The Big Read: The colour of harmony

12 August 2016 - 10:46 By Darrel Bristow-Bovey

I kind of like the idea of the EFF participating in a series of coalitions in the metros, but not for any practical reason, since I doubt any coalition involving the EFF will work out for very long. Peaceful and co-operative participation is fundamentally damaging to the EFF's brand, and unless they suddenly become a party of constitution-upholding, compromise-embracing, rule-of-law democrats, which I suspect is one twist of the helix that just isn't in their DNA, it's probably only a matter of time before any coalition with which they're involved becomes niggly and dysfunctional and ends in tears like that birthday party when you turned seven and your mom thought it a good idea to invite Sean Denton, even though he was always trying to scribble on your shirt with a koki pen and threatening to steal your lunch.MashaAllah brother Donald-ud-deen Trumppic.twitter.com/x2o2dE2DKs— Ziiyaa (@Zee_Boii) June 5, 2016async No, I like the thought of them participating in coalitions, but for purely symbolic reasons: I like the idea of coexistence. EFF rhetoric, especially when talking to its core constituency rather than canvassing for foreign funding, tends away from principles of compromise and coexistence.They are a young party, with the admirable energy and fervour of youth and the characteristically teenaged conviction that compromise is the country for old men and sell-outs, that it's possible to get everything without having to concede anything to the grinding machinery of the world, that outcomes come out just because they're just.Compromise means finding ways for us all to coexist, because future flourishing is impossible without coexistence."Insist, insist to coexist," writes Iyad el-Baghdadi.He is a stateless Palestinian, exiled from his birth home in the UAE, currently living in Norway, who writes tirelessly about the ways in which Donald Trump and UKIP and right-wing nationalist movements in Europe are doing precisely and unambiguously the work of Isis. When Trump talks about blocking Muslim immigration to the West, he might as well be reciting official Isis policy. Forget about Trump's unholy alliances with Russia - Trump is Isis's man in the US .Isis and Trump and exclusionary nationalists all want the same thing: to end coexistence. El-Baghdadi describes Isis's war against "the grey zone", where Muslims and Christians and atheists and everyone else can coexist. He isn't necessarily talking about some hippy wonderland where all our kids play together and we all watch the same TV shows and have each other over for braais, however much we might think that's a good idea. He's talking about physical spaces where extreme religion and moderate religion and secular civil society can coexist and be dissatisfied with each other yet still be accorded the protection of law, such as has broadly been the case in the imperfect cosmopolises of Europe and America and many parts of the Middle East.The grey zone is repellant to Isis. Tolerance, however grudging, however hypocritical and flawed and vulnerable to criticism, is apostasy to them. They want zones of black and white - virtuous and damned, us and them. When a bomb explodes in Germany or a woman is stabbed in Russell Square, there's a response from a deep place in even the most civilised of citizens: a childlike urge to punish not just the individual involved but all of "them". Isis likes that urge. Terrorist action in Europe and the US is designed to encourage the West to release its childish id and join them in trying to abolish the grey zones.Each time a new raft of refugees finds welcome in Europe is a dose of anti-venom to the Isis rhetoric and recruitment drive. Their message is that the West hates Islam, that it's engaged in an undeclared war against the Faithful. Every statement by a Trump amplifies that message; every sign of coexistence muffles it.Our better selves, our adult selves, the selves that uphold good laws that were made in calmer moments, that compromise and insist on restraint in the face of almost intolerable provocation, these selves are always under pressure from below. That is true if you're a European citizen fearing terrorism, or a moderate Muslim facing discrimination, or a black South African who has endured generations of injustice.I'm a privileged white South African with no right to preach tolerance to those who have been oppressed, but I don't think it's only my privilege that convinces me that the alternative to compromise and coexistence is one where no one will truly flourish.Grey gets a bad rap in our linguistic tradition. It suggests something murky and unsatisfying, ageing and impure, the colour of all cats in the dark. We're more comfortable thinking in black and white, more stirred by lullabies of blue or visions of red. Maybe it's because I'm getting older, but it seems to me that grey is the loveliest colour of all...

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