Bassim
VIP Member
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2008
- Member Type
- Student or Learner
- Native Language
- Bosnian
- Home Country
- Bosnia Herzegovina
- Current Location
- Sweden
Would you please correct the mistakes in the forth part of my short story?
I believed Sweden was every politician’s dream. You could pass any laws and bills, and they would be obeyed without any objections. You could raise taxes as much as you wanted, and nobody would demonstrate against you or demand your resignation. No matter whether you were a local politician or high-ranking government official, you had the best time of your life. You didn’t even need bodyguards if you went outside because you were always secure among docile subjects for whom disobedience was the unforgivable sin.
I remembered when Olof Palme was assassinated in 1986, and a newsreader on our national TV said that he and his wife had been strolling the streets without any bodyguards. I thought that was strange and audacious, but after spending a few years in Sweden, it was clear to me that he felt extremely safe because he was walking surrounded by his disciples, just like Jesus had been by Christians. He was a Messiah, although he didn’t believe in the Bible but in his party’s manifesto. People told me that in those years everyone in Sweden was a Social Democrat, even those who voted for other parties, and they were convinced only a foreigner could have killed their beloved leader. His assassination meant the country changed to the worse.
As my knowledge of Swedish progressed, I tried to read Swedish newspapers. My first impression was I was back in Yugoslavia in 1970s, when the Communist Party had a full control over the media. Op-ed articles sounded as if the propaganda department had written them. They praised immigration and multiculturalism and warned the readers of the Neo-Nazis and others who opposed those ideas. The enemies must be fought with all possible means, until they were completely eradicated from society, wrote one of the authors. I wondered who those Neo-Nazis were because I had never seen them. I only saw a few skinheads, who usually sat on benches in parks, drinking beer and listening to white power music. I had passed by them many times, but they never said a word to me. Nobody in their right mind could believe that those people had any influence in society.
Those texts put me in mind of the political pamphlets in the Yugoslav newspapers, where you could read that brotherhood and unity was the apple of the eye and that there were foreign powers who constantly threatened our country. People should be vigilant all the time and not allow the enemies to win. I couldn’t believe my eyes what I was reading in the Swedish newspapers, and I opened one after another only to see that they all wrote the same propaganda. I felt terrible just by reading them. The 21st century was approaching, and the world had become connected as never before thanks to the internet and other means of communication, but I was reading the worst Soviet propaganda in the country that prided itself on being the beacon of humanism.
One day I was so angry that I called the editor-in-chief of a local newspaper and asked him why he was brainwashing his own people. He of course became furious too and told me that if I didn’t like his newspaper I shouldn’t read it, before hanging up. I had more conversations with Swedish journalists, which all ended up in the similar way. They didn’t care what I had to tell them, and why should they when none of them was a real journalist. They were well-paid propagandists and sat in their offices writing their rubbish day after day, believing their duty is to educate their people and to tell them what they should think. They were convinced they were doing the right thing, and nobody would be able to change their minds. In the afternoon, they went out to a pub and had a good time with their colleagues or politicians, many of whom were their best friends. The system of propaganda and indoctrination functioned perfectly, and without the real opposition or alternative media, the journalists felt untouchable.
After reading such nonsense, my stomach ached as if I had swallowed a piece of rotten food. My mind rebelled from the first day and now my body reacted too. I gnashed my teeth in powerlessness. I read what Goebbels had done to the Germans, but now there was another of his kind in Stockholm, using the similar methods to control his people. I didn’t know who he was, but I hated him and those who worked for him. I felt he was trying to subjugate my mind, just as he had done to millions of others, but I promised I would fight him until my last breath.
TO BE CONTINUED
I believed Sweden was every politician’s dream. You could pass any laws and bills, and they would be obeyed without any objections. You could raise taxes as much as you wanted, and nobody would demonstrate against you or demand your resignation. No matter whether you were a local politician or high-ranking government official, you had the best time of your life. You didn’t even need bodyguards if you went outside because you were always secure among docile subjects for whom disobedience was the unforgivable sin.
I remembered when Olof Palme was assassinated in 1986, and a newsreader on our national TV said that he and his wife had been strolling the streets without any bodyguards. I thought that was strange and audacious, but after spending a few years in Sweden, it was clear to me that he felt extremely safe because he was walking surrounded by his disciples, just like Jesus had been by Christians. He was a Messiah, although he didn’t believe in the Bible but in his party’s manifesto. People told me that in those years everyone in Sweden was a Social Democrat, even those who voted for other parties, and they were convinced only a foreigner could have killed their beloved leader. His assassination meant the country changed to the worse.
As my knowledge of Swedish progressed, I tried to read Swedish newspapers. My first impression was I was back in Yugoslavia in 1970s, when the Communist Party had a full control over the media. Op-ed articles sounded as if the propaganda department had written them. They praised immigration and multiculturalism and warned the readers of the Neo-Nazis and others who opposed those ideas. The enemies must be fought with all possible means, until they were completely eradicated from society, wrote one of the authors. I wondered who those Neo-Nazis were because I had never seen them. I only saw a few skinheads, who usually sat on benches in parks, drinking beer and listening to white power music. I had passed by them many times, but they never said a word to me. Nobody in their right mind could believe that those people had any influence in society.
Those texts put me in mind of the political pamphlets in the Yugoslav newspapers, where you could read that brotherhood and unity was the apple of the eye and that there were foreign powers who constantly threatened our country. People should be vigilant all the time and not allow the enemies to win. I couldn’t believe my eyes what I was reading in the Swedish newspapers, and I opened one after another only to see that they all wrote the same propaganda. I felt terrible just by reading them. The 21st century was approaching, and the world had become connected as never before thanks to the internet and other means of communication, but I was reading the worst Soviet propaganda in the country that prided itself on being the beacon of humanism.
One day I was so angry that I called the editor-in-chief of a local newspaper and asked him why he was brainwashing his own people. He of course became furious too and told me that if I didn’t like his newspaper I shouldn’t read it, before hanging up. I had more conversations with Swedish journalists, which all ended up in the similar way. They didn’t care what I had to tell them, and why should they when none of them was a real journalist. They were well-paid propagandists and sat in their offices writing their rubbish day after day, believing their duty is to educate their people and to tell them what they should think. They were convinced they were doing the right thing, and nobody would be able to change their minds. In the afternoon, they went out to a pub and had a good time with their colleagues or politicians, many of whom were their best friends. The system of propaganda and indoctrination functioned perfectly, and without the real opposition or alternative media, the journalists felt untouchable.
After reading such nonsense, my stomach ached as if I had swallowed a piece of rotten food. My mind rebelled from the first day and now my body reacted too. I gnashed my teeth in powerlessness. I read what Goebbels had done to the Germans, but now there was another of his kind in Stockholm, using the similar methods to control his people. I didn’t know who he was, but I hated him and those who worked for him. I felt he was trying to subjugate my mind, just as he had done to millions of others, but I promised I would fight him until my last breath.
TO BE CONTINUED
Last edited:
