How To Actually Destroy Your Enemy - Undividing #13

A Surprising Conversation At The Prop 8 Rallies in 2008, and the House That The Past Built.

Welcome to Undividing where we are reconnecting a divided world

Hey there everyone,

WHAT THE WHAT?! I can’t believe the number of people who’ve signed up this last week! I thought it would take years to have this many folks reading. But here we all are with our shared interest in undoing the divisions we see everywhere.

I’ve been really enjoying the comments you’re leaving in the Notes, Newsletter, and Emotions Diary posts. People are writing smart observations and sharing great stories in there. Undividing is a conversation, and I’m learning from all of you.

Last week we talked about how we make enemies. This week we’re talking about how to destroy them—and how all our usual solutions never work. However there is actually a way to do it that could get rid of them forever.

Also this week, our usual three separate sections come together to make one article. And as edition #13, I think this makes some kind of cosmic sense.

In Undividing #13 we’re diving into:

• Undividing Our World - Feb 13th is the anniversary of the bombing of Dresden. And I was there, hoping the right vs left demonstrations didn’t get violent.

• Undividing Ourselves - Hop in the Time Machine to 2008. And hear a story about an unexpected conversation I had at the Prop 8 rallies in SF with my enemies.

• Undividing Extras - A poignant but uplifting story about the very house I find myself in writing this week’s edition.

Let’s get undividing!

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Undividing Our World: The Destruction of Dresden

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

When we scroll through our phones these days, we see lots of “we must destroy our enemies” style posts and articles. All political stripes. More and more arriving at the same point—enemies aren’t to be reasoned with, they’re to be destroyed.

So, I find myself wondering, what does destroying your enemies actually mean to the people who say this? What does this destruction they envisage look like?

These thoughts came at the same time as me and my partner Erik found ourselves travelling to his home village through Dresden this week on February 13th—the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Dresden.

Photo by David Hertle on Unsplash

If you’re not familiar with the event, it was the utter immolation of the city of Dresden. Allied pilots bombed the city over three days, setting off firestorms that razed Dresden and killed at least 25,000 people near the end of WW2.

It’s a highly contentious event and debated annually across Europe - why that city, at that time, with that intensity?

Back on the bus as we approached Dresden, Erik and I were nervous. The anniversary famously attracts violent right and left wing demonstrators. Dresden’s streets have erupted into chaos in many years. We were expecting the worst. Especially with a very tense Federal Election in a matter of days after the collapse of the Coalition last year.

The bus dropped us off at Dresden Central train station where demonstrators of all camps streamed out its doors. Feb 13th in Dresden has become a lightning rod across Europe and protestors come from all over to add their voice.

There was a sharp, charged tension in the air. And as we made our way through the cobblestoned Dresden streets, we could hear distant shouts echoing off the snow-covered rebuilt Baroque buildings.

We have the luxury of history

History books are filled with examples like The Bombing of Dresden. Two sides who think they are right. Both believing that destroying the other was the only option.

History books also tell us that destruction by force and military means never work.

Living in Germany has taught me that no one here will ever forget

WW2. I’m no historian, but as I ride my bike through the Berlin streets I see monuments, commemorations, and murals everywhere. There are Stolpersteine (trip stones) on most pavements, even right outside my apartment block. The stones commemorate the fates of people who lived there. The more stones, the more families you know were exterminated.

Stolpersteine are literally designed for you to trip over them. To be reminded. People lay flowers by them in their neighbourhoods on memorial days.

I also know that the lessons of the war are etched into the minds of all my German friends of all ages. I’ve heard everything from, “I’m part of a generation raised to not trust our instincts,” to, “It was horrific, and the whole world learned from it, but that was another generation and we’re all better than this now.”

What Feb 13th means in 2025 is divisive and explained very well in this Substack article by Katja Hoyer, a German/British historian and writer who brings an excellent perspective.

Hoyer outlines how the bombing generally splits people into three groups that I’m simplyfying here. Group 1 say it was a war crime (often the right), Group 2 say it was a necessity (often the left).

However, Hoyer writes about a third:

“Group 3 are those who see the Dresden bombing as a tragedy. Some go as far as comparing it with other destroyed cities like Coventry… Warsaw and Guernica. In this version, all are ‘victims of war and dictatorship’. Nazi blame for the war is accepted, but reconciliation takes centre stage.”

What I discovered in Dresden was the ripple effects Feb 13th has had through generations of British as well.

My father destroyed this city

In the Dresden museum we were visiting, Erik and I struck up a conversation with a British man named James from Manchester. Like all the demonstrators, he was also here for the anniversary.

Because James is the son of one of the pilots who bombed the city.

He told us that post-war, when the true extent and toll of Dresden’s destruction became clearer, his father and many of the other pilots were overcome with guilt and remorse.

James’s father and many other Brits who felt the same way, organised aid and funding from the UK to Dresden for its rebuilding.

James told us that the Duke of Kent comes every year, marches and stands with the people in the snow, holds hands in a human chain, and that he delivered his entire speech in German about his nation’s grief at the Dresden Town Hall:

“In addition to the grief we feel in our hearts, we also look back on 30 years of reconciliation and growing friendship between Britain and the people of Dresden.”

It turns out the cross crowning the Frauenkirsche (Church Of Our Lady) was designed in Manchester, forged in London, the main craftsman being Alan Smith whose father was also one of the bomber pilots.

It was only later during my research for this week that I realised that James, like Alan and the Duke, was probably part of the Dresden Trust, a British funded cultural charity.

And the choir sang

Fortunately, this year, the demonstrations didn’t erupt into violence between the left and right. Which honestly, and sadly, is why you may not have heard about it.

The third group on the streets of Dresden that got even less press were the singers.

Solidly in Hoyer’s Group 3, there are choirs all over Dresden every Feb 13th. Large and small, they are spread through the city. We stood in a crowd and watched one sing, stamping our feet against the cold, as I reflected on what James had told us.

Here is the great lesson of Dresden when it comes to enemies - Dresden is the story of two sides, both believing in their rightness, one nearly destroying the other. But the result? Both sides ended up united in two ways.

In their grief that the bombing had ever happened.

And in the grief that’s been visited on the generations that came after 1945 in both countries.

So, did anyone win? Or did everyone lose?

If everyone lost, then what good came from all this suffering?

Conversations. Countless conversations since the reunification of Germany between the UK and Germany and within both countries about the whys, the waste, and the way ahead.

Conversations that work to ensure something like this never happens again.

But, and this here is the big but—80 years ago, they had history books. Filled with stories of failed attempts to destroy enemies. And it didn’t stop them. They couldn’t talk to each other. So, history repeated.

And it feels like we’re on the verge of that in so many ways in 2025.

But here’s the question—could it all stop with us? Could we be the generation who don’t repeat what already happened?

I think we can. And I’ll tell you how.

Undividing Ourselves: Conversations over Demonstrations

Flashback now to San Francisco 2008. And to another demonstration. And to another battle line between two sides hell bent on the total defeat of the other.

I’d flown up from LA to demonstrate at the Prop 8 rallies outside the courthouse, as the nation waited for the verdict to be handed down.

Prop 8 was a state wide proposition, voted on by all of California, about whether to re-ban the recently granted rights of same-sex marriage. I was in the “Prop Hate” crowd, yelling wildly at the Prop 8 supporters—the queer population and its supporters on one side, the religious right on the other.

But then in the madness of the crowds, megaphones, placards, yelling, and spittle flying, I found myself flung to the side and suddenly face-to-face with a bunch of my opponents.

Five of them. A mix of ethnicities. Male and female. What struck me was how young so many of them were, barely in their 20s. Those five and I, shocked by our sudden proximity, stopped yelling. We looked at each other, not knowing what do next.

“Where are you all from?” I asked them. They named a town in Northern California I hadn’t heard of. The churches had been bussing in folks from all over.

“Do you have any gay and lesbian friends there?” I asked them. “No,” the one who I guessed was the leader of these five, replied.

“Well, I have Christian friends,” I said. “I think if you had some friends like us, you’d realise that we’re nothing to be afraid of.”

A strange silence followed, as we all kept looking at each other.

“Ask me anything,” I said, suddenly inspired. “I’m serious, what do you want to know?”

The leader didn’t even blink. “Why did you decide to be gay?” he asked. The others nodded, waiting.

What happened next was the thing I remember the most about that day.

We six became a momentary island of calm in the sea of screaming, protesting bodies. I explained that I was born this way. There was no choice involved. That I thought if God makes no mistakes, then me and all my friends are part of the plan.

The moment they realised I was really willing to talk, they had a list of questions. “When did you know?” “Are your parents ashamed?” and so on. They’d never had anyone to ask I guessed. And they were polite and they were genuinely curious.

Then I had a question for them. “Look, we just met, but you all seem alright. What does your instinct tell you about me?” They shrugged and exchanged looks with each other. They were thinking about it. But right then, a nearby adult stepped in to pull them away.

However, not before the young one’s leader reached back quickly to shake my hand.

We lost the right to marry that day. Prop 8 passed. So I don’t know if any of them changed their minds at all. But I hope that when they returned home, and celebrated their win that some of them also talked about a gay guy they met there, and he seemed OK.

Maybe they even passed some of my answers on.

Because people speaking on your behalf, against the popular opinion of their group, in rooms you will never be in, does more than anything you’ll ever post on social media.

The conclusion? If you want to destroy your enemies, find your common ground.

Dresden and Prop 8 were both about destroying enemies. But the issues that spawned from both we’re still fighting over today.

Finding common ground though, destroys your enemies by turning them into humans.

Two main points here. Illustrated by two comments in my Notes this week.

1. We don’t have to be the generation who repeat history. The version where everyone loses. We are smart enough not to. But it needs us to actively undivide.

Michael: “Change requires more than just understanding; it demands the will to act, even when understanding alone feels like enough.”

2. Don’t fight. Invite. - In the face of an enemy we think has us all wrong, be open. If you are not in any danger, offer to answer anything. They may never have had anyone to ask.

Suzanne: “Show up, not as a victim, but as an active participant in relationship with whomever else is in the room.”

I know this may sound scary to do. A lot of us have no practice at it. And lots of fears about what would happen if we ever did. But consider this comment from another reader. She decided to go outside her bubble and talk to people online who’d trolled her. She ended up bonding with one man over how their grandchildren have no problem making friends, and that we adults could be more like them:

Human: “This was from a man who’d previously labelled me a ‘senseless woke feminist’ and ‘another wacky white hippy dippy’. I kept searching and searching for the thing that connected us… and I found it!”

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Undividing Extra: The House That Dresden Built

To end on an up note, my partner Erik told me that his family home where I sit writing this edition of Undividing was built by his grandfather, Martin. Partly with stones rescued from the rubble of Dresden.

In the newly formed and post-war DDR, where supplies of everything were scarce, Martin walked his cart two days to Dresden and two days back to the village to scavenge building supplies.

He took the remains of a city’s destruction to build his family a home. This home that has housed three generations is literally built from taking something terrible from the past and turning it into something good for the future.

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Till the Emotions Diary on Thursday, big undividing hugs to you all,

Karl