Content note: Blob expresses his strong opinions.
Blob was tired. He had just walked from Sunderland to North Shields to support, in his own way, Sunderland Refugee Week. He had a great time and was very pleased to have joined the walk. He thought it was amazing. If he and his person had made different choices they would have chosen a different day out and not met those people. They had so nearly gone back to Chester-le-Street to walk down the river to Sunderland. And if they had travelled on any other Metro that day they wouldn't have spotted the banner and the walkers just after getting off their train. Their day had been very fortuitous. It had been long too. It's the longest walk Blob has done in his life. So he was tired.
But the day wasn't over yet. Blob and his person had plans. They had heard that there would be a protest that evening. At the protest there would be lots of singing led by the North East Socialist Singers. Blob doesn't know if he's a socialist. He doesn't know what a socialist is. But the protest was for a cause that he immediately knew he could support.
The protest was by people who said that refugees are welcome here. They would stand against racism and xenophobia and hatred. They would stand for welcoming people with love and with warm hearts. Blob Thing is a great believer in love and in having a warm heart. Blob would gladly join these people and sing with them.
They sang for a long time, songs like:
Get Up, Stand Up
Bread and Roses
We Shall Overcome
Solidarity Forever
Blob's person was very surprised to realise that she still knew most of the words to the first verse of Solidarity Forever even though she hadn't sung it in a lot of years. She wanted to include that version of it because she had never heard it before.
Blob's person carried a placard throughout the event that she had been handed. Afterwards she put it down with others and Blob asked for a photograph.
Four words: Compassion, Decency, Humanity, Hope.
Just four words. But four words that Blob Thing believes in. Blob is happy to stand behind those four words and with people who are campaigning for those things. And he too is #WithRefugees.
Blob wasn't alone of course. There were lots of people there. And some of them were children. Blob felt proud of them all, knowing that each of them had thought lots about issues of social justice and that they wanted to be lightbearers in a world where social justice doesn't always exist.
Inside the building an event hosted by UKIP was taking place. Mr. Farage was speaking. His event was called "We Want Our Country Back." Blob thinks that Mr. Farage is being mean in trying to keep refugees out of Britain. Blob thinks that Mr. Farage's "Breaking Point" poster was totally despicable and to defend something so closely mirroring Nazi propaganda, as Mr. Farage did, was not an action of someone who Blob would like to see having any position of power.
On the day that this is published Blob knows that people in the United Kingdom are having a vote. Do they want to be part of the European Union? Or do they want to leave?
Blob isn't a politician. He isn't a member of any political group or of any campaigning group.
But he sees that one side of the argument has very often been an argument for xenophobia, an argument against those words on the placard his person had carried. Blob looks at Mr. Farage and what he sees is campaigning without compassion for those who suffer most in the world. He sees a complete lack of decency. And he sees a man whose campaigning stands against the beauty that Blob sees in humanity. Mr. Farage tries to sell hope. But Blob sees a false hope arising from selfishness.
Blob thinks that too many of the British people have swallowed the ways of Mr. Farage, mirrored in much of the media. Blob believes many people have been taught to fear, have been taught to want to exclude and cast out the suffering.
Blob thinks Farage and the other rich people campaigning alongside him, men with names like Johnson and Gove, might win today. He thinks of
And Blob doesn't want to think about what the future might hold. Blob is a little scared. He hopes that the lightbearers can hold back the rise of hatred and exclusion that is happening. But he sees the possibility that things will get a lot worse.
Stand with Blob Thing. Be #WithRefugees. Be #WithCompassion. Be #WithHumanity.
Blob knows he's spoken strongly in this post and in the previous one. He knows that some people won't want to know him any more. But he doesn't care. His person said to live daring to shock. His person said to stand up and be himself even if some people don't like it. And he is a brave little thing. He's going to do it.
He does promise though that tomorrow his post will be back to normal. In tomorrow's post, Blob will tell you about going to a cafe. No politics. No strong opinions about issues that are dividing the entire country and even the entire world. Just a cafe and a cup of tea.
[893 words plus song titles]
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