Towards civilized bigotry: keeping your friends despite political differences

The time has come again when we lose our heads over political differences. But is it worth it? Not as much as you think. Jeffrey Tucker said, ”be sure, political philosophy does matter and does carry high stakes. However, the partisan struggle for the control of the state apparatus by this or that temporary manager doesn’t matter as much as election season seems to suggest. You might be being manipulated, and friendships and families are actually too precious to throw away for transient reasons.”

Let’s begin with a story. A couple of weeks ago, a nephew called my attention to the efforts of a man struggling on the social media to ruin me. I didn’t know who he was, but my nephew told me that the man himself confessed to him that I was their PTA chairman. So if our children attend the same school, and I’m his PTA chairman, why was he desperately attacking me?

Simple, the man belongs to the PDP and he took offence at my response to a question I was asked by a journalist.

”The gubernatorial candidate of the PDP in Niger State is already celebrating, ” the journalist said, ”because he thinks he can easily win the election. What do you say about that?” Ndamitso of Niger State Television (NSTV) asked me.

”Politicians with their gimmicks, ” I began, ”how can someone who’s being chased by the EFCC think he is going to win the election in a state as sophisticated as Niger? As far as we are concerned, EFCC said he has stolen money together with the previous governor. So what EFCC is alleging is that the candidate of the PDP is a thief. Now the court has to determine whether that is true. But this is what the public records show.”

That was the harmless remark that started the chain of attacks. They insulted me on social media and the radio, they attacked me in the darkness with their comrades, and they abused me in the open. In doing this, they conveniently ignored the issue and elected to go on a character assassination. The question is, according to the court charges, did EFCC call the candidate a thief or not?

Politicians do this in order to intimidate. But that often does not work. It can only elicit repetition of what they are afraid the public will hear - as I’m doing right now.

Often, the most degenerate political opponents are also the first to seek for favours. I remember that before the 2015 elections, a man from my state sent me private messages insulting me and the APC candidate claiming that both I and our candidate were not from Niger State but from Kano State. An obvious lie. However, when we won the election, he was one of the first to come to my office to ask for help. So I paid him the courtesy of being blunt: ”if I’m going to help, you wouldn’t be the first beneficiary, ” I said.

So how can we have political differences without losing our heads?

The following two points should help.

This is what John Garen called “agreement without conformity” meaning that we shouldn’t only agree that we have the right to say what we want (freedom of expression), but also that we have the right to do what we want. That is, our actions don’t have to conform.

“Actually, agreement-withoutconformity is quite common. I buy black shoes and you buy brown ones. I have no problem with your shoe colour, and you have none with mine. We agree that we can do things differently. Similar outcomes are common. I might listen to country and you to opera; I may prefer chicken to fish and you the opposite; I may read detective novels and you ancient history. But fundamentally, we agree that we each pursue our own desires, which often means non-conformity.

This type of outcome is characteristic of market-based transactions. We each do with our money as we wish and, by and large, let others do the same.”

So we should be able to do the same with political views. Or to paraphrase the Qur’an: to you your candidate, to me mine.

We don’t have to lose our heads when a friend or family member differs on political matters. I have a young friend who considers me a mentor, but any time my views deviate from his, I receive vicious comments on the social media from him.

Yet when we meet in person, he is ever so courteous. As meek as a lamb. Not only that, when he sends private messages, he is respectful and full of admiration for me. To boot, he asks for favours which I grant as much as I am able. But on the social media, he turns into a lion without any regard whatsoever. Most disturbingly, he used my wall as a platform from which to launch malicious attacks on the governor, knowing that thousands are reading.

Years of studying for a master’s degree in psychology didn’t prepare me for his behaviour. So I turned to the Qur’an:

“And be patient over what they say and avoid them with gracious avoidance.“Muzzamil 73:10.

Fortunately, social media has functions one can employ to graciously avoid malicious people. So I blocked my young friend. However, we’ve preserved our private chats so that the relationship is not dead.

Therefore, when you are confronted with an unrelenting troll, simply block. That is what the function is for. But used sparingly. Opponents have a way of improving your ideas. So it is nice to keep them around. Personally, I don’t block people - even those who have made it a habit to insult me. I block, mostly, people who use my wall to defame others.

In sum, when we carry with us the attitude of not only allowing for freedom of expression , but also agreement without conformity; when we bear our opponents’ attack with a patient shrug and banning the malicious ones instead of arguing with them, we are likely to have more sanity during the campaign season.

This type of outcome is characteristic of market-based transactions. We each do with our money as we wish and, by and large, let others do the same