One can see the same happening in national politics as quasi-facist movements swim ever closer to the political mainstream. With the degree of cooperation between the two spheres increasing all the time - and with social inequality showing few signs of abating - it is only a matter of time before impotent rage - ressentiment - gets channelled into the creation of anti-democratic political movements.

Authoritarian regimes are being elected all over the world, and the present risk is that the histories of oppressed peoples will be driven further underground, despite - or dare one say, because of - the radical left.

As important as it is to build platforms on social issues, the bullying tactics of the left run the risk of alienating even fair-minded people. Imitation cannot win the day, and when intellectuals get praised for their ‘courage’ - that is, for merely saying what they think - then one realises that panic-driven pandering has become the new norm! In his inimitable style, it was Nietzsche who said, “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

The only certainty, to restate Baldwin, is that nothing can be changed if it is not confronted. By showing up and not retreating, by engaging and not dissociating, by searching for and not giving up on one another, we give ourselves and the generations to come the best chance of living with - instead of being lived by - our trauma. History cannot be overcome but, instead of carrying it on our backs, labouring under it, we can learn to walk beside it.

Political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan looked at a related question: Which has been more effective at producing social change: armed violent resistance or nonviolent resistance? Embedded is a question about trust: Is offering trust in the ultimate humanity of one’s opposition, even from a vulnerable position, an effective way of producing social change, and if so, is it as effective as the threat and use of violence.

Chenoweth and Stephan built a dataset of all the mass change campaigns that happened in the world between 1900 and 2006, 323 in all. They divided them into those that were violent in nature (revolutions, insurgencies, coups d’état) or primarily nonviolent in nature (boycotts, strikes, sit-ins, protest marches, stay-aways). They then assessed how effective they were as measured by whether they achieved their stated goals within a year’s time and whether there was evidence that the campaigns themselves, rather than concurrent events or other differences between the societies were responsible for change.

Second, these efforts should involve the participation of as many people as possible. When people feel they haven’t been heard they tend not to trust. But when their input is a regular, normalized part of how a setting functions, they’re better able to trust it even when they disagree.