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 my mistakes in the sixth part of my short story?
When I was in secondary school, our head teacher ordered us sometimes to parade in the streets. We carried banners, placards, and red communist flags with the golden hammer and sickle. I felt like an idiot shouting, “Long live brotherhood and unity! Long live the Revolution! Long live Tito and the Party! Long live the working class! After a while, my throat was dry and ached, and my arms hurt from holding a large flag on a thick wooden pole. We were all dressed in the same blue school uniforms, although we had come from different social and economic backgrounds. The state was conditioning us from early days and preparing us for the future. Parading through the streets in support of the communist ideas was just one of many tools that the government had on its disposal.
But I was reminded of my childhood again as I was walking in town and saw Swedish students demonstrating in support of immigration and multiculturalism. They shouted slogans and carried banners and placards just as we had done, although their message was different. “Open the borders! Refugees welcome! Solidarity with the poor! Down with racism!” They did not have school uniforms, but they were nonetheless uniformly dressed in blue jeans and sneakers. I did not know if their head teacher had received an order from above or it was his or her idea, but the demonstration was in line with the government policy, and the school minister certainly would commend it.
As I looked at the beaming beautiful faces of these young men and women who probably never doubted the intention of their government, I felt smug that I had not conceived a child in Sweden. A few women told me they wanted a child with me, but my inner voice stepped in every time and said, “No! You’ll not give life in this country.” At the beginning, I asked myself what would be wrong with me having family and children like anyone else. Why shouldn’t I have pleasure of holding my own baby? Later I was to understand the reason. My marriage would certainly collapse and my children would grow up with a split mind. Who should they thrust, their father, who were telling them one thing or their teachers, friends and journalists, who were telling them something different? They would have probably been happier by following the crowd than by taking advice from their father, who told them not to thrust propagandists but search for the truth and use critical thinking.
Let us see what can happen in Sweden to someone who does not confirm to the values and goals of society and the government. I have invented Mats, a man in his fifties. He works as a professor at the Department of History at one of the Swedish universities. He is married and has two daughters who had recently graduated, but unfortunately, they still cannot find a job. They have returned to their parents’ house because there is a shortage of housing. If you cannot buy your own flat, you have to queue for vacant flats with different landlords. Waiting lists are enormous, and in the best case after about five years, you will be able to find some little flat in a grey suburb, far away from the city centre.
Until now, Mats’ professional carrier has been unblemished. Nobody ever complained about him. Not a single incident has ever been connected with his name. Students like him because of his frankness, witticism and jokes. He always tries to treat them equally, and he never cares how they look like, what colour of skin they have or what their origins are. They are all like his children.
Mats supported the government until he understood that Swedish politicians do not live in reality. Only a madman could open the borders and allow thousands of refugees to arrive every week, without doing proper checks. Suddenly, there seems to be a surplus of housing. Refugees have priority, while his daughters and thousands of others daughters and sons of native Swedes have to wait. They have to be patient and show solidarity even if their parents pay one of the highest taxes in the world. Mats has nothing against the poor people who want to come to the rich countries in the West, but he does not like injustice. The government takes in more than one hundred thousand people every year from different continents, and at the same time, treats its own people like rubbish.
Since Romania and Bulgaria have become members of the EU, Roma people flood into Sweden in their thousands. But they do not come to work but to beg. You cannot walk a hundred meters without a swarthy men or a woman shoving a Styrofoam mug into your face shouting, “Please money! Give me money!” They sit outside in the streets, at the entrances of supermarkets, shops and even libraries. Whenever he sees them, Mats gets into a bad mood. The government should have forbidden begging, but the silly Prime Minister once told journalists that Sweden is a liberal and multicultural country where beggars are also welcome. “Multiculturalism enriches society,” he said and went on berating other EU countries for not helping poor people in the world. He probably believed that the world admired his government when in fact other nations laughed at his naivety.
Sweden has changed so much to the worse in the past two, three decades that he pities new generations who will never achieve such high standard of living again. Evelina and Anna are his treasure. Every time they go out to enjoy evening with their friends, he worries for their safety. When he was young, rapes and sexual harassment were rare, but nowadays, they have become an everyday occurrence. They are a by-product of the liberal immigration and the import of people from the countries where women are treated like chattels. Many of these uneducated men have moved to Sweden, and they have brought with them their backward worldview. How much harm are they going to cause before the government understands what is going on in the country? Swedish politicians must be hating their own people when they try to force upon them foreign cultures and customs.
TO BE CONTINUED
When I was in secondary school, our head teacher ordered us sometimes to parade in the streets. We carried banners, placards, and red communist flags with the golden hammer and sickle. I felt like an idiot shouting, “Long live brotherhood and unity! Long live the Revolution! Long live Tito and the Party! Long live the working class! After a while, my throat was dry and ached, and my arms hurt from holding a large flag on a thick wooden pole. We were all dressed in the same blue school uniforms, although we had come from different social and economic backgrounds. The state was conditioning us from early days and preparing us for the future. Parading through the streets in support of the communist ideas was just one of many tools that the government had on its disposal.
But I was reminded of my childhood again as I was walking in town and saw Swedish students demonstrating in support of immigration and multiculturalism. They shouted slogans and carried banners and placards just as we had done, although their message was different. “Open the borders! Refugees welcome! Solidarity with the poor! Down with racism!” They did not have school uniforms, but they were nonetheless uniformly dressed in blue jeans and sneakers. I did not know if their head teacher had received an order from above or it was his or her idea, but the demonstration was in line with the government policy, and the school minister certainly would commend it.
As I looked at the beaming beautiful faces of these young men and women who probably never doubted the intention of their government, I felt smug that I had not conceived a child in Sweden. A few women told me they wanted a child with me, but my inner voice stepped in every time and said, “No! You’ll not give life in this country.” At the beginning, I asked myself what would be wrong with me having family and children like anyone else. Why shouldn’t I have pleasure of holding my own baby? Later I was to understand the reason. My marriage would certainly collapse and my children would grow up with a split mind. Who should they thrust, their father, who were telling them one thing or their teachers, friends and journalists, who were telling them something different? They would have probably been happier by following the crowd than by taking advice from their father, who told them not to thrust propagandists but search for the truth and use critical thinking.
Let us see what can happen in Sweden to someone who does not confirm to the values and goals of society and the government. I have invented Mats, a man in his fifties. He works as a professor at the Department of History at one of the Swedish universities. He is married and has two daughters who had recently graduated, but unfortunately, they still cannot find a job. They have returned to their parents’ house because there is a shortage of housing. If you cannot buy your own flat, you have to queue for vacant flats with different landlords. Waiting lists are enormous, and in the best case after about five years, you will be able to find some little flat in a grey suburb, far away from the city centre.
Until now, Mats’ professional carrier has been unblemished. Nobody ever complained about him. Not a single incident has ever been connected with his name. Students like him because of his frankness, witticism and jokes. He always tries to treat them equally, and he never cares how they look like, what colour of skin they have or what their origins are. They are all like his children.
Mats supported the government until he understood that Swedish politicians do not live in reality. Only a madman could open the borders and allow thousands of refugees to arrive every week, without doing proper checks. Suddenly, there seems to be a surplus of housing. Refugees have priority, while his daughters and thousands of others daughters and sons of native Swedes have to wait. They have to be patient and show solidarity even if their parents pay one of the highest taxes in the world. Mats has nothing against the poor people who want to come to the rich countries in the West, but he does not like injustice. The government takes in more than one hundred thousand people every year from different continents, and at the same time, treats its own people like rubbish.
Since Romania and Bulgaria have become members of the EU, Roma people flood into Sweden in their thousands. But they do not come to work but to beg. You cannot walk a hundred meters without a swarthy men or a woman shoving a Styrofoam mug into your face shouting, “Please money! Give me money!” They sit outside in the streets, at the entrances of supermarkets, shops and even libraries. Whenever he sees them, Mats gets into a bad mood. The government should have forbidden begging, but the silly Prime Minister once told journalists that Sweden is a liberal and multicultural country where beggars are also welcome. “Multiculturalism enriches society,” he said and went on berating other EU countries for not helping poor people in the world. He probably believed that the world admired his government when in fact other nations laughed at his naivety.
Sweden has changed so much to the worse in the past two, three decades that he pities new generations who will never achieve such high standard of living again. Evelina and Anna are his treasure. Every time they go out to enjoy evening with their friends, he worries for their safety. When he was young, rapes and sexual harassment were rare, but nowadays, they have become an everyday occurrence. They are a by-product of the liberal immigration and the import of people from the countries where women are treated like chattels. Many of these uneducated men have moved to Sweden, and they have brought with them their backward worldview. How much harm are they going to cause before the government understands what is going on in the country? Swedish politicians must be hating their own people when they try to force upon them foreign cultures and customs.
TO BE CONTINUED