Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

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On the face of it this is a situation full of hate and extremism which must be condemned. Driving a car at speed at people with intent to kill is an evil act for which there is no excuse and for which retribution is due. White Supremacists, Ku Klux Klan and all similar organisations should simply not be there. But they are. And that is the problem.

The scars of the American Civil War run very deep, as perhaps do those of all civil wars. True the majority accept the way it is and want to live in harmony focused on the future not the past. But a minority passes, from one generation to the next, a bitterness about being conquered which does not dim with time. Rather, it smolders until a bursts into violence over a contentious issue. Perhaps it is made worse because the losing side, the South, has not  ever become generally as prosperous as the North.

Partly it is because of a different culture and interpretation of what America is about. There is a legacy about slavery and about poor whites. None of this provides a set of excuses but it does point to a set of reasons and worst of all it provides a breeding ground for hate. Condemnation is both good and necessary. But so would be action to delve beneath the surface, identify the issues and do something about them. Because extremism can only prosper in a bed of injustice, it does not function without a driver.

This is not about Trump. Yes he did not chose his words well and yes his brawl with the press was neither presidential nor wise. Yes it is the case that most of the Alt Right if they vote at all, vote for Trump. Yet not all the points Trump made were without merit. The business of moving statues is one. And the reminder that Washington and Jefferson were slave owners is another. But the suggestion of equivalence between locals confronting the Alt Right in all its forms and organisations like the Ku Klux Klan, White Supremacists and Neo Nazis, is plainly offensive to most of the world.

What really shocks Brits and I suspect many others is the fact that these organisations which offend and appall are legally protected under the U.S.Constitution. There is surely a distinction between freedom and licence. Moreover they marched in Charlottesville with a formal permit provided by the authorities.

It is now clear to all the world that America has many social fault lines and is both divided and and a lot less happy than it believes itself to be. It has failed to inaugurate a proper healing process from the legacy of the Civil War and it has failed to address the root causes of the schism which caused it in the first place. Only slavery itself has been resolved and while that is indeed good, much else has been left to fester.  All Americans must share the blame.  Now they must unite to start seriously to resolve these issues. They will not go away on their own.  It will take time, patience, tolerance and compromise to deal with them, but time has shown they are not fading away.