Thinking of England or How does it feel like to hate?

Ok. The following was triggered by all the hate coming from and happening in England. I was aware, that racism was part of their culture. You just have to read their newspapers to see that. But I was not aware to what extent. And I am horrified. It is a nightmare and should be a lesson to everybody: The moment you think „them“ and „us“ and think „they“ are the problem – you already lost it. Sometimes this happens, without us realizing it. This divisive thought creeps into our everyday thinking and is transformed from a feeling into a certainty and then into a fact. A fact without any prove, but a fact nonetheless.

Yesterday I saw a video of teenagers displaying deep racistic hate and violence in Manchester, in a tram. And I was shocked to my core by the looks on their faces. This made me think: How does it feel to hate like this? Is a comeback possible from such hate? Can you even reach someone so far gone? This is what I thought:

How does hate feel like?
I was thinking and wondering, how someone can feel hate like that guy in the tram in Manchester. How someone can lose it so absolutely. Lose every last bit of humanity, of empathy. Of love.

Although I am a bit ashamed to admit it, I think I know how hate feels like. I think it is a feeling of being wronged, being helpless and another person being smug. A feeling of being small and unheard. Of not counting. Which makes racism even more absurd and dumb, because mostly it is the majority hating the minority. A majority who has everything they need to get heard. A majority that has, what the minority so desperatly lacks: A voice, possibility to educate themselves, possibility to wealth, possibility to live a secure, safe, unharrassed life, possibility to not be exploited.

So what is the difference between people who hate and let that hate consume themselves and me? Why do I not feel this hate, although being a women and being different from most people, I often am in situations, where I could potentially feel helpless and unheard and treated unjustly? Why don’t I feel like taking anything from anybody? Why do I not want to destroy others? It is not the gender – there are many women on this world, hating with every fibre. No, I think I know why: 

When I feel hate, which I sometimes do, I see it as MY responsibility. It is my problem, because I feel something which simply is nothing but a bad force. I feel something which is wrong and will only result in hurt – for others and for myself. I am the one feeling it, I have to deal with it.

And I can deal with it. 

Without oppressing that feeling and feeling secretly unhappy or guilty about it and so making it even worse. I see hate as a symptom. Something is making me unhappy. And as I want to be happy and as my life is my responsibility, it is also my responsibility to find the cause for my unhappiness, look at it honestly, even if it hurts like fuck and make peace with whatever causes that hate.

Hate is the absence of love
But the people fuelling their hate always see the others as the problem. It is a bit like a child hitting the wall with it’s hand, realising that hurts and then being angry at the wall, instead of itself. To me hate is always the symptom of a human deficit.

I think

• people, who let hate take over, lack love. I never met a hateful person that had love, respect and appreciation in their childhood. Often they grew up in a loveless environment, being systematically degraded and weakened by their parents. Or in the opposite: An environment, where they were supported and justified no matter what they do, which also results in a lack of love, as this love has no distinction between good and bad. They were taught: You can do what you want, cause you are always in the right. It is as if these children are only objects, fullfiller of a function, which of course means they are not loved, too
• they lack selfrespect
• they lack strength. Not because they are weak. No, because nobody strengthened them, when they grew up. They have no strong foundation to stand on, to hold them steady
• they lack objectivity. This is a result of the missing strength. They don’t see themself as independant. They feel hollow and try to hide this from others and from themselves. They can not distinct between actions of others and their own actions: To them it is as if they are always the victim of the actions of others. Even if these actions have nothing to do with them. They can’t comprehend that they are powerful enough to act and live their life in a way that makes them happy, no matter what anybody outside that life does
• they are greedy. They WANT. Badly. What others have. Everything. Anything they can get their hands on. But this greed too is a result of a deficit they want to fill

Break the cycle
I think it is all of this and a bit more. To me, people who hate in that way, simply don’t know how to love.
It sounds simple and simplistic, but some things are that simple. We pay the price for a society that gives money more importance than people or lives. A society of conveniance, that loses it purpose. We pay the price for an inherited cycle that goes from generation to generation: Many parents don’t know anymore that having, growing and educating children is work. On all levels. Children can’t be turned on and off. They need their parents and us others all the time. It is not enough to feed them, give them clothes, drive them to ballet. It is also about: Paying attention to them and their thoughts. Loving and caring for them. Taking them serious. Giving them a firm structure to grow up in. Strengthening their heart, mind, soul and body. You need to teach them. Support them in their dreams and abilities. Spend time with them. Make them strong and free, so they don’t feel neglected and unhappy and begin to hate.

Children who grew up never experiencing any of the above often bring up their children exactly the same way they were brought up. And with every generation the price we pay for our failure to break that cycle gets higher.

Meta: Of course the subject is too complex to work through it in a blog piece. The piece also isn’t about guilt, but about understanding cause and effect. And of course I don’t think everybody who had a traumatic childhood or was emotionally neglected, has to automatically fall for hate, when grown up. I am the best example, that this isn’t the case. And I do think there are some exceptions: people we call „sociopaths“ today, who hate and hurt others, because of other reasons. But for the rest, for normal people, who are susceptible to hate and give in to hate, I do believe that they have in common a deficit. A lack. A hole in their soul which they fill with that hate.

Of course I don’t have all the answers – or even one answer. I just want to show the structure of what I believe in: