Choose love not hate.

This week I watched two seperate videos on facebook that upset me. The first was the footage of English football fans in Lille who were throwing money at refugee children (boys) and teasing them cruelly, watching them pick the money up off the floor and one man miming like a monkey in their faces. They were a group of about thirty to forty grown men behaving savagely towards four or five innocent young boys aged 11 at most.

This first video broke my heart and made me cry with grief that humans were acting this way towards other humans that they surely should feel protective towards, it was deeply shocking and sad.

The second was a video our local pub posted online today of a young man in a baseball cap stealing charity boxes from the bar when it was empty. The caption posted with the cctv recording reads 'Anyone know who this scum bag is?'

The video of the thief had the comments "dirty horrible chav" and "scum" underneath it. It was the comments rather than the theft that left me with a deep feeling of unease at how easily we demonise people who act badly and how the name-calling points to deeper and more concerning prejudices.

The football fans have demonised the refugee children, we then demonise the 'football hooligans', the pub demonises the opportunistic thief and others join in, (pack mentality scares me) etc etc...

But the thing that worries me is that every time we dehumanise someone that has acted anti-socially or worse, we fail to understand them and we fail to actually see them. We project all of our worst monsters onto them allowing us to feel righteous and worthy by comparison.

I dislike the word 'chav' because it is a word designed to denigrate the working classes and it can be applied broadly to anyone not middle classed enough. But there are other words, so many words that we use to deumanise others.

I understand the urge to label someone who has acted heinously as scum but it comes from fear and laziness. Honestly, isn't it just lazy and unimaginative?

It shows a lack of understanding about human nature and it shows an unwillingness to have compassion for anyone that gets in our way. I don't condone theft but there is something about the name-calling that is unsettling, Is the guy gonna be linched for taking some charity boxes? Compassion does'nt mean you have to agree with the crime or be ok with it but it does require one to look a bit deeper than a knee jerk reaction,

I felt the urge to call those football fans scum. But instead I cried at the whole mess of it, I asked why? Why are we raising the kind of men in this country that would act that way, how does it happen? what is wrong with our society that people feel so unsupported that they steal from each other? Why are there so many people wandering around unloved, unable to love, incapacitated by fears, prejudices and self righteousness? Slowly some answers come, others do not, that's ok, it's a work in progress.

I don't know that thief, those football fans, I haven't lived their lives, been inside their heads. I can only lead my life but I do have a choice as to wether to contribute to the perpetuation of demonisation or not. I can choose wether to add to the hate  or not, Their is so much hate already, wouldnt it be refreshing to just choose love instead... bloody hippy! I hear you say, but that's ok,

Love and Compassion are very real options but are not always the easy choice. They require enquiry, a little intelligence (I'm not claiming to have much) a bit of heart and a deisre to be human.