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Tomorrow, Britain will go to the polls. We’ve had several weeks of political plans, promises and surveys. Several weeks of journalists and commentators challenging and dissecting every word. But we’ve also seen results in other countries, such as Marine le Pen’s recent victory in the first round of the French elections. And after their opening debate last week, Presidents Biden and Trump have left many Americans feeling conflicted about their loyalties.
And in these global elections, much has been made of political polarisation, in which the tribal classification of our politics can cause greater unease and anxiety. But I think that notwithstanding peoples’ legitimate concerns about their lives and futures, fear from any political spectrum can be a powerful electoral tool in itself. It can motivate us to act but also make us feel that our society is far more divided and fractured than it really is.

But if fear is a powerful emotion, so is hope. Away from the political drama, in the order and routine of our daily lives, we seek and value words of comfort and belonging, a connection not a suspicion of our neighbours and communities. We sit, eat, talk and laugh with all kinds of people because our lives and our economies and the whole web of human relations is built on sociability and empathy. And while empathy and kindness may not be political terms, its these human emotions which really affect our daily lives, bind us to one another in ordinary and radical acts of generosity - we see this every day on our streets, at work and among family and friends.

The American poet and activist Maya Angelou wrote, `Hope and fear cannot occupy the same space at the same time; invite one to stay.’ These words aren’t just feelings, they point to our choices and actions, to ways of being in our personal and social lives. And religious faith isn’t exempt from this. The 11th century Muslim polymath al Ghazali wrote that as believers, if we don’t have hope, we don’t have belief. He wrote that ` worship which is on account of hope is far more meritorious because love dominates the person who hopes more than it does the one who fears.’

Living on the right side of hope and with gratitude isn’t easy but such emotions centre us, allow us to appreciate what is worth holding onto despite everything. And tomorrow, finally, all our politicians will find out whether in all their campaigning, they struck the right balance between the emotional appeal of both fear and hope.

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