Videos

Xenophobia and Provocation

Not letting oneself get provoked by the stupidity or aggression of other people is a crucial energy-saver in daily life.

It takes a lot to provoke me in a way that will make me angry or care, and when you expose yourself to a lot of culture differences, unexpected situations and well, find yourself in clubs next to young girls undergoing their attitude-crisis, it is a priceless skill. Answering aggression with love is easy once you’ve learnt how to not take yourself too seriously, and it’s a lot of fun!

This example is a demonstration of personal strength beyond what I believe I would ever be able to express, in this case faith might play its role, however, getting angry is human, so the fact that the man they talk about in this video is a reverend is for me irrelevant, he’s just admirably self confident and strong.

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Being angry might be important to demonstrate an attitude to the wider public and the entry of the xenophobic party Sweden Democrats into our parliament did make me upset even if it was expected. However, the campaigning that I see on facebook that urges us to isolate all the people that voted for them, burn their cars and make riots is just.. uhm.. very much working to their own advantage.

Non-violent demonstration of resistance against the attitudes that this party is campaigning and a clear debate is important, however, dialogue and communication is crucial for changing attitudes, and these people clearly have some issue that they want to us to take more seriously and listen to, so.. they need to be a part of the dialogue in order for it to have any effect. That’s what democracy is all about, and we need to respect that.

Using reverend Wade Watts from the example above, a forgive them father for they don’t know what they are doing –kind of way is the first step. Then the next one is to quickly identify and find them, put them in a room and tell them the truth: xenophobia just isn’t awesome in any way.

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