What the World Needs Now is Empathy!

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

As I sit in my Kailyard I wonder often about the future.

The world can be a scary place. As we sit in our doldrums, worried about the future of our country, it can be difficult to understand or comprehend what it must be like elsewhere. Our empathy, at times, can be switched off. This is often because we have been subject to a relentless diet of how we ought to see others, and not as the national bard of Scotland asks us to do – to see ourselves as others see us.

The nationalism of putting our nation first, last and central has been a key theme of the alt-right and the conspiracists as they rail against the global domination. Often, once you get an opportunity to interrogate their views and find they have a dim view of the world, their next step is to claim that global superiority is being imagined and run by people with Jewish sounding surnames which join the glowing whispers of anti-Semitism and racism which we have been told consistently by history is how fascism begins.

When there are countries throughout the world, who are trying their best to dampen enthusiasm over democratic ties and ideals we can point to the way that totalitarian regimes crack down far more readily than we should be highlighting how our support for the democratic principles have been first, last and central in our response.

In turn, we have become skeptical over news outlets, constantly pointing to them having some form of bias which does not accord with those self-same principals we believe are central to our thinking. And yet, thanks to written constitutions and the history of many organs of the 4th Estate, we have seen dictators toppled, scandals exposed, and the rights of ordinary citizens restored thanks to their efforts.

A free press in a free democracy is crucial.

That does not mean an uncritical response to any news outlet and their output, but it should mean a mature and measured way of engaging with it which shows health and not fear.

Any government which systematically attacks and closes down media outlets is showing its own inability to deal with the critical analysis which is necessary for good government. It is vital for good government, for the freedoms to be preserved, fought for by forefathers and mothers, and the non-binary, that a free press is kept free. The strength of our liberty comes form having people with whom we disagree having the same ability to flourish as we do ourselves.

Apple Daily has closed down.

Now, this is not some of Steve Jobs failure – far from it. Apple Daily is a pro-democracy newspaper which had been, during the time Hing Kong had been part of the British Empire and subsequently a leased part of our country, one of those critical friends. It has not survived being moved to being part of the Chinese mainland. The two systems one country mantra sold to us by the Chinese Government when Hong Kong was rightly given back, is gone. We can regret that we trusted them. But the law was upheld correctly. We can regret having entered into an agreement to give the territory back, but we got it through fairly foul means so were correcting a wrong. We can regret any part of the whole affair, but the people of Hong Kong do not live for regrets. They live for now and their present looks very bleak.

Apple Daily was not a shining example of great journalism. It was not without its blemished or its own scandals but it was a popular part of the daily bread and butter of freedom in Hong Kong.
The Chinese Government has now interned to reeducate Muslims, cracked down in Tibet and is blatantly dismantling the Hong Kong infrastructure that supported free speech and freedom. The Chines Communist Party is now 100 years old. Much will be done to celebrate it. Much shall be offered as criticism. The question is, will anything be done to curtail the attack on freedom within their country or shall we all sycophantly, like the Mango Mussolini who used to be in the White House, bark wildly and do nothing but excuse inaction?

The world awaits. For some, the time has passed, and it is too late, but there are still people waiting for the robust action needed. We should not let them down… should we?
A view from the new Kailyard or, how you look over there, from over here…

(kailyard n. a genre of sentimental Scottish literature turned into effective invective comment from one Donald worth reading…)

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