Someone commented the other day, ‘I don’t know what to do’. It’s not the first time I’d seen this, nor likely to be the last. It’s be playing on my mind for some time and I feel it is worth writing something about it.
It’s actually a very important thing to say, it’s a statement of deep trouble and it should not be passed by, but rather that’s the place to stop and take a long and hard look.
It seems to me that we are, generally, bedevilled by not knowing what to do, there doesn’t seem to be a clear way forward and I don’t think there are any ready solutions to the problem yet, but there are clear indicators of what it’s about.
From my perspective I think it’s about a sustained and very deliberate drive to dis-empower us. Fixed term parliaments, which makes it harder for us to hold government to account. A welfare system redesigned to be punitive in which lives are shattered by the secretive kangaroo courts of the DWP in which we are denied representation or a hearing. The restrictions to legal aid and the introduction of in-house ‘mandatory reconsiderations’ which serve to delay resolutions further. The authoritarian behaviour of government which extends down into the entire spectrum of society, including local authorities. The rise of economic warfare, which includes the vicious sanctions regime, in a nation in which money is the means of our survival. If the ability to provide for the necessities of life is under attack, then people are reduced to a place of terror and despair with little time or attention for anything else. We’ve seen the results of such despair in the growing number of suicides, so let’s call it what it is, ‘the politics of despair’.
And that’s the key. A planned dis-empowerment of the people. If people are saying, ‘I don’t know what to do,’ they are providing exactly the key to the big issues we face today. The government does not want an informed people, it does not want an empowered people. This is planned dis-empowerment on a grand scale, which means that is the very thing to fight. It is a fight at a deeply personal level and that’s the heart of the matter.
So let me make this personal. I am not going anywhere and I cannot engage in any uprising until I see, acknowledge and understand that my sense of confusion, powerlessness and fear is not of my making, it has been manufactured as deliberate policy and I can see that is true. That’s important, that’s the start of clarity of vision within the soup of hopeless dis-empowerment. And that’s the very tool I need to begin to rise up and do something about it. Suddenly there is the possibility of a light at the end of the tunnel which has been deliberately switched off.
Look at the state of the EU referendum, what a despicable shambles! Where is that coming from? The damned Tories. I care not how you vote, we’ll survive either way, the Tories don’t give a fig about us, they are attacking us, not fighting a referendum. I’m not going to engage in furious debates about the EU, I have no idea what the outcome will be and nor is it within my power to decide what others will vote for. The real and present danger is from within, the party that has the most to gain from dissension and furious argument, the damned Tories.
From day one of writing a Letter a Day to Number 10, I’ve known that they are the enemy within, tearing apart not just our nation, its infrastructure, its assets, its public services, including our greatest ever achievement, our NHS, but our minds.
I consider myself incredibly fortunate that I am not a stranger to fighting for my own mind, that’s the story of my life. I am not immune to their despicable war against us, it beats down on me as much as it beats down on anyone and keeping up the letters has been at an enormous psychological cost because I am personally fighting for my own survival against the foulest, most despicable and evil government this country has ever seen.
Time and time again I have felt that I am not remotely doing enough and wondering what the hell more I can do. I can only resolve that by resolving to carry on and do what I can and am able to do. It’s the one way I have right now to press against the oppression. The letters may be public, but the battle is as much internal as external.
So back to the beginning, ‘I don’t know what to do’ is the problem writ large and thank goodness for feeling it, it means we’re alive and well in the midst of the greatest battle since WWII, but this one is being conducted in a very different way. It is economic and psychological warfare by a clear and present enemy within. The government and all the vested interests who want our world for themselves, driven by rampant greed in which our seemingly little lives are being sacrificed to achieve their filthy ends.
Every sanction is an act of war. Every policy that undermines us is an act of war. Every cut is an act of war. Austerity is an act of war. A conditionality regime that despite the best of efforts leads to a sanction, that’s warfare. £93 billion in corporate welfare and little Jane or John unable to eat, people dying in despair for want of a bite to eat. That my friends is warfare.
Holding that clear in my mind is the beginning of the end of helplessness. From that battle comes the idea that there are possibilities of a way forward that does not end in another tragic suicide, another precious soul lost, another victory for the enemy.
Fight for your own mind, it is a good mind, it is a human mind, it has worth, it contains the keys to valuing your own life and the right to fight for it and the determination to do so, for your own sake and for everyone’s sake. It is no small thing to fight to live and to love and to care. That is a fantastic thing to do.
Lastly, don’t be alone, because you are not alone in this, find others, no matter where, and relate, build each other, care for each other, share with each other. The politics of separation and despair can only be beaten by doing the opposite, without shame or fear and without beating ourselves up. We are human beings, if our lives are under attack, then the fight is for our right to life, that is an inalienable right. It may be protected in law at the moment, but whether it is protected or not, it is our right, our absolute self contained right.
Keith Lindsey Cameron
