A city divided…

by hatred

On one side were those who called themselves protectors of justice. They marched beneath bright banners. They spoke of inclusion, solidarity, and resistance to oppression. Many had grown up watching cruelty that was ignored. Some had been bullied for who they were. Some had watched parents ground down by poverty or prejudice. Others carried the memory of friends harmed by racism, misogyny, or violence. They had learned early that silence protects power. Others had just chosen a cause, and they vowed never to be silent in the face of hatred.

On the other side were those who called themselves defenders of order, tradition, and nation. They too carried their wounds. Some had watched their towns emptied of industry and dignity. Some had seen family life fall apart around addiction or instability. Some felt mocked by distant elites who spoke of progress while their own communities slowly died. Others feared becoming strangers in a world they no longer understood. They had learned early that if they did not defend what they loved, no one else would. So they vowed never to surrender again.

At first, neither side noticed the similarity. Each believed itself motivated by love and the other by hate. The justice marchers spoke constantly about compassion, but many had quietly come to despise those they called ignorant, backwards, privileged, dangerous. Their rallies became fuelled less by hope than by outrage. Their identities hardened around opposition. They no longer listened, because listening felt like betrayal.

Meanwhile, the defenders of tradition spoke constantly about protecting community, but many had quietly come to despise migrants, activists, intellectuals, minorities, and anyone who unsettled their picture of the world. Their gatherings too became fuelled less by love of country than by resentment. They no longer listened either, because listening felt like surrender.

And so, over time, both groups became mirrors each feeding the other.

The angrier one side became, the more necessary the other appeared.

The justice marchers pointed at the hatred of the traditionalists as proof that they themselves must become louder, sharper, more uncompromising.

The traditionalists pointed at the contempt of the activists as proof that they themselves must become harder, prouder, more defensive.

Neither noticed that their hatred multiplied the hatred in the world while they were busy defending goodness.

An old woman watched this unfold from a bench beside the market square. She had lived through riots, strikes, recessions, wars abroad, and bitterness at home. She had buried a son lost to drugs and another lost to political extremism. She had long ago stopped asking which side was innocent.

One winter evening, after another confrontation in the square, she invited two young people to tea. One was a masked activist with bruises on his knuckles. The other was a nationalist organiser with scars and tattoos hidden beneath his shirt.

At first they refused even to look at one another. The old woman simply asked them questions.

“What first taught you the world was unsafe?”

Neither answered for a long time. Eventually the activist spoke of being cornered at school and beaten while others laughed. The nationalist spoke of his father losing work and drinking himself into silence while politicians on television spoke of prosperity.

The activist spoke of fear while the nationalist spoke of humiliation.

Slowly, over many hours and weeks, it became clear that neither had begun with hatred, but with pain and with love.

Hatred came later and offered some temporary relief. It simplified the world and gave it meaning, belonging, certainty, and importantly someone else to blame.

But hatred had also captured them. It had made them reactive rather than free.

The old woman never asked either to abandon their convictions. She never said that injustice was unreal, or that communities should not protect what they loved. She did not ask them to become passive or indifferent. She asked them something much harder.

“Can you struggle without needing to hate?”

At first they thought this impossible. Without hatred, how would they maintain energy? Without enemies, how would they know who they were? But over time they began to notice that hatred had not made them stronger, but it had made them predictable. Every insult from the other side controlled them, every outrage manipulated them and every algorithm fed upon their fury and returned them to themselves more rigid than before. And gradually they understood: peace is not the absence of conflict. Peace is the refusal to let fear and pain turn us into creatures who can only recognise ourselves through opposition.

Years later the city still argued. There were still demonstrations and disagreements and deep differences about the future. But something had shifted. People had begun asking different questions.

Not:

“How do we defeat them?”

But:

“What pain is speaking through them?”

Not:

“How do we eliminate opposition?”

But:

“How do we stop becoming addicted to enemies?”

And in the market square, where the shouting once echoed endlessly, there appeared a small inscription carved into the stone beside the bench where the old woman used to sit:

Beware the moment your love of justice begins to require hatred.

Beware the moment your love of home begins to require fear.

For that is the moment peace quietly leaves the room. The city never became perfect. But some people became free.