevant their other beliefs are for them. This is a very blinkered and self-defeating point of view, and the biggest share of this went to Christian fundamentalists, the vast majority of whom turn out time and time again for one party in many countries that best represents their chance to implement their ideologies, no matter what else the party believes in. We saw this in Poland, which swept the conservatives to power, and now we have seen it in the US, where the Republicans have steamrollered their way to all three houses.

In 2015, the Polish elected the Law and Justice (PiS) party to power, thanks to a growing dissatisfaction in rural areas with the speed of reforms implemented by the previous incumbents, Civic Platform. Although it is understandable for people to vote out a party that has ignored them, there were many who voted for PiS based purely on their sympathies with the Roman Catholic Church in the country. Since PiS was elected, it has taken a sledgehammer to the democratic institutions that were set up to assure constitutional equilibrium in the country, has tried to totally ban in-vitro fertilisation and pregnancy terminations (unsuccessfully) and tried to gag the independent media outlets.

Many fundamentalist Catholics in Poland would never consider voting for another party, and most certainly not for Civic Platform, the party that upheld the right to abortion in a vote not long before the last election. On 3 October 2016, the proposal to ban abortion outright brought Polish women of all kinds out on strike in a huge act of peaceful civil disobedience. Two days later, many politicians had begun to distance themselves from the proposal and an amendment was being considered at the time of writing this.

The irony is, the PiS (standing for Law and Justice) party claims they helped overthrow the Communist regime along with the Catholic Church, so they feel a little like they are owed a debt of gratitude for bringing about democracy, and yet they themselves have the most undemocratic agenda since the fall of Communism in 1989. So much so, a group of intellectuals and moderates established the KOD (Committee for the Safeguarding of Democracy) as a counterweight to the encroaching reduction in freedoms taking place in the country. What they want is closer to a theocracy than a democracy, and the people are finally beginning to realise the consequences of their actions.

The moral (pardon the pun) of the story here is, do not force your ideology on others. If you don't want to be involved in, or even inadvertently condone, something that you fundamentally deplore, that is your right. But it does not mean you should force your view on others by voting for a party based on one point of obsession. This is not how democracy works. Democracy is inclusive, and one size most certainly does not fit all.

Now we turn to the other side of the Atlantic, where the Republican party has won the right to govern the United States for the next four years. There is a great paradox between people with Christian values and the parties they vote for, the vast majority siding with the Republicans.

Let us take a look at Republicans' policies and compare them to Christian values:

So, to start with, they want to keep God in the public sphere. All's well and good if you're a Christian then. But dig a little deeper and the truth is very muddy.

Christian values stipulate that one should do unto others as you would do unto yourself, including:

• giving shelter to those in need; 
• providing help to the sick and the poor; 
• not killing your fellow human. 

And yet the Republicans strongly oppose giving asylum to those who have come to the US for a better life, they wish to foist medical expenses back on the individual and advocate the reversal of the weapons restrictions introduced under Barack Obama. Upon further consultation of policy one can see the Democrats favoured these points. Who is more closely aligned to Christian doctrine in these areas? I know who I would say...

Then there are thorny issues like same-sex marriage and abortion, both favoured by the Democrats and opposed by Republicans. These issues are relevant to far fewer people than those in the preceding paragraph, and yet they are the Republicans' most fertile hunting grounds for opposition supporters. So what this suggests is that, despite the fact that Jesus himself is recorded as hanging around with socially stigmatised groups like prostitutes and ex-criminals, this is irrelevant when it comes to Christians' political behaviour in modern times.

We can ignore the hundreds of thousands of people on the poverty line who are about to have healthcare added to their list of debts; rough up and throw out any under-the-radar immigrants who are doing all the jobs Americans don't want to do rather than give them an amnesty; and risk our lives by going out onto the street hoping not to meet a testosterone-fuelled sicko with a gun licence who can kill at a second's notice. Forget that, because hold your horses, folks... love between two people is only right and proper if they're male and female, and we shouldn't allow anyone to make sexual "mistakes". This is really rather creepy, but yes, fundamentalist (emphasis on the mental, and most definitely not on the fun) Christians would rather vote based on such kneejerk matters such as that rather than on the bigger issues.

The same goes with the environment:
It is entirely feasible that the next energy secretary will be a climate change denier. Despite all the warnings, the evidence and the fact that nearly two hundred countries have signed treaties to deal with it, the US is probably about to assign this job to a sceptic. Christians are split on this issue, although time and time again the Bible tells humans to respect the Earth:
Leviticus 25:1-7 and 23; Psalm 24; Ezekiel 34:18; Matthew 6:26; 1 Timothy 4:4; the list is endless, and they all point to the need to look after our planet. So one would think, that even as a sceptic, one would at least be respectful of our Earth and Her resources. But most Republicans favour withdrawing from environmental treaties and reigniting the fossil fuel industry.

Again, this is considered a side-issue by many fundamentalist Christians, because moral behaviour is a far greater threat to them than this. And to be honest, I find it at best very distasteful, at worst profoundly hypocritical. But most of all it highlights the easily-led, knuckle-headed narrow-mindedness of people (or sheeple, considering they are a flock) that:

• they would elect a party that condoned the widespread carrying of guns yet called themselves "pro-life"; 
• would listen to their priest telling them the story of the Good Samaritan and then immediately join a demonstration against Mexicans or Muslims; 
• would read from 1 Corinthians 13, which even for a non-believer like me is the best definition of love in existence, and then go and heckle an LGBTQ event. 

I remember I once knew a Baptist minister's daughter who, despite the deep unpopularity of John Major's government in 1997 due to the in-fighting, the scandals, the remoteness of the ministers and the institutionalised corruption, declared she would vote for him because he went to church. Did she even pay attention to the news...? I doubt it.

And this is my problem with religion interfering in politics. You cannot blindly let yourself be guided by priests, bishops and cardinals on the very narrow moral issue of sex and love which, by the way, they don't even take part in (if you don't play the game, you can't expect to make up the rules), and at the same time have a clear conscience on other issues of a more urgent nature, like the rising oceans, civilian gun crime, free healthcare, proper education, housing the homeless and welcoming refugees. The Statue of Liberty itself has these words:

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. 
To spread the light of liberty world-wide for every land."

If this is what you believe, then you are most definitely not a Republican, but you have probably been made to believe that you are by more eloquent people, or cajoled into voting for them by peer pressure, pressure from your elders or by your sheer blindness to the real issues.

I think it's only right to see that Bible verse in full. Learn from it, because it sums up not only what one might call "conventional" love, but also that for the Earth, for our neighbours, for our fellow humans, and our country:

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

So on that note, if you vote based on one narrow issue of religious doctrine, don't expect me to regard you as an example of moral fortitude, for you have done nothing more than condoned a sort of "Christian Sharia" - the imposition of your religious doctrine in our law and politics, where people of other religions need to coexist. The content of Sharia law is totally different to Christian teaching in many aspects, but I don't think anyone would agree that Christianity should be applied to our laws. This is why, even in France and ultra-Catholic Italy, religious symbols are banned from state workplaces. Religion has a place inside people as individuals - it is a very personal thing. It has no place in a one-size-fits-all public sphere.

So please, keep your own beliefs to yourself, and don't impose them on others.

The Polish politician's favourite tool: victimhood

Back in the dark days of the Cold War, people of all nations involved were fearful of "the other side". This fear was generated by the idea that "we" were superior to "them", and "they" were immoral, unscrupulous and treacherous. It worked well - indeed so well, it's been resurrected for a new public, a public that by now will have forgotten that period, and should be more or less open to psychological manipulation once again. Today's Poland is a perfect example of this.

"Us" against "them": this tool is used by so many leaders to motivate their followers, especially in hard times: listen to any post-match interview from football managers like Slaven Bilic or José Mourinho; find a speech by any of the North Korean Kim dynasty; take a look at the recruitment tactics of any wacko religion such as the Jehovah's Witnesses or even the Westboro mob; read the transcripts of any large criminal trial - what you will notice in all of them is this tendency to garner sympathy with their target audience through claiming they are being besieged and thus in need of protection, support or even encouragement.

In some contexts this may indeed be the correct action to take, but in a lot of them, shiploads of salt should be offloaded onto their pretexts before even considering their legitimacy. Take the current constitutional changes taking place in Poland right now: all the pillars of democracy have been tested and are being torn down in favour of a very pious, blinkered and ultimately vindictive government being led by an éminence grise, Jarosław Kaczyński, who is clandestinely pulling all the strings from a safe distance. He himself is slightly toxic to the public, but his party, at least at the time of election, was not. I think it its safe to say that if there were an election in Poland tomorrow, his PiS party would be soundly beaten by safer, more democratic politicians.

One can say that a country deserves the politicians it elects, and sorry to my Polish friends, but I think this also applies here... Poland was gripped by the migration crisis of summer 2015 and voted for the party most likely to protect its national borders from ethnic "impurities". Poland was an up-and-coming country, a progressive nation taking the lead in its region as the motor of European integration and solidarity. But the wheels came off in the summer when its people showed that they have yet to really comprehend the outside world at large. The election of the PiS, with a majority, despite its disastrous record in office, demonstrates the same old fears that Poles continue to believe: Russia and Germany are still trying to subjugate it; the EU is the propagator of multiculturalism and ultimately the dilution of Polish nationality; Putin himself caused the 2010 Smolensk air crash that wiped out many of Poland's leading lights... there are many more, but these are the perfect examples to highlight how to manipulate a country and its people.

Playing on these fears, along with the fact that Poles play victimhood very well (I cannot remember how many times I have had to explain why the British didn't show up the day after the attack on Westerplatte in 1939 and why I am personally not to blame, or listen to how all of us Brits, whether born or not, whether we voted for the leader of the day or not, are responsible for Poland being handed over to the Soviets after the War, even if we ourselves weren't actually at the Yalta or Potsdam conferences...) meant that Kaczynski and his allies could use the perfect storm created by the migration crisis, the eurozone issue and the struggle in Ukraine to play on the fears of the average citizen. Where this has led to is a disaster for European democracy and progressive politics. 

I personally do not think the current Polish government will survive a year from now. But where it has been very shrewd is in very early in its term of office massively changing the country's internal set-up making it likely that, even if it does fall, there will be remnants that can continue to cause a lot of trouble: the constitutional court has over a third of its members linked to the PiS. National television and radio have been infiltrated with the party faithful, causing several high-profile resignations. There are other things that have caused widespread dismay amongst Poland's opposition, leading to the coining of a new term: "Orbanisation", named after Hungary's leader and advocate of illiberal democracy, Viktor Orban. 

To conclude, this is not over; not by a long way. The chances are high that the silent majority will become irritated by this and more public resistance will bring about a friction between the ruling party and everyone else (except, astonishingly, for the Polish Catholic Church, which has so far remained impassive to the current goings-on, perhaps because it too has benefited from the new patriarchal, sexually conservative and anti-abortion regime. For the moment, the European Union is leading the way in criticising the establishment in Poland - unfortunately it is led by Martin Schulz, a German, and thus an obvious sitting duck in the victimhood propaganda war, where he, along with compatriot Angela Merkel, the Luxembourgish head of the European Council Jean-Claude Juncker, and the harmless but outspoken leader of the Liberal Democrats in the European Parliament Guy Verhofstadt all appeared on the cover of Wprost, the Polish version of Der Spiegel or Time, in Nazi uniforms under the headline "once again they want to police Poland". They chucked in Günther Oettinger, EU Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society, for good measure, I think, just because he's German. 

And this is where I go full circle. This type of headline appeared in propaganda in the old communist Poland, and is once again rearing its ugly head. It would be refreshing to think that this time people will have learned from the mistakes of the past, but time and time again people seem not to want to; they want to try once again to dream up a reason to legitimise their irrational fears and stir up a feeling of fear and paranoia. We need to encourage the Polish opposition and seek ways to undermine this Orbanisation, before it becomes mainstream everywhere.