Erik Uden 🚩 on Nostr: I was at an apolitical event honoring people finishing their academic degrees in the ...

I was at an apolitical event honoring people finishing their academic degrees in the health sector recently, and the last speech, sort of as if it was added as an after thought, tried to give a political message, which received immense applause, but just wasn't a message to me.

The speaker said “we need to be loud against all organizations that are against humanitarian principles”. My first thought was: Wow, we can't even name the dangerous ideology anymore, yet alone the organizations carrying it! Bringing up that point later someone replied...

“Well, politics wouldn't be adequate for this event” — first of all, absolutely not, politics is adequate everywhere. Second of all, they brought it up. They said we are supposed to be loud, but couldn't say against who or when or why or what exactly that even means?

“They don't want to cause a stir” — exactly, so the statement is asking us to do something while they are not doing it. We are supposed to be loud (*against an unnamed group*) elsewhere, not here. Not where it matters. We should only speak up in some non-defined place in a way the speaker didn't have the courage to do themselves. Why not say “we are against fascism” or “we are against cuts to social services”, which aren't even controversial. If that makes people uncomfortable that are present, so what? Be loud, but not want the consequences of being loud, receive the pushback necessary for change?

“Everyone can think to themselves which organizations were meant” — which ends up changing nothing. If the right thinks you're talking about the left as the problem and vice versa, you're not making a statement. It's just void of meaning.

The performative, thunderous applause at the end felt so self-assuring, yet the many conversation criticizing that one addon of a political statement as such exposed the emptiness of it. People didn't want a political statement, but they wanted the image of it, the image bravery, the image of standing for something. For the people at this event, the world doesn't need to change, not much really. Yet not acknowledging how terrible things are would sooner than later make you feel like you're part of the problem.

So this literal act of political messaging is performed to an audience of privilege, and as long as that privilege isn't attacked, it shall continue. Political statements in the upper class are hence only allowed and applauded if they're void of politics.