Hope not hate for social media power
UNTIL just over a year ago, I viewed social media as an Evangelist preacher with advanced leprosy – and shunned all contact.
It looked like too many inadequate trolls, too many raging bores and too many self-satisfied, humble-bragging narcissists chasing each other around the tenth circle of hell.
And then I joined Twitter and realised it wasn’t too bad. Having taken abuse on the back of columns for 27 years, the trolling felt like, to quote Denis Healey on Geoffrey Howe, being savaged by a dead sheep.
I found its strengths far outweighed the negatives. You get to see celebrity egos implode as they flounce off after one slight too many. You get to see the leader of the free world make brainnumbingly ignorant decisions before US Congress does. And you get to see instant confrontations and glorious reactions to them.
Take this week, when the likes of Mirror online tweeted two images that went around the globe with many millions of views. There was Birmingham anti-fascist protester Saffiyah Khan staring down at the EDL’s Knuckle-scraper In Chief, Ian Crossland, as he spewed bile at her for disrupting his cronies’ confrontation of a woman in a hijab. It went viral on social media, with Labour MP Jess Phillips capturing the scene in one beautiful tweet: “Who looks like they have power here, the real Brummy on the left or the EDL who migrated for the day to our city and failed to assimilate?” When Hope Not Hate posted it on Facebook, Crossland responded in true EDL style, by calling Saffiyah a “dirty unwashed left-wing scrubber” and “a disrespectful witch” who is “lucky she got any teeth left”. And in doing so the leader of this cretinous crew perfectly showed us the violent ugliness at its core, doing more with that brief Facebook post to recruit antifascists than Hope Not Hate could do with a year’s campaigning. Then there was the sight of Dr David Dao being dragged off a United Airlines flight by heavies for having the audacity to book a seat to Kentucky and refusing to give it up. The brutality of his ejection, his bloodied lip and the screams of shocked passengers were caught on mobile phones and posted on social media before the doc’s head had hit the Chicago tarmac.
The company was mercilessly mocked on Twitter and the CEO’s response was so begrudging it was labelled “tone deaf ” and slaughtered. Consequently, United’s share price plummeted to an all-time low and Dao is now suing the airline with all the evidence and global goodwill imaginable.
But back to the “dirty unwashed left-wing scrubber” hater and his band of merry racists. Despite the Brummie backlash, the EDL says its planning another rally in Liverpool on June 3.
I hope it’s a repeat of the last time cast members of Deliverance, wrapped in St George’s flags, travelled to my city for a planned White Man March.
And ended up cowering behind police in Lime Street station’s leftluggage room as a crowd of protesters (including Grannies Against Racism) serenaded them with the song: “Master Race? You’re having a laugh.”
Then posted footage on social media so the world could witness how diluted the courage element in the Aryan gene pool had become.
So June 3 is a date for the diary. What better way to spend a Saturday when the football season’s over than laughing a bunch of plastic Nazis out of town.
I might even tweet you a picture.
The leader showed the violent ugliness at its core