Christina Lindquist: This way no one notices who’s stepping

“But I never thought leopards would eat it dead face,” a woman who voted for the Face-Eating Panthers party cries.

Anyone who follows Twitter knows that there is a silver lining to the post-political nightmare known as campaigning. Too funny people? The only problem is that a lot of people seem to think that that American joke is actually saying something relevant. Consistency, karma, poetic justice – a strong longing for existence to be characterized by coherence, to serve as a proverb.

Let’s call it the Martin Niemöller effect. If you are silent when they control the communists, the Jews and the trade unionists, then there is no one to protest when they come to get you. delusion Come Sooner or later to pick you up, you can be sure of it. That is why you should raise your voice, because there is a common interest in seeing oneself in others.

The thought goes again In a beloved poem by Finnish-Swedish poet Claes Anderson, from the collection Roommates (1974):

Watch out who just shakes their head

consent.

The gesture may apply to you tomorrow.

Or to paraphrase what the Old Welsh band Manic Street Preachers said: If you tolerate this your children will be next. I love this song, but maybe we have to fix the chorus a little bit based on the data received: if you tolerate this, nothing special will happen. Not with your children.

Otherwise, how are we to look at the current situation where some of us are constantly treated to promises from the political side, while others are marked as a burden to be tested, punished and expelled? ‘A flood of rubbish’, calls Beer Werten The ongoing election campaign (Expressen, 15/8). Yes, but not everyone meets.

Sometimes you get the impression that the “right wind” that people are talking about will hit the whole of society at once; Abortion rights in particular are often presented as threatened by brown and blue successes. But then they did not understand that political logic looks something like this: keep the white middle class in a good mood and you can trample on others as much as you like. The right to an abortion will not be affected by anyone, it will be unequivocal. Shall we talk a little bit about taking forcibly immigrant children into custody? Sure, it works. A lot can go on without anyone noticing.

Let me take an extreme example. When I was 20, I lived in Chile for a semester, just like the left-handed girls. For a naive Swede who grew up with stories about Salvador Allende and Victor Jara, it was almost a religious experience. So, understand the shock when I was walking around one day in front of a shop on a beautiful street in Santiago and behind the table I saw a big hero portrait of General Pinochet. I did not understand the basic element of Chile’s military dictatorship – which many of its inhabitants can only live on. They had never seen a glimpse of concentration camps or torture rooms, nor did they know anyone who had been forced into exile or simply disappeared. It was never captured. What are these communists arguing about?

considered as an idea Is solidarity built on the idea of ​​shared risk somewhat self-evident and self-evident, the question is whether it still exists in reality. There, the prevailing political discourse is that it is never about you or your children, but always about others. to divide he is The policy itself.

The gesture may apply to you tomorrow. haha what? Now you might be thinking of someone else – I only live here. Surely it is good to just live? Anyone who has read the famous last line of Clays Anderson’s poem will understand what it’s about:

Beware of those who only want to live

his life in peace.

They do not spare any means.

Read more texts by Christina Lindquist