– A Reflection on Responsibility
I have been sitting for a while today, letting my thoughts wander around humanity and the social climate. Around my birthday, around whether it should be celebrated or simply allowed to be. And, as so often with me, my thoughts drifted further – to people I have met, to a job that meant everything, and to questions of responsibility in the society we live in right now.
Read this post in Swedish. →Medmänsklighet och samhällsklimat – tankar om ansvar
humanity, social climate
Birthday and age – when numbers lose their meaning
I have been sitting here for a while today, thinking.
About my birthday. It is tomorrow – and how should I celebrate it? Do I even want to celebrate it, or should it simply be allowed to be?
Either way, it works.
I turn a year older tomorrow regardless.
Maybe that is exactly why my thoughts began to wander.
Humanity and the social climate in work with unaccompanied minors
I remember the boys I worked with when I was employed at a residence for unaccompanied minors. For them, birthdays were not something obvious to celebrate. Perhaps birthdays are not celebrated in the same way in Afghanistan. Perhaps age was a sensitive subject, or something one was not always entirely sure about.
For me, age did not matter.
They had fled – from war, from oppression, for their lives. Then numbers become unimportant.
But acknowledging them felt important.
Here, we celebrate. Here, we see one another. Here, you matter.
Christmas, joy and temporary breaths of relief
It was the same at Christmas. They were so fascinated by our Christmas tree. They wanted to be photographed next to the tree we had decorated, even though they did not really understand why it was there. But they thought it was fun.
And that – having fun – mattered.
Some days they were happy.
Other days they lay staring at the ceiling, as if trying to disappear from themselves. Hope for the future was sometimes completely gone.
Inshallah, they often said. If God wills.
An important job – seeing everyone
Here, I had intended to write about my birthday.
But instead, it became a text about an old job – the job I probably loved the most in my entire life.
Not because it was easy.
But because it was important.
Nineteen boys lived on our unit. And every shift was about the same thing: seeing all nineteen. Helping them glimpse a future. Helping them feel: here, we care. Showing how we live here, how we try to take responsibility for one another in this country.
Humanity and the social climate – what happened to us?
The social climate was different back then.
Not perfect – but different. Humanity had more space.
Today, something feels hardened.
As if fear and narrow-mindedness have taken more room than trust. As if we would rather look for scapegoats than solutions.
Humanity and the social climate in politics – responsibility and rhetoric
When I look at how the social climate has changed, it is impossible to ignore the influence of the Sweden Democrats. A party that has built its politics on suspicion, exclusion, and simplified explanations for complex social problems.
For me, having worked closely with young people on the run, it becomes painfully clear how rhetoric and political decisions spill over into real lives. This is not about us and them – it is about people who have already carried more than most of us.
When immigration is made the main explanation for everything that does not work, the system itself avoids examining its own failures. And that is where the problem lies – not with the people.
The Christian Democrats, Christian values and exclusion
And then I stop at the Christian Democrats.
Not because I am someone who runs in and out of church doors, and not because I have full knowledge of every theological or ideological formulation. This is not about dogma for me.
But I still struggle to understand.
How can a party that claims to rest on Christian values choose to stand so close to the Sweden Democrats? How does that align with what I – with my limited yet lived understanding – perceive as Christian ethics?
KD often speaks about family, responsibility and morality. But where is the compassion when people are excluded? Where is the Christian view of humanity when some lives seem to be valued less than others?
I also wonder whether the church communities truly recognize themselves in what is represented in their name today. Because when I think of Jesus, I do not think of someone who excluded people.
On the contrary.
He sought out those who stood furthest away. The sick, the poor, the outcasts, those society had already turned its back on. He did not divide people into worthy and unworthy lives.
And that is why it troubles me when Christian ethics are used as a façade for politics that build walls instead of bridges.
NPF, mental health and systemic failure
Yesterday, I heard on the radio that sick leave among young people with NPF has increased sharply during this mandate period. That says something important.
This is not about where people come from.
It is about a system that does not make room for people as they are.
A society where more and more people do not fit.
When a society points fingers at groups instead of taking responsibility for its own structural failures – then we are in trouble.
humanity and the social climate
Perhaps that is why my birthday feels secondary right now.
Because what truly matters is not how many years I turn – but what kind of human being I continue to be in the world.
I want to be someone who sees.
Someone who cares.
Someone who believes in people – even when it is difficult.
That is enough for me.
Between the lines – my voice
This is a text about grief over a society that has lost its direction.
But also about holding on to one’s inner compass, even when the winds are strong.
AHA – between the lines
When we stop seeing the human being behind the systems, it is not the systems that break first – it is our humanity.
Questions for you who are reading
What does humanity mean to you in practice?
Is there something in today’s social climate that troubles you?
What do you want to stand for, even when it costs something?
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Yesterday has settled into history.
Tomorrow waits further ahead.
But right now – this is where life happens.
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