What a lovely day it was to begin with. I had no idea that this particular day would make me think about “us and them” – and, above all, make me discover something uncomfortable about my own way of thinking.
🇸🇪 Svenska När mitt eget ”vi och dom” visade sig
The day started early with a really cold swim. And I mean cold. My hands almost went numb when I lowered them into the water, and once I had made up my mind and submerged my whole body, it felt more like a late autumn swim than the middle of summer.
But the feeling afterwards.
There is something very special about starting the morning that way. Your body wakes up and the day feels as though it has truly begun.
After my swim, there was a little everyday luxury waiting for me. My husband has hired someone to help us at home, and I jokingly say that we have “hired someone into the family”. Now it almost seemed as though someone had been hired here in the motorhome too, because while I sat quietly doing absolutely nothing, someone else peeled the prawns for my breakfast.
Toast and freshly peeled prawns after a cold morning swim.
It is difficult to complain about a start like that.
Then I took my perfectly ordinary old bicycle, my husband took his electric scooter, and we headed into Mellerud. Altogether, I cycled about ten kilometres.
I do not cycle nearly as much as I used to, but apparently some of those old cycling miles are still stored somewhere in my body. I was not particularly tired. A little warm, perhaps, but that was about it.
Mellerud is also a rather pleasant place for cycling because it is fairly flat.
So far, it had simply been a lovely day.
And Then Something Completely Different Happened
When we arrived in town, a group from the Sweden Democrats were sitting outside their bus handing out little goodie bags.
Something happened inside me.
I did not simply feel political opposition.
I felt hatred.
That is a strong word. I could make this story sound a little nicer and say that I felt anger, disgust or intense discomfort.
But that would not be entirely true.
At that moment, I felt hatred.
We continued on, bought a few things at the supermarket and then found a pleasant café on the same street. We each ordered a pastry, which turned out to be approximately one pastry too many. They were so sweet that sharing one would have been more than enough.
Then we noticed that the Green Party and the Social Democrats were also going to be at the square.
“They need a little support,” I said to my husband. “Let’s go over, listen and applaud.”
I asked for my coffee in a paper cup and we crossed the road.
There was not a huge crowd. A few people from the Green Party, a Social Democrat, and considerably more Sweden Democrat supporters on the other side.
A woman approached us and offered us one of the Sweden Democrats’ bags.
I declined.
And I was not particularly diplomatic about it.
I told her what I thought about the party and mentioned, among other things, the kind of political rhetoric that troubles me deeply.
I brought up a recent incident in which Sweden Democrat politician Richard Jomshof had called Aftonbladet political editor Anders Lindberg “a Quisling”, a term generally used to mean a traitor or collaborator. He later used the same term about Social Democratic Party leader Magdalena Andersson.
There is also something in the rhetoric of the Sweden Democrats that reminds me strongly of Donald Trump’s political rhetoric – the division between “us and them”, the attacks on journalists and political opponents, and the way distrust of established institutions can become part of the political message. I am not saying that the Sweden Democrats and Trump are the same. But I recognise a similar kind of rhetoric, and it worries me.
Perhaps that is also one reason why my reaction became so strong that day. This kind of language touches something very fundamental in me. I do not want a society where political opponents, journalists or groups of people are turned into enemies.
And yet, standing there in Mellerud, I had to face an uncomfortable contradiction: while reacting against that “us and them” rhetoric, I was beginning to create an “us and them” of my own.
The woman standing in front of me denied that it had happened.
That provoked me even more because I knew I had read about it.
The conversation continued. We talked about political responsibility and about how Sweden has been governed under different governments.
Then came those words:
“I’ve read the statistics.”
I recognise that phrase from political discussions.
I’ve seen the statistics.
Read the statistics.
Look at the numbers.
But which statistics?
Which study? Which figures? Who compiled them? What do they measure, and over what period?
Show me the statistics.
Then we can talk about them.
I genuinely have no problem with someone showing me evidence that contradicts what I believe. If I am wrong, I would rather find out than continue believing something that is incorrect.
But “I’ve read the statistics” cannot be the end of a discussion. Statistics are not a magic wand that automatically makes a statement true simply because the word is mentioned.
Then Came the Music
After a while, an older gentleman picked up a guitar.
He sang and told stories.
There were stories about Evert Taube and Argentina, Joe Hill, Mikael Wiehe, Cornelis Vreeswijk and music history. Suddenly, there we were in a small square in Mellerud, listening to both songs and stories.
It was genuinely enjoyable.
There was also talk about the environment – climate change, stronger winds, fires, heavy rainfall and what is happening to the world around us.
Eventually, it was time to cycle back.
On the way, we stopped at a sushi restaurant and I bought some sushi.
So good.
At first, we planned to eat outside, but we quickly abandoned that idea. The wind was so strong that the food might have disappeared from the plate. Instead, we went inside the motorhome to eat.
There I sat with my sushi while the wind pulled at the trees outside.
It felt almost strange after what we had just heard in the square about weather and climate.
The motorhome was rocking in the gusts as I sat there. At times, it almost felt as though the entire vehicle was moving. I knew it was standing where it should, but when the wind really caught it, the feeling was uncomfortable.
And inside the motorhome, another kind of storm continued.
The one inside me.
Us and Them – I Was Doing Exactly What I Accuse Others of Doing
In the end, the woman’s arguments and the Sweden Democrats’ goodie bags were not the most important part of the day.
The most important part was what I discovered about myself.
I strongly dislike dividing people into groups.
Us and them.
The good and the bad.
Those who belong and those who do not.
And yet there I was doing exactly the same thing.
I was no longer seeing individual people who, for different reasons, had chosen to support a political party I strongly dislike.
I saw “them”.
I assigned characteristics to them as a group. I thought disparaging things about them and decided, in my own mind, what kind of people they were.
And that bothers me.
Because I cannot criticise other people for creating an “us and them” while doing exactly the same thing myself.
I Don’t Want to Carry This Hatred Around
I am not going to pretend that the feeling was something other than what it was.
I was angry.
I felt contempt.
And I felt hatred.
Not only towards the politics, but at that moment towards the people who represented it.
That is something I need to work on.
Not for the sake of the Sweden Democrats.
For my own sake.
I want to be able to speak up when I believe people are being set against one another. I want to be able to argue against racism and xenophobia and for the kind of society I believe in.
I want to be able to ask:
Which statistics? Show me.
But when I ask that question, I also need to be prepared to listen to the answer.
Perhaps the person will show me something I did not know.
Perhaps the statistics will not support what they are claiming at all.
Perhaps we interpret the same figures differently.
But at least then we can discuss the actual issue.
I cannot demand facts and critical thinking from the person standing in front of me while allowing my own prejudices about that person to go unexamined.
Compassion When It Is Really Difficult -Us and Them
Perhaps this is where my own compassion is truly put to the test.
It is fairly easy to feel compassion for someone whose story I understand and whose values are close to my own.
It is much harder when someone standing in front of me represents something that makes my blood boil.
But compassion does not mean that I have to agree.
It does not mean that I have to remain silent.
I can disagree.
I can protest.
I can vote differently.
I can challenge a claim and ask the person to show me what they are basing it on.
But I need to learn to do that without turning the person standing in front of me into “one of them”.
I did not manage that particularly well today.
And admitting that does not feel comfortable.
But if I am unwilling to see it, I cannot change it either.
I need to become curious about what happens inside me when that anger appears.
When does my political opposition turn into contempt?
When do I stop listening?
When do I begin creating the very “us and them” that I say I do not want?
I do not need to start liking the Sweden Democrats’ politics.
Nor do I need to stop feeling angry. Anger can tell me something about the values that matter deeply to me.
But I do not want to feed the hatred.
Because hatred does not only change the way I see another person.
It changes me too.
And I refuse to allow a political party I so strongly oppose to decide what kind of person I am going to be.
Perhaps the most important lesson of today was not something said from the stage in the square.
Perhaps it was something I discovered within myself.
I want to continue standing up for what I believe in.
I want to continue speaking out.
But I want to do it without creating another “us and them”.
That is the work I need to do.
Questions for You
Have you ever discovered that you were doing the very thing you criticise in others?
Are there people, groups or opinions that trigger such strong feelings in you that it becomes difficult to separate the person from what they believe?
What happens inside you when someone says something that goes directly against your deepest values?
Can we be genuinely angry, speak out and stand firmly by what we believe – without turning the person on the other side into “one of them”?
And perhaps the most difficult question:
What happens to us when opposition turns into contempt or hatred?
Between the Lines-us and them
This post is not really about the Sweden Democrats.
At least, not only about them.
Between the lines, it is about how easy it can be to recognise certain patterns in other people and how much harder it is to recognise those same patterns in ourselves.
I want to live in a society where we do not divide people into those who belong and those who do not.
That is why discovering my own “us and them” was uncomfortable.
Perhaps those moments tell us something important about ourselves.
Not when we manage to live exactly according to our values.
But when we discover that we have failed to do so.
That is why discovering my own “us and them” thinking was so uncomfortable – because us and them was no longer something I could only see in other people.
A Moment for Reflection
Think of a person or group that brings up strong feelings in you.
Not because you need to persuade yourself to think differently.
Simply notice what happens inside you.
What am I feeling?
What am I actually trying to protect?
Which of my values feels threatened or challenged?
When does my anger stop being about what someone says or does and start becoming about who I believe that person is?
And finally:
How would I like to respond next time if I chose my response according to the person I want to be?
There does not have to be a perfect answer.
Sometimes noticing what is happening within us is enough to begin.
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Because perhaps we do not always need to have all the answers.
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Live Today
Live today – right now. Yesterday is history and we know nothing about tomorrow. Today I can choose to stand up for what I believe in – without turning the person in front of me into “one of them”.
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