Balad al-fawḍā

After four years with the Tidö government, I was hoping that Sweden would somehow have turned the page, that there would be a strong popular rebuke of all the attempts to sow distrust, and that a new government (however imperfect) would start the long journey back to solidarity and a greater vision that would speak to the highest, rather than the lowest, in each of us.

Yet, seeing the blatantly racist poster above, and getting a push notification saying that the distance between the two blocks is now within the margin of error, I am beginning to fear that the land of chaos (balad al-fawḍā) that the poster warns of may indeed soon be upon us. As with Trump’s America, it is tempting to give in to misanthropy or cynicism, to think that we have indeed become prisoners of the past, and that the Star Trek idealism that Obama expressed in his 2009 speech at Cairo University cannot overcome the rising fascism of our time:

“For human history has often been a record of nations and tribes -- and, yes, religions -- subjugating one another in pursuit of their own interests. Yet in this new age, such attitudes are self-defeating. Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail. So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners to it.”