How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division

by Elif Shafak

Mass destruction doesn’t start with concentration camps or gas chambers. It doesn’t start with putting marks on neighbours’ doors, just because they are ‘different’ – or imposing laws for minorities to carry particular signs or wear certain clothes. Discrimination always starts with words.

Acts of barbarity can happen fast and on a large scale not when more people turn immoral or evil, not necessarily, but when enough people become numb.