A punch to the gut

On Wednesday, I woke up with a migraine, I didn't know yet that there was a really good reason for one. Later, while I was following the world spiraling from rational to absurd from my office, I could hear people upstairs, at some meeting or conference, laughing and chatting - I wanted to storm upstairs and shake them. Didn't they realise what was happening? Didn't they understand that the world had changed?  

I felt a little self conscious about my physical reaction to the news. I felt ill, genuinely nauseous (although I had woken up feeling that way, so maybe it was just coincidence). I couldn't stop the lump in my throat and no amount of headache tablets were going to make me feel better. In my boss's words: "the world just took a collective punch in the gut..." (he let me work from home in the afternoon - at least he, as an American, had a vote).   

I though Brexit was bad, this is worse. I understand that there are people that feel disenfranchised by the "system" but to have voted for someone who is so blatantly awful, sexist, racist, stupid and dishonest seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face. I hope that he surprises us all and actually does something good, but I am not placing bets on it. 

I am scared of the global political trends. I hope that these trends of racism and nationalism stop. You have to see that this is terrible idea. It isn't even a new terrible idea, we have already seen how this story ends. Please, Germany, France and Netherlands, when you vote next year, vote carefully - your face will look better with a nose even if it isn't perfect. I can't handle another 2016, so let's make 2017 better! 

It is hard not to feel anything other than despair, but I came across this quote by Judith February in an Eye Witness News opinion piece and I am trying to take it to heart, I hope you will too.  

"Given the political milieu, we may well feel as if we are in a very particular time of global and South African despair, yet now is a time for the very opposite of despair, for greater mobilisation and the true awakening of citizen activism for progressive values and corruption-free societies.

Toni Morrison is instructive:

‘This is precisely the time when artists go to work.

There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity,

No need for silence, no room for fear

We speak, we write, we do language.

That is how civilisations heal.’"

Let's loudly and actively reject racism and sexism. We have to continue to fight for the environment. We have to talk and DO SOMETHING about climate change. We have to science! We need to be proactive. We need to be loud so we are not drowned out by those that care more about power than truth. And we need to remember that people are more good than bad...