Thank you and goodbye, for now

topic:	Human Rights
editor:	Gurmeet Singh

For the last six years, I’ve worked with FairPlanet, writing and editing articles. For several years, I’ve written a weekly “Editor’s Pick” column, discussing new developments in the UK and Germany. I’ve written often on issues related to structural and everyday racism, the climate, and Brexit. The latter has been a chore, of course. Nobody wants to write on Brexit. Nobody finds it interesting, apart from those who voted for it, I assume. But it’s been an important development, affecting Europe’s cultural and political make-up, and will have resounding consequences for decades to come. It’s shown that it is possible for our political bonds to break, even if we thought them final and stable.

More unrest will come, especially with Poland and Hungary on a collision course with the EU; or is it the other way around? What’s more, so much of even the near-future seems unpredictable: the pandemic has rendered it so. Borders spring up around the UK once again, just at the wrong time. Just when the easy flow of goods is required (in this case for a vaccine), lorries have to wait at both sides of the channel. Who knows how this will escalate in the next few months and years? Maybe the pandemic will foster a new political will to restore EU membership to the UK. Or, more likely, the UK will continue to isolate itself from the EU, and immigrants and dark-skinned people will be blamed for the government’s failures.

Who knows? How will immigrant rights and more generally human rights be upheld in Europe over the next decade? So much energy and money has been dedicated to the stopping of migrant boats; will migrants be at all welcome into Europe, if they are seen as vectors of a virus? What about the refugees displaced by the blaze in the Moria camp? What will become of them? What about our relationship with cheap products? Will we reconsider our relationship to the world now that we’ve seen how dependent we’ve become on cheap things produced far away? Or will we continue, like the news announced this week that BooHoo was using labour paid less than 35 US cents an hour to produce its clothes? What of energy itself? Will we use less energy and commit to fighting the good fight for the climate? Or will we fly more once the pandemic has eased, feeling like we’re entitled to?

Who knows how any of it will go. The only thing we have to remember is: we don’t have to submit and feel powerless just because the world is unpredictable. Political action is always available to us, and we can all commit to changing the world in whatever small way we can. As this is my last Editor’s Pick for FairPlanet, I want to just say to whoever’s reading this, don’t feel alone or powerless or dispossessed, there are people who care about community, rights and the common good. That, and if you can, do something to help. Join a union, donate to charity, get involved in pressure groups, get active. It’s really never too late.

I want to also thank FairPlanet: the editorial team, my fellow authors and of course, the readers. Everyone’s work on this publication is outstanding and inspiring, and I’ve loved writing and editing over the past few years. I wish you all well, and please, stay in touch.

Image by Marco Antonio Reyes

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