‘Tis the season,’ right? Peace and goodwill toward all. But as the days draw in what we hear isn’t the music of Christmas carols, it’s the sound of knives sharpening in one of the most divisive General Elections ever.
I head up a global peacebuilding organization called International Alert, which works to help people resolve war and violence in places like Afghanistan, Ukraine and Nigeria. Does this work have anything to teach that’s relevant for us in the UK right now?
From the experiences of our partners all around the world, we’ve seen how ugly language melts into threats of violence; how violent words bleed into violent deeds; and how uncivil discourse descends into civil war. In Rwanda, for example, steadily more incendiary hate speech on the radio hardened into calls for mass violence over decades prior to the genocide 25 years ago. Similar processes have unfolded in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kenya, Myanmar and elsewhere as the litany of incitement to hate and bloodshed has been repeated. Sadly, the list goes on. These experiences carry a stark warning for today.
