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Skunk Anansie's Skin: We Can Fix The World If We All Stand Together

The world is a mess right now. But, says Skunk Anansie leader Skin, we’d all have a hell of a better chance if we all stood together…

Skunk Anansie's Skin: We Can Fix The World If We All Stand Together
Words:
Skin, speaking to Ian Winwood

I think the left-wing community could learn a lot from the right-wing community when it comes to uniting and becoming a unified force that actually gets things done. Politics has moved on in terms of diversity, in terms of gender politics, in terms of gender identity, feminism and racial politics – all these things have moved on so far. And it’s brilliant that we’re having all these discussions, but on social media you’ve got these social justice people that are just so quick to tear other people down. And the trouble is that they’re tearing down their own people.

They’re doing this to such an extent that we’re becoming disjointed. We’re so busy tearing down our own that we’ve forgotten what the actual fight is. When we’re ripping each other to shreds, behind our back the right-wing people have organised, they’ve had a plan that’s coming to fruition, they’ve been united under people that they absolutely hate but who have the power, and they get the job done.

The right wing look at Donald Trump, they look at what’s happening in America, and they think, ‘Oh I’ll have some of that.’ So they use fear and they use immigration and they use trans politics, they use whatever they can around which to gather the most hatred. And it’s very effective; before you know it, it’s affecting us all.

"We've become so disjointed and disparate"

Skin

What us on the left have got to do, not just in Britain but all over the world, is to remember who it is we’re fighting. We need to remember who it is we’re fighting, and to fight against them – not against ourselves. While we’re tearing each other down for using the wrong terminology or the wrong language and all the things like that, the right wing have got their shit together and they’re going to work. And we’re still there at the starting gate, squabbling.

And while we’re doing this, LGBTQ rights are being shut down. The clubs and the venues that bands play in are being shut down. So many great things are being shut down. All of these things that we loved are getting destroyed. And people forget that, so it’s only when they come for you that you get upset about it.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t criticise each other, and hone and define our arguments, but we need to remember the people who really don’t agree with us and who would like to see us dead. Those are the people that we need to be fighting, not ourselves. We’ve become so disjointed and disparate that we’ve become weak, while our real enemy is strong.

And we need to be strong. We’re stronger together, and we need to remember that.

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