Being a left wing man is like sitting in the away section of a football match. You’re surrounded by those who root against you. It’s a strange feeling. You are all watching the same game, but something is not quite right. The placards and banners you glance are splashed with words of anger toward you. The ignorant yells and screams that reverberate around are dizzying, and hurtful; as you find your own voice is quietened, and your love of the game fallen silent. Any words of support that slip from your mouth draw scowls from the crowd. A bombardment of scoffs, eyes rolls and cackles; as you are jostled around, worn down and worn out. It is bewildering to be yelled at, insulted, and betrayed by your own peers – as the baying crowd of kindness runs cold. And soon the words of progressivism, equality, and compassion, which are usually symptomatic of leftism, suddenly disappear; to be replaced with the cries and whines of thin skinned bigotry. You are told you are ‘not important’. For you have ‘had your turn’ for millennia, and the issues for which you care for are secondary, or worse, ‘don’t exist’. Yes. Leftism has become its own enemy. The left, through its endless prescribing of ‘bitter pills to swallow’, and relentless calls for ‘accountability’ fails to take any for itself. Diversity of ethnicity, gender and sexuality, but never of ideas or points of view. And soon boys and men, and those love them, are forced into a space of nomadism, and political homelessness; ready to be claimed by whoever gives them an ear, or kind word. Too often they are betrayed again. Their heads turned by an army of equally demented, equally disingenuous , and equally incoherent red pillers, alpha males, pick up artists, and shrill-tatted-up Canadians. As one of these politically disaffected men, lost between left and right, it is a lonely experience. But we are together in that loneliness, increasing in numbers, and holding of more democratic power than we realise. So who will claim us first? Who will take us in? And can the left be saved? What do you think? ~ Images by Ali Jouyandeh, Damon Lam, Juka Aalto, Joakim Honkaslo, Mathias

2023-10-31