The last days for my digital “I” was rough. It all started on Twitter with terrible photos, which became known as the Minneapolis police officer strangled George Floyd. After that, my Twitter feed turned into a real war zone teeming with shameless images of demonstrators who destroy other people’s property, loot shops and set fire to the building.
All this was interspersed by peaceful demonstrations, political debates, attempts to encourage the public to be calm and a variety of encounters between people located in different corners of the ring amid a deep split in public opinion and political views. Intensified and bots, podlivaya fuel to the fire that engulfed tradi Twitter to discord continued and took more aggressive forms. To understand all was to put it mildly, difficult.
The crisis of coronavirus with its devastating political consequences, apparently, was only a warm-up to this main attraction hate the police and distrust of the authorities. Maybe it’s all the result of what people so long stuck at home.
Maybe patience by the cruelty of the American police really was exhausted. But the reaction to the tragic death of Floyd has surpassed all similar incidents in the past.
People want change, and the goal justifies any means. It is still possible to understand. The United States has long been like a powder, which just one is not enough spark. In addition, the November presidential election, and we can assume that foreign agents more actively than before, will try to influence the outcome to their advantage.
However, such demonstrations in Europe, and now in Sweden, is absurd. Thousands of people gather in a dense crowd, despite the raging pandemic.
The demonstrators in Stockholm shouting curses to the police, and it leads me in utter confusion. They’re angry at the American police? Or all police officers, including Swedish?
I understand that people infuriating systemic racism pervades all of American society and that whites have certain privileges. But I believe that the protesters in Sweden have a minute to stop and think about our own, Swedish privileges.
In Sweden, blacks do not kill people just because they are black. We have equal opportunities for all, regardless of origin, and everyone can realize his dream in life. We live in one of the freest and most open societies in the world.
I’m not saying that Sweden has no social problems, but let’s think. There are countless authoritarian countries where people are not allowed to Express their opinion and corrupt police treat them like cattle. Are we so crave unity that cannot do without in order to try on the problems of other countries?
Perhaps this activism just simply associated with the forced inactivity the last time. Because of the coronavirus, people had to limit their social life, and now they suddenly saw the opportunity to unite in the name of some deeper meaning. So what that they have chosen a relevant problem on the other side of the Atlantic.
Leftists say that in Sweden there is still structural racism. However, this does not negate the question of whether or not it’s worth it to break the rules of social distancing to come out to demonstrate against problems in another democratic country?
Besides, to feed the victim mentality, pasting labels “discriminated” and calling to see the world through this filter is an inefficient strategy. Instead, we should focus on freedom and personal opportunities. If there are positive points that we can learn from the US, this is just one of them.
If you’re a true activist, you have a whole range of issues in which to invest all their efforts. Million Uyghurs are sitting practically in the concentration camps in China. In Russia persecuted homosexuals. Yemen on fire for several years. Yes, every day around the world terrible things happen. However, for some reason, the movement “black Lives matter” and hatred of police mobilized now Swedish youth, who goes to demonstrations, exposing to the risk of Contracting covid-19 themselves and others at risk.
Would be better if all these activists have changed targets and focused on the violence, the killings by criminal groups, and dreadful robberies that happen daily in our country. All of this is in Sweden routine. In my opinion, this issue is much more important to us than police brutality and racism in the United States.
There are a lot of terrible things, but let’s not learn from other countries ‘ attitude to the problems. The U.S. can and should deal with their domestic issues themselves.
And we should focus on the pandemic that has already claimed too many lives. I sincerely hope that the vandalism and anarchy now raging in the USA, spread to Europe. But generally, in this 2020, I have nothing to be surprised.
Personally, I start with the fact that will disable the automatic playback of video on Twitter. The last thing I need right now, so I was force-fed stories from the other end of the world. I just will gratefully rejoice that I live in Sweden. And you should too.
