Our political environment is sorely marked by anger. This basic emotion can be either a destructive or a positive force.

Anyone involved in activism knows that anger can motivate people. There are so many things one should be angry about. Corruption, injustices, interminable traffic, problems resulting from a politically imposed overpopulation and the mega-power of the mega-rich. This is just a short list of a much longer menu of issues that legitimately make people angry.

Anger can also be a Christian duty.

“If a person did not become indignant at an injustice, if he did not feel something quivering in his gut at the oppression of the weak, it would mean that that person was not human, much less a Christian.” That’s what Pope Francis told his audience during his catechesis on anger last January.

But anger can be intoxicating if it becomes the sole or main driver of activism. There are people who are so busy being angry that they have no time or energy to do anything else. They are justifiably angry at the people causing the injustice. These anger-drenched armchair critics are also angry at those fighting corruption and injustice. They say that these others are not doing enough and are not being effective.

These pathetic morons act as if fighting injustice is someone else’s duty and not theirs as well. They believe it is enough if they just continuously criticise others while not realising that their attitude does nothing but discourage those who, against all odds and at great personal sacrifice, strive to rectify things.

Others, though angry, mistakenly believe that the corrupt businessmen and politicians who try to lord it over us are more powerful than they actually are. As a result, the fighting spirit that could have arisen from their anger is crushed and they just slide into a sense of helplessness. They become bitter and cynical while believing that revenge is their only way out of this conundrum.

There are others who are angry not because they seek revenge but because they want to restore what they love, for example, truth and justice as the basis of the common good, the care of mother earth, the elimination of corruption and the defence of the rights of those on the margins of society.

Thus, they don’t emphasise what cannot be done but lobby for what can be done. They are not awed by the power of the corrupt but are enthused by the collective power of like-minded people who want to bring about change. They don’t want to destroy but to build. They are after reconciliation and not elimination. This is a fighting strategy that can become a winning strategy.

Anger can be intoxicating if it becomes the sole or main driver of activism- Fr Joe Borg

In the course of a homily in the National Stadium at the Singapore Sports Hub this month, Pope Francis proposed a strategy based on the power of “the love that builds”. In answer to those who think that this is a naïve statement, he replied:

“If there is anything good that exists and endures in this world, it is only because, in innumerable situations, love has prevailed over hate, solidarity over indifference, generosity over selfishness.”

Political and civil society advocates inspired by the strategy of “the love that builds”  strive more to serve people than to acquire self-serving power. Such a strategy is robust as it is free from the politics of negative anger and cynicism. It can effectively combat corruption, injustice, policies based on self-interest, cronyism and arrogant governance. A political strategy based on “the love that builds” can really bring joy and hope, which people need as much as the air they breathe.

To the cynics that pooh-pooh this, I retort with the rhetorical question that George Lakoff, an American cognitive linguist and philosopher, asked during a podcast on FrameLab. If anger and hate can be a strategy, why can’t joy and hope?

He continued:

“If you feel good about somebody’s political views – if joining with them, voting for them, etc., makes you feel good, makes you feel happy – that’s the most powerful thing there can be in politics. If they identify with something deep inside you, with who you really are most deeply, that’s what this is about. This is about politics that identifies with who people are, and with what they need.”

If you think that this is too emotional and, so, not effective, note that, according to Lakoff, 80 per cent of our life is emotion and only 20 per cent is intellect.

Regarding the election in the US, Lakoff notes that while Donald Trump is running a campaign largely fuelled by anger, fear and grievance, Kamala Harris’s campaign is based on a strategy of joy together with the time-tested theme of freedom.

There are too many in Malta who, like Trump, think that their victory can only be achieved by a campaign of anger, fear and grievance.

Their continuous vitriolic attacks and the indiscriminate (in contrast to the strategic) ‘noħorġu fit-toroq’ appeals put many people off. This is a strategy doomed to fail for there is all over it the stamp of negativity and arrogance that is betrayed by the description of the people as stupid popolin.

 Many are not motivated by this negativity, even though they see the mountain of filth that engulfs us. The majority, I believe, want to clean the Augean stables that this nation has been turned into.

Anger could be a good start but on its own, I suspect, it will not get us to the finishing line.

To motivate people and drive them into action, one has to satisfy their yearning for a campaign that dares to dream of a realistic and an achievable better future.

For the marathon needed to clean and rebuild, people need the inspiration and encouragement that only joy and hope can provide.