Waking up to the news of Britain leaving the EU, of Prime Minister David Cameron resigning, of a second Scottish referendum in the works, felt a little like being in The Twilight Zone. Nobody thought it could actually happen, and then it did.
The bookies were wrong; the polls were misleading. Even a grand, old Uncle Sam warning against Brexit via President Obama was not heeded.
And in the end, fear-mongering and scapegoating won.
“We’re on the front-lines of nativism now,” a South Asian friend of mine remarked. “If we can have a referendum because the right wing is peeved about unbridled European immigration, who’s to say they won’t decide to send us all back?”
She was overreacting. But, the results of the referendum have shown us that Britain is a country split right down the middle.
There is a huge generational gap, tremendous economic polarisation and a serious ideological conflict between the liberal elite and the rural working-class.
Take a look: Brexit, a sign of anti-elite revolt: analysts
It has also set a dangerous precedent for the US elections in November. As Roger Cohen writes in The New York Times:
“The colossal leap in the dark that a traditionally cautious people — the British — were prepared to take has to be taken seriously. It suggests that other such leaps could occur elsewhere, perhaps in Trump’s America.”
What is most traumatic, though, are the wounds that the British youth will have to sustain, and not just on a macroeconomic level.
The biggest jolt to the senses, comes from knowing that we have lost so much in the way of human interaction and exchange, stripped of the ability to craft our own European narratives and be enriched by the experiences of others.
And though Brexit doesn’t necessarily spell a complete cultural and geographical alienation from the rest of the continent, it may put red tape on our impulse to move freely; to reap the benefits of having Europe at one’s doorstep.
It is only when something is lost that you realise how fundamentally wrong it was to take it for granted.
So, I grieve alongside other 18-24-year-olds in Britain, those who will bear the brunt of the decision to leave the EU. Many of us lay the blame at the door of the elderly — a generation that has no concrete stake in our long-term future, but voted overwhelmingly in support of leaving.
Yet, I have to confess that I am also, albeit indirectly, complicit in the catastrophe that is Brexit.
If anything, the referendum is a lesson in the follies of democracy. We cannot be bystanders. We cannot loiter on the sidelines of history, cannot afford to be complacent. I didn’t vote, and in the aftermath of the result, I sincerely regret that decision.
I came of voting age not so long ago. The EU referendum was the first time I was physically present in the UK and eligible to vote; I looked forward to the thrill of finally being inside a polling station.
But then I forgot to register online, didn’t think too much about the referendum until this week, and then watched as domino after domino fell on Thursday night, culminating in Cameron’s resignation.
I would have voted Remain. I should have and could have voted Remain.
See: Brexit poll — a sobering lesson for Asia
Statistically speaking, my single vote wouldn’t have made a difference. By the end of the count, the Leave campaign was ahead by a significant margin.
Emotionally, however, my complacency, my false sense of assurance in what I thought the British people wanted, will gnaw at me for years to come.
For the first time in my life I thought of myself, born in London, raised by Pakistani parents, a college student in the US, within the larger context of Europe.
As the percentages fluctuated all night, putting the Remain camp ahead for an instant, I saw myself as a European, blessed with the immense privilege of belonging to a fraternity of nations; of having the liberty to chart one’s own migratory course.
But waking up on Friday morning I felt hollow. Overnight, there had been a seismic shift — opportunities lost, freedoms curtailed, the pound in shambles.
What now?
If anything, the referendum is a lesson in the follies of democracy. We cannot be bystanders. We cannot loiter on the sidelines of history, cannot afford to be complacent. I didn’t vote, and in the aftermath of the result, I sincerely regret that decision.
Now, I only hope that the Britain I have come to know and love, the tolerant state that has welcomed countless immigrants with open arms and voted into office a Muslim mayor just last month, can withstand the repercussions of the choice it has made.
“David Cameron is like Macbeth,” another friend texted me after the result was announced, grief-stricken. “A tragic hero.”
Indeed.