Right now, someone, somewhere is being cancelled. Off-the-cuff tweets or “harmless” office banter have the potential to wreck lives. The Left condemns the Right, and the bigotry of the old elites. The Right complains about brain-dead political correctness, and the erosion of liberal values. In reality, both sides are colluding in a reactionary, exclusionary politics that is as self-defeating as it is divisive. Can the Left escape this extremism and stay true to the progressive ideals it once professed?

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In February 2014, one month before his first birthday, we noticed that our son Luca’s gums were swollen. We suspected that there was a problem with his teeth coming out and took him for his first dentist appointment. The dentist examined him, suspected it could be something more serious, and sent us to the jaw surgeon, who eventually sent us on to the oncology ward. They booked an MRI scan for the next morning, and on Tuesday 21 February 2014 at 15:00, an atomic bomb went off in our hearts. Having suspected nothing only 24 hours before, we were told that he had a malignant tumour in his jaw. Cancer.

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“You are driving through a series of tunnels”, she said, referring to my fickle mood. Excruciating pain, outbursts of anger, interlaced with fleeting moments of numbness. “These are all tunnels”, she continued. “You will go through them, one after another. You will always see the light at the end of each one, only to plunge into another. Eventually, you will find the light.” I had just started driving through my third tunnel, a thick, acute depression, convinced that I would never see the light again. I was becoming more and more aware that I was the partisan who had to go on — alone. No one, nothing could fill in the void. I knew that I had to first reclaim myself, to reclaim him. But I was confused. I read, I listened to other people’s stories. But they all got mixed up in my head which had turned into a giant cocktail shaker since he was gone. Crosby, Still, Nash and Young who are “Helplessly Hoping” that they would see “The Beautiful Boy” surrounded by a “Halo” again, either here or there, if there is indeed a “there”. But it was Chavela Vargas’ words that were echoing in my mind as I set foot in what used to be my — our — home:

I never saw my mother, I didn’t even know where she was. I didn’t see my father. I didn’t see anyone. And I started feeling, not fury or hatred, but every artery and vein in my body started to fill with a rage that was so strong, I swear I could have ripped the walls of that house with my bare hands.

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