IThis is a season full of traditions, and as long-time readers may know, as is my own custom, in my last pre-Christmas column I try to find some reasons to be hopeful. Masu. I had intended to do so anyway, but my resolve was further sharpened by a conversation with a reader who called into the Guardian and Observer's charity conference call last weekend. Tammy, 75, donated, but she also had a simple question: “How do we survive in this scary world?”
She rattled off only part of what had led her to ask the question so harshly. She spoke about the ongoing bloodshed in Ukraine, Sudan and Gaza. She sighs at the impending return of Donald Trump. And this week brings two more items to add to her list.
We learned more about the depth of the evil perpetrated by the ousted Assad regime. mass grave The city of Qutaifa is characterized by long and deep ditches. Four trucks are said to have arrived twice a week from 2012 to 2018, transporting more than 150 bodies, identified only by numbers carved on their chests or foreheads. That means the bodies of hundreds of thousands of Syrians murdered by their own rulers are on the land of Qutaifa. And that's just one site. There are others. All this after details of Sednaya Prison were revealed. torture chambers and dungeonsMachines designed to cut wood and metal were installed here. deployed against flesh and bone.
Closer to home, sentences were handed down this week against three people responsible for the death of 10-year-old Sara Sharif, one of whom was her own father. The details of her suffering are so harrowing that they will haunt anyone who hears them. The judge who sentenced him described the brutality as “almost unthinkable”.
Knowing all this, when events like this keep happening, you can't help but wonder, like Tammy, “How are we going to survive?” Or, to make matters even more difficult, how can we live with hope and even optimism for the future? Here are some tentative suggestions in the spirit of the season.
One option is to turn it off. My point is not to completely disconnect from the world, although sometimes that is necessary, but rather to manage a depressing diet. Professional journalists may need to stay up to date with all the latest developments and updates, but there's no reason why anyone else should. But I see too many people doomscrolling and watching cyclical news channels on a loop. There are many good arguments for reducing social media usage, and overexposure to bad news is definitely one of them.
Still, I admit it's more about avoiding the problem than confronting it. Even if you cut back on your news intake and only check in once a day, a glimpse of a headline can leave you feeling hopeless. So how do we manage it?
First comes the realization that finding light in the darkness doesn't just happen. You have to work on it. Think of it as a variation of optimism of the will: Determined optimism. It means making a deliberate effort to combat the pessimism of the intellect, which has a bad habit of invading in the first place.
Remember the reaction to the election results in July? There was an immediate movement to analyze the problems that had built up with Labour's victory. It was a loveless landslide, with little enthusiasm, a small vote share, and support that was broad but shallow. Not to mention the enormity of the task facing the new government. These are all true and still true.
But that skipped over what just happened too quickly. The British people got rid of the rotten and useless Tories and gave Labor a supermajority that was frequently rejected at the polls. That was great news, but it took an active, conscious decision to enjoy it. We were glued to the clouds before we got a good look at the silver lining. Of course, we can all see the flaws in this new government. One of them is a lack of optimism. But why not take a moment to remember what it replaced and what the government that replaced it would look like?
Or, to take a radically different example, when we hear of the fall of Bashar al-Assad, we wonder what happens next, specifically when an al-Qaeda splinter transforms Syria into another repressive Islamist theocracy. The urge to immediately worry about the possibility of change was strong. . But with a strong will of optimism, we can first marvel at the photos of Syrians who have finally freed their loved ones from Assad's torture chambers, and then at least see the possibility of Syria breaking away from its past and its model set. will admit that it exists. Most of the neighboring countries worked together to create a stable and relatively free society. You don't have to pretend it's likely, but you can at least be open to possibility and hope for a while.
As part of our commitment to optimism, we can draw strength from those who have the courage to swim against the darkest currents. For example, I remember the staff of Israel's Haaretz newspaper. They continually appeal to their fellow citizens, even in the face of fierce opposition, including a planned boycott by the country's far-right government. face reality What are their leaders and troops doing in Gaza? Few people win friends with such work. Yet it is the courage that is needed if Israelis and Palestinians are to find a way out of their current darkness. The fact that such courage already exists here and now is grounds for hope.
Or I think of my friend and colleague at the Guardian, Merope Mills. He experienced the greatest loss a human can face – the death of a child, and somehow turned that pain into a life-saving gift to others. Martha's remarkable and persistent campaign for governance to give families the right to request an urgent review of their loved one's treatment in hospital is already having a “transformative effect”, NHS England says. said the National Medical Director.
And sometimes it's worth just celebrating the good things. Last weekend, in another seasonal tradition, I gathered with some friends to watch the Strictly Come Dancing final. Trust me, you don't have to be a fan of sequins or samba to be in awe of what happened there. Visually impaired comedian Chris McCausland surprised even himself by learning and mastering a series of more complex dances than ever before. It was emotional, of course, but just as reassuring was knowing for weeks that the voting public would always make him the winner.
I don't think any of that answers Tammy's question. How should we live in this scary world? Perhaps by accepting that it's the only thing we have and that it's not always so terrible, in some cases, quite often, it can be rather beautiful.
