Cohesion vs division
This post was originally published on our sister blog, At the Grassroots. It reflects our frustrations as community activists at the divide and rule merchants from all sides fostering division and mistrust in our communities. This creates the kind of conditions that make it difficult, even impossible, to get a grassroots project off the ground, let alone to be able to start making a meaningful difference to people's lives. What makes it worse is when some of those stoking divisions have allowed themselves to get played by elements with nefarious agendas.
What we're trying to achieve with the At the Grassroots project is to encourage and support neighbourhood level projects that make a positive difference to people's lives. That's not just making life in a neighbourhood better – it's also about empowering the people involved in a project, giving them more confidence in taking responsibility for how their communities develop. Essentially, it's about bringing power right down to the grassroots so we're the ones shaping how our communities develop, not the politicians or the corporations they serve. Bringing power down to the grassroots means trusting and being accountable to each other.
What is a community? It's the sum of everyone living in a neighbourhood. In theory, anyone living in a neighbourhood has a stake in making it a decent place to live, regardless of whether they're a long term resident or someone renting for a year or so before moving on. Even if you're a renter, you'd want to live in an area that feels safe and has decent amenities available to all, wouldn't you? That means that even if you only intend to live in an area for a short period, you still have a stake in, and a responsibility to, your neighbourhood. The same applies to anyone who has been placed in a hostel, regardless of who they are or where they've originally come from – they also have a stake in and a responsibility towards where they live. In an ideal world, we would all live in communities where it was possible for people to trust and be accountable to each other.
You don't need us to tell you that we do not live in an ideal world! We live in a dysfunctional and increasingly dystopian one where division and hatred pit people against each other. This is something that has come very much to the fore over the last couple of months here in the (dis)United Kingdom. The divide and rule merchants on all sides are having a field day stoking divisions. The powers that be are secretly lapping this up, and the resulting tensions and disorder are providing them with the ideal excuse to impose ever more control over and surveillance of our lives. Does anyone seriously want to live in a world where division has been stoked up to the point where people feel they have no resort but to turn to 'authority' to provide them with a degree of safety, even if that safety turns out to be illusory?
There are no easy answers as to how we can rebuild a sense of trust between groups of people who have been stoked up to distrust and despise each other. There are also no easy answers to persuading people who know they may only be living in an area for a short period before moving on, that they have a stake in and a responsibility towards where they live. It means having to have some pretty frank and open conversations about the issues that are splitting neighbourhoods. It also means having to agree on what is and isn't acceptable conduct in a bid to make our neighbourhoods safer places to live in. Again, there are no easy answers to the myriad problems that having these conversations and setting these standards will throw up.
All we can say is that if we don't want to slide into a dystopian hell where we have neighbourhoods where no one trusts each other, no one feels safe and people feel they have no options other than calling on the 'authorities' to step in, or resorting to vigilantism, then people need to step up to the plate. That covers standing up to the divide and rule merchants as well as working on projects that address issues of concern to everyone living in a neighbourhood, in a bid to rebuild a sense of cohesion and solidarity. We recognise that this will not be easy. However, we also hope that people recognise the urgency of what needs to be done, overcome their fears about confronting the divisive forces at work in our communities, and get stuck into projects that will bring people together.