Antifa

Lovely dinner tonight provided by my father's cousin's son's wife, or alternatively (to simplify a bit) by my grandmother's sister's daughter's son's wife. In any case, the wife en question is Thai and cooks delicious Thai food in indecently large quantities. Sat around the table was the whole family set available in the region plus an old friend of my great-cousin, which made 11 of us with the two little ones. All went well until grandmother and the Old Friend started discussing the "Immigrant Problem". Grandmother pointed at me and said - no, rather, anxiously whispered - that this was a big subject of disagreement. I was talking with somebody else when I caught that from the corner of my ear and decided to leave the table in protest. It was cold in the vestibule where I ended up and I didn't think my political gesture was being taken duly note of so I went back, walked straight to Grandmother and stated as bluntly as I could that she had to make sure she realised that voting for the BNP was voting for a neo-nazi party. The wine probably helped; we didn't end up in a big heated exchange of words again, although I was bordering OverEmotion. As I do. The dialogue developed in a way which, I hope, started to deconstruct her perception of all social problems being the result of immigrant presence. Eventually she had to realise that her son, her daughter and her granddaughter are all migrants - and a lot of Germans could begrudge my presence in Germany, as they are paying for my university education (Thank you, tax payers of Germany!). She couldn't put the picture of her granddaughter and the picture she had of immigrants in Britain on the same footing ("No but you are providing skills they don't have!" "I'm not really... And immigrants here take up jobs that people in the country are not willing or able to take too..." "no but...") but I could see that certain things started ticking in her head. Great-cousin incidently provided another piece of information, stating that billions of the National Health Service's money were going into trials defending doctors against patients or paying damages for ridiculous cases. Grandmother had held to her belief that most of money was going to immigrants. I believe she will start reconsidering this idea. She eventually stated she didn't really want to vote for the BNP, but she was desperate and didn't know who to vote for and wanted to send a message. "An antisemitic message, a message of hatred and exclusion?" I asked. She had had two glasses of white wine and was a bit inebriated. I'm hoping she will still remember some of the discussion later on. I felt better after the whole discussion - not because I had the feeling I'd won an argument or anything. But because I once again felt caught within a process - the process of learning to know people, learning to dialogue with people - rather than sticking to the static perception of "SoAndSo is a wannabe fascist".
When we got back home, Grandmama suddenly said "It's just dawned on me that we're immigrant. My grandfather was a Pole."
I smiled. I was keeping this point for later, but I didn't need to mention it anymore.