Convention will help heal rifts

This article contains affiliate links. We may earn a small commission on items purchased through this article, but that does not affect our editorial judgement.

I would like to fully endorse the sentiments concerning the EU referendum in your Editorial of July 1.

You rightly call for us all to ‘be inclusive, help heal rifts,stand up for the vulnerable, especially hardworking East European migrants who have made their home here, support local business and the economy, and drive community cohesion’.

We all now face a very divided Britain which is degenerating into political farce, as graphically illustrated by the two first post referendum front covers of the weekly, The Economist, which showed the UK flag as being rent by ‘A tragic Split’, followed by this week’s headline, ‘Anarchy in the UK’, as leading Brexiteers walked away from their responsibilities, and the main political parties became engulfed with leadership crises.

So it’s to our own communities that we must look to bring about the healing game, as Van Morrison called it in a memorable song.

Can I therefore propose that we take the experiences and lessons from communities like South Africa and Chile that have been so much more horrifically riven than our own (with the tragic exception of the murder of Jo Cox MP) and organise a ‘Respect, Reconciliation and Truth’ convention in the people’s palace of the De La Warr Pavilion, perhaps in the late Autumn when tempers and anger have hopefully cooled?

Your call for a healing time was echoed by an inter faith statement from our leading religious organisations whom we could approach for help in organising such an event.

If such a convention went well, and I have some ideas that could help achieve that, it may well be copied by other towns in the UK.

Could Bexhill be the first in the country with this initiative, as I understand it was with motor car racing, mixed bathing, and cinemas?

David Gee

Visiting Fellow

Institute of Environment

Health and Societies

Brunel University

Don’t miss out on all the latest breaking news where you live.

Here are four ways you can be sure you’ll be amongst the first to know what’s going on.

1) Make our website your homepage at www.bexhillobserver.net/

2) Like our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/bexhillobserver

3) Follow us on Twitter @BexhillObs

4) Register with us by clicking on ‘sign in’ (top right corner). You can then receive our daily newsletter AND add your point of view to stories that you read here.

And do share with your family and friends - so they don’t miss out!

The Bexhill Observer - always the first with your local news.

Be part of it.