Marine Le Pen, Non!

As France breathes a temporary sigh of relief in the run offs, Marine Le Pen is still expected to contest the French election right up to the wire, with the margin seeming small, according to the BBC.

All I can say is the woman and her supporters are deluded.

You do not unite anyone, by deliberately excluding minorities.

It creates a fractured and tragic dynamic where everyone loses.

Thus greater is the sadness that some on the left are saying they are not going to vote.

I may not be a die hard Macron supporter, but even I can see he is infinitely preferable to a blatantly right wing candidate.

A candidate who will not only make minorities vulnerable, but will completely destroy the hope of the equality promised in the very essence of France.

France, you have the democratic power to keep extreme intolerance out, please don’t lose that chance.

Democracy and education

People often give up on democracy when something catostrophic happens, or a terrible leader is elected.

However, the value of democracy is that it is bound to it's time.

If it is sufficiently flexible and foresighted it can withstand the test of time and create a legacy so great as to lift further generations to the skies.

The reason I am writing this now is some of my country seem to have forgotten the wars of the past, the lessons learnt and the growth still needed.

Heed your lessons

The reason for this is that in order for a democratic society to succeed it needs to develop and learn.

In order for a democracy to learn all of its people need to learn with it.

If you leave too many people behind your democracy will be a farce.

You create a democratic deficit in terms of wealth and education.

Higher deficits in terms of privilege, wealth and education; or indeed to unequal a journey can lead to grave democratic outcomes that hurt the many that go to the polls.

Feminism exists

A woman I spoke to recently was talking about supervising young girls.

She was pointing to the fact that they can be horrible to each other and in the same breath dispelled the notion that feminism even existed.

Given the kind of woman that she is I suspect that it wasn't meant as too serious a comment.

However, it got me thinking.

We need to stand together

I would be a fool if I didn't recognise that women often attack and undermine each other.

However, this does not mean feminism doesn't or shouldn't exist.

After all feminism does not require all women to think the same, it requires enough education and economic power to make them meaningful contributors to the debate.

Bitching is a trap

If I stoop to the level of judging a woman purely by her looks or similar superficial aspects I invalidate my own position.

This does not mean that you can't appreciate the effort someone has made with their appearance, but don't focus overly on this if she is making a speech on politics, singing or dancing.

Ultimately if you focus on what women can be you put them on a more equal footing with men in public discourse immediately, by the same token this allows you to focus on the fact that one woman might be being overly mean or controlling.