Yet in most of the coverage pre- and post- election, the focus has not been on what the impacts of a Meloni-led government in Italy (Europe’s third largest economy) would be on these communities she rages against (migrants, LGBTQ+ people, foreigners, etc), but rather on the economic and foreign policy implications of her leadership. It seems that once more, attention is not on those who are most othered but on those who hold power. Some have even gone as far as to say that a strong Meloni would be preferable for the stability of the eurozone than her party having to rely on volatile allies like Salvini and Berlusconi  This piece in Foreign Affairs goes so far as to argue that “America and the EU Should Root for a Far-Right Populist. Who cares about human rights for those within the country?

At record high levels of inflation and with a persistent cost of living crisis, European leaders are making decisions that will shape the future of the union while also — perhaps unknowingly — setting the tone of how negotiations and life is conducted in the continent. Is it going to be a Europe of cooperation or of competition? Is it going to be an inclusive or exclusionary union? Is it going to be a Europe responding reactively to a security, economic, and social crisis, or one that is proactively shaping a climate-conscious future?

“Hope is not always a choice we can make. Sometimes things get so crippling that we find a strange glimmer of emancipation in the darkness of the moment. I suppose that little glimmer, that crack, is the trickster reminding us that not even loss can be fully itself. Nothing can be fully itself, nothing can belong, without the strange other hiding among the ranks, squeezing itself between the lines, the devil in the details. Not a slave ship bound for the Americas. Not a pandemic threatening destruction. Not a climate crisis with no end in sight. Not death. Something always steals in. Maybe there is a powerful political move there. Maybe there is a way of sitting with the trouble and inadequacy of hope. Maybe there is hope in the hopeless. “

I vaguely remember the moment I decided I was going to get lost. Generously lost.

I had just read yet another article about the mental health crisis gripping the largest black nation on earth. Nigeria had 200 million people and – conservatively – three well-equipped psychiatric hospitals. The papers bemoaned a poorly articulated health policy, a lack of skilled staff, a dearth of bedspaces, and tight budgets. They begged for a compassionate government or sensible philanthropy. It was 2008. But that didn’t matter: the problem was a sticky one, as resilient as our claims to peoplehood.

The trend for doctoral researchers like myself was to lean into these problems, vacillate between exhausted data points, and tie up our theoretical conclusions to the same ‘solutions’ everyone else had already figured out: we needed more money to take care of our people. But solutions are often products of fields of resonance, marking the ways we have been trained to reproduce sounds and images with which we are already familiar. The trick is in learning to listen to the noise.

We are proud to announce that author, poet, and public intellectual Bayo Akomolafe has joined the Democracy & Belonging Forum as its inaugural Global Senior Fellow. In this role, Bayo will act as the Forum’s “provocateur in residence”, guiding Forum members in rethinking and reimagining our collective work towards justice in ways that reject binary thinking and easy answers.

“Another participant talked about their mother’s living room as an example of a sanctuary space built on fostering connection. It was there they were able to observe their mother and her friends show their true selves, which is often extremely different from who they had to be while out in public, especially as an elderly Muslim wearing a Hijab. In those living rooms, when the mothers come together with one another, they would go wild in a way that no one would believe. The shisha comes out. The music comes on. It’s beautiful to see.”

In August, the energy in European cities shifts. Walking down the streets in which locals usually walk or run, be it to work, to pick up children, to classes, the sensation is one of slowness, a lull, rush replaced by meandering. The idea of August as a month of rest is deeply embedded in the European conscience: it is a month to recharge, spend time with loved ones, travel. According to some statistics, more than half of Europeans will go on holiday this month. At the same time, for those in the tourism industry, the pace picks up, as European cities and shores are flooded with tourists that find this continent an attractive destination.

This approach to rest, travel, and relationships is - in my opinion - one of the beauties of life in this continent. But it is also a reminder of the disparities that come with being a European passport holder.

Tackling the climate crisis ultimately requires interconnectedness: considering the differential causes, responsibilities, and consequences of the crisis as much as systematically connecting it to the other issues of our time. If policies to tackle the cost of living crisis result in green measures taking a back seat, we endanger our ability to respond to the climate crisis even further. But responding to the cost of living crisis is of utmost importance and not doing so would endanger us all but mostly those who are most vulnerable and also most likely to suffer the negative consequences of the climate crisis.

In the immediate aftermath of the US Supreme Court overturning Roe vs Wade, it is hard to conceive of writing about anything other than abortion. This is a ruling that embodies much of what is going wrong in the US and the dangers of polarization, us-vs-them breaking, and a fracturing democracy. This should serve as a cautionary tale.

“For more than 50 years, Muslims and Jews have been portrayed as natural enemies. I always struggled with this naturalization, which is nothing natural, but constructed through history. The discourse has always been polarizing. Divisions between these two main ethnoreligious groups in France or Germany, countries I know best, are also instrumentalized by different political parties for their own gain. Interfaith bridging can bring a new process of identification of Arab-Jews and an acknowledgment of Jewish history and life within Arab-French-Muslim people. It is a way of deconstructing essentialist identities.“

Tasked with developing OBI’s emerging work to link belonging efforts in Europe and the US, I set myself on a mission over the past five months to speak with social justice leaders in both regions about their work in this challenging moment. My interest: gauging how much, if at all, polarization and democratic degradation have affected their efforts to advance belonging, which generally requires coalition-building across lines of difference and an assumption that civic institutions will (or at least can) be responsive to citizen demands.

Ultimately, differences can be used to divide us, and scapegoating a chosen out-group is often wielded to make sense of an uncertain reality. But we can also make meaning of those differences differently, so that they are not a source of pain, anger, or disenchantment but rather contribute to greater belonging for all, including engagement in the core democratic political process that allow for the co-creation of our societies.

“But we need for soon-to-be-powerful young people to recognize that other 13-year olds who might live on social housing estates or might be the children of drug dealers are also valid and they need to be heard. And sometimes it's time for rich students to close their mouths, demonstrate humility and just listen. Roots has been about challenging all young people to use their voice, and making sure they've got equal space in that room to challenge each other, to listen to each other, to be intrigued about each other, especially for the young people who aren't often in those rarefied spaces to ask the questions they need.”

“‘Othering’ and ‘belonging’ seem like pretty malleable concepts to me, but in the context of borders they are instructive. We are great at creating tribes. They have been to our evolutionary advantage in the past, and they are a fundamental aspect of our nature…I think ideas of othering and belonging color that tribal mentality. To ‘belong’ in a place or society really implies that you don’t belong outside of that society. And that creates room for the notion that some people don’t belong in your society, and instead belong elsewhere. So I think even the desire to belong comes from the tribal instinct, which is necessarily ‘othering.’”

Our leading premise is that art is a powerful tool to translate complex issues in a language that provokes empathy and understanding. By opening these works to the world, and by allowing adaptation and implementation in local contexts, we multiply their impact exponentially. What is more, we promote and foster openness in the visual arts sector, where the practice of licensing works under Creative Commons is low.

“There is a lot of idealization of Europe when it comes to racism and social inequalities, and these are based on false assumptions. Europe is doing better in terms of some social policies and maternity leave, and the justice system is a little bit better, but it's not great either. So I think it can break the idea of a Europe that overcame racism after World War II.”

“Covid 19 is not necessarily a good opportunity for far right parties. When they govern, they face the same difficulties as other parties in office, because no one has the solution, no one knows the best way to tackle the pandemic efficiently without damaging the economy. When they are not in government, they loudly criticize the parties in office, but most of them do not appear as legitimate to take over—they lack credibility. “

“At nearly every level of society, Italians, when thinking about when meeting someone who's not white, automatically think they are a migrant, not an Italian. And this is the main change I think that our society is going through right now—to understand that you might be Italian but not white or not Christian.”

“When speaking of polarization, we often refer to a phenomenon known as conflict extension: when members of the group converge across a range of issues. This is not happening in the UK. In fact, there are issues such as climate and the protection of nature and the countryside where we see widespread agreement and a shared desire for change.”