Tag Archives: Brexit

Facticide

I would have published this sooner if there hadn’t been for so many journalists beating me to the goalposts. I write this knowing I risk being just another voice waxing on angrily about the prevalence of lies that have produced the vote in Britain to leave the EU and Donald Trump’s presidential victory. Since most intelligent people are familiar with these lies, I won’t even start by listing the more outrageous or popular ones.

I’ll start with language. The word post-truth has gained currency in recent weeks. While it encapsulates the idea that we are beyond truths or are willing to ignore truths, I think it is far too gentle. Post-truth rings too much like postmodernism, poststructuralism or post-realism. I prefer facticide. This word more aptly suggests a killing of truths.

Of course, truth is a slippery concept. When we think of truths, we think of facts, those things that can be evidenced or scientifically tested. We all know how evidence and testing can be interpreted in different ways. And some truths can change over time. For instance, the BBC quiz programme QI, known for its thorough and accurate research, once acknowledged that many of its ‘correct answers’ of the not too distant past were no longer true or correct because new information and scientific research changed the so-called facts.

And then there’s factoids, untrue or unreliable ideas that have been reported trumpbsand repeated so often, they are taken as fact. The word itself, apparently first coined by writer Norman Mailer, takes its ‘oid’ suffix form the Greek word for appearance or form. This definition has been expanded and according to a few online dictionaries, a factoid is also a small or trivial fact. In this newer definition lies another danger – factoids are no longer half-baked truths, they’re just mini-truths.

These are some of the subtle ways that truths can be tampered with. In recent months, the world has witnessed the more blatant attacks on facts, expertise and truths. But what has been more worrying are the falsehoods that are standing in their place. I know this is nothing new. Back in the fifth century BCE, Sophocles said, “What people believe prevails over truth.” It the time between then and our present day, many philosophers, artists and writers have made similar comments. But I’m more aware and fearful of this tendency now. The believed falsehoods of the Brexit and Trump campaigns, and their ilk in other parts of the world, are full of isolationism, nationalism and hate. I cannot see what good could possibly come from this.

Identity in the age of Brexit

‘Where are you from?’ That is a question I get asked too often in the UK. If it’s from a complete stranger, I might say, ‘Mars.’ If it is someone who has already shown hostility towards me either because of my accent or because I’m wearing a pro-EU t-shirt, I say. ‘I’m from a country where it is considered impolite to ask people where they’re from.’

The problem with admitting where I’m from is that people assume I identify myself with my country of birth and what they think people from that country are like. This triggers a slew of assumptions about how I was raised, my political views, my faith, my class – all based on stereotypes – and most of them negative and miles off the mark. Making such assumptions are about turning individuals into members of a group and even with the most flattering of outcomes, individuality gets lost.

So, where am I from? I was born and raised in Chicago. But what identity do I ascribe to myself? Identity is a rather fluid concept and we all have multiple identities depending on what we’re doing and what context we’re talking about. Ethnically, I’m Italian-American. Legally, I’m American-British. Though if I were to pursue the paper trail, I can get an Italian passport and become legally Italian-American-British. I’ve spent most of my adult life in Britain and gaining my UK citizenship was a conscious act, as opposed to the Italian-American accident of my birth. I identify myself as more British than American as a result. This is not necessarily a good thing. Since Brexit, the Stupid American stereotype has been kicked aside by the Stupid Briton stereotype.

Seriously, since the EU Referendum, there’s been a lot of talk about identity and whether British people see themselves as European. As a British person, I personally do. But I’ll never forget when I first arrived in Britain in 1984. My fellow students, the British-born ones, referred to the rest of Europe, i.e. not Britain, as either ‘the continent’ or as ‘Europe’. I found this baffling. At school I was taught that the UK is part of the European Continent. At first I just thought that this was a linguistic tick, an abbreviated way of saying ‘continental Europe’ – the countries that were not on our little island. But it seems deeper than that as the debates around the referendum have illustrated. It appears that many British people see themselves as not European. Some say this is due to the geography of the British Isles being separate from the mainland of continental Europe. Do people in Greece and Malta refer to the rest of Europe as ‘Europe’ and question whether or not they are European? British separation from the rest of Europe is not just geographical, but deeply entrenched in imperial history and twentieth century politics.

The EU Referendum has also brought up the issue of immigration. I complicate matters more by identifying to myself as an ‘immigrant.’ I wish I had a five-pound note for every time someone has displayed shock at this. Perhaps Americans (which is how I’m perceived) are not allowed to be immigrants because they are from a country known for its accepting of immigrants and people outside the US seem to struggle to understand that anyone would want to emigrate away from it. Millions of Americans live permanently overseas. Many artists, writers, musicians prefer the lifestyles abroad, especially in Europe. Other Americans living abroad include teachers, scholars, aid workers and business people who fall in love with a foreign place and/or a foreign person. I have many reasons for emigrating from the US, including all of the above mentioned. To these I add escape from my dysfunctional family and national, humane healthcare.

There is the other, more unsavoury, possibility that people who have problems accepting that Americans can be immigrants in the UK reserve the ‘immigrant’ label for the ‘other’ – the non-white person or the person for whom English is not a first language. While not everyone who voted to leave the EU is a racist, it is clear to anyone living in Britain these days that the Brexit result has empowered the racists and xenophobes in this country.

I cannot change where I’m from, nor can I do much to change people’s negative stereotypes. Before the EU Referendum, I was more likely to identify myself as a writer, amateur golfer, woman, activist, half of a husband-wife team and a linguist before I would identify myself as Italian-American-British. Now, in the muddle of ethnicity and identity brought on by Brexit, I’m shirking further away still from any sense of ethnic identity.

Marching for Europe

Saturday I attended my first protest march in over twenty years. In a few words, it was in support of staying in the single market and remaining an inclusive society. In Cambridge some 400 people made up the trail of marchers. That might not seem like a lot, but it’s early days yet. This was one of those ‘gathering of the troops’ march and rally. Now that parliament has reconvened, I suspect future marches will be more focused on one issue or another concerning how we leave the EU – if that really happens. Speculations abound.

I came away from this activity thinking about a few things. First, there was the cross-party spirit of the event. The speakers at the rally included not only the Green Party and the Liberal Democrats, no surprises there, but also politicians from Labour and the Conservatives. The idea of leaving Europe effects so many people in so many ways. Working across parties is an aspect of being in the grown-up world, away from the club-house mentally of the zealot, of the closed-minded.

The march also gave me more face-to-face encounters with people who support Brexit. One man barked at us, ‘It’s over – go home!’ Is it over? Our government doesn’t seem to think so. Since the Brexit camp left us with no plan and a campaign based on twisted facts and some downright lies, how the UK actually leaves the EU is still up for grabs. Another person, an elderly woman, pointed her fingers at a few of us and said, ‘I’m from the North and we’re poor up there!’ This is just another example of the protest voting that happened on 23rd June. Yes, the divide in wealth between the North and South of England is something to be unhappy about – but why is that the fault of the European Union? What about our own governments over the last three decades? Before I had a chance to question this woman, she, like the uppity man, was gone. That to me sums up much of the Brexit campaign – single utterances or catch phrases without discussion, without debate.

These hecklers were few. As we walked with our banners, signs and EU flags through the windy streets of central Cambridge, we were greeted mostly by applause and thumbs-up gestures. When we stopped to wait for street lights or for some of our number to catch up, we were the subject of mobile phone photographs – dozens of them. There is something immensely comforting about feeling that your views are generally shared. Of course, it’s more complicated than that.

After a few casual discussions with my fellow marchers, I returned to Ely with a sense of dismay as well. There seemed to be strong agreement that the Liberal Democrats were the only party in total support of remaining in the EU and their speaker at the rally, Julian Huppert, was the best received and most inspiring. Yet – and here comes the disappointing part – some of my fellow marchers raised the point that the Lib Dems have the right message, but cannot speak to ‘ordinary people.’ One person said to me ‘They need to tone it down – keep it simple.’ I would argue that the simplicity of the referendum debate is what made it more about emotions and less adherent to facts and gave us the disasterous outcome we are now living under. It might take a generation, but perhaps we should flip this argument and raise the education and understanding of ‘ordinary people.’