It’s time to end hatred and start living as one

When I started this job, I tried to be funny – to amuse readers.

I have shared the highs and lows of my life – the loss of my mother and my sister, my own short, successful battle with cancer and all the daily ups and downs of life.

In recent weeks, however, all I seem to have been doing is railing against the fates or pontificating on how the world would change if I was in charge.

And for what?

What difference can a columnist on the Times & Star make?

What difference can anyone make?

Today the camel’s back has been broken by the final straw.

I was on my way to a physiotherapy appointment and listening to the news.

There was an item that had nothing to do with me, with our area or even our country.

A couple of Indian engineers had gone into a bar in Kansas after work and had been shot for being Indian.One died. One was injured.

There was absolutely no reason for it. This was the men’s regular bar. They often popped in for a drink to discuss the day at work. One minute they were prepared to go home to their families. Next minute, one was dead.

It is two hours since I heard the news and I can’t stop crying. (It was a bit embarrassing in the physiotherapist’s. I am sure she thought I was nuts.)

It just seems that we have had months and months of hatred.

Post-referendum, we saw posters calling on “Polish vermin” to go home.

This very week we have seen a woman from Singapore – married to a Brit for 27 years – being deported.

Where has all this hatred come from? Why are right wing politicians gaining so much popularity?

It is absolutely heartbreaking!

Despite being brought up on a continent where social ranking and freedom depended on skin colour, I have always dreamed of a world where all were united.

It is the main reason I wanted us to stay in Europe!

The day Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, I was involved in a school debate with the topic nationalism or internationalism.

I argued passionately for a world where we looked beyond our own borders and held hands with our neighbours.

I even won a Lions International peace essay competition when I wrote about the vital importance and symbolism of the United Nations.

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe we should stick to nationalism.

Maybe Trump is right to build a wall between Mexico and the USA. Maybe we should all build walls and just exist within our own society and not let anyone else in.

Maybe that will cure the cruel madness of the world today.

But will it – or will we just find someone else within our own society to hate?

We did it in the old days before people travelled. We decided people were witches or traitors or blue-eyed or brown-eyed and we used that as an excuse to hate.

I don’t know the answer to society’s ills, but I do know there are many leaders today who are promoting fear which leads to hate.

I’d like to end this with a rousing appeal for us to stand up against racism and hatred in all its evil forms. But what power do I have?

So instead, I shed tears for a man I don’t know in a country I don’t know and for an act of evil that has no direct impact on me whatsoever.

But I cry because this man will never get to go home to his wife and family. He will never celebrate another birthday, be promoted at work or enjoy another beer with a friend.

And why? Because he was from India and not from Kansas.