Fast forward, I’m standing still

I think I just landed myself in what must be the epitome of American suburbia. Its pretty much what I expected from a small island town off the south of Long Island, but up close and in the rain it sure hits you in the face.
I’ve been to suburban America once already but that was before I was old enough to realize the absurdity of it all. It was also before America stopped being something to look up to and started being ridiculed .. and even feared.  

The people that I’ve met have been lovely. They are friendly in the friendly American way. But the place sure seems like a parody. The pink and yellow bungalows form identical rows of houses with their identical red, white and blue flags waving in the wind. One house down the street has a plastic Uncle Sam on a stick between each rose bush in their flower bed. I still haven’t seen any pink plastic flamingoes, but they are sure to be around here somewhere. I’ll keep you posted.

And then there was grocery shopping. My host warned me. "This place is awful", she said "But its the only place I can find the chicken tenders. So we gotta go. And you gotta see it". I know everything in America is big. I remember everything in America being big. But I just wasn’t ready for this. As we walked into Costco I couldnt help but laugh. Huge people pushing even bigger shopping carts, ones that would seat four grown men. My host and I had to push it together. We gave up on buying eggs - can’t get less than 40 at a time, it seems. This was just too grotesque - and certainly not a place for single people without overweight families to feed. (Neither is it a place for the lactose intolerant - its fascinating all the things you can get, covered in cheese .. ). Any description I give right now won’t do it justice.

I know I’m a snob. I like my food organic, varied and fat free. I like my cities either thriving or picturesque. I like front porches to be free of nationalistic and patriotic symbols. Still, I’m pretty open to other life styles. But the "Buy a packet of potato chips, get a free American flag" is just absurd, no?

I think the pouring rain and grey horizon adds to picture, which at the moment is of a run down holiday town with a very high proportion of nail salons and Kosher delis, a sort of nationalistic, conservative Brighton. I wonder what it all feels like in the sun. 

I told myself I wouldnt write about this. Everyone else has and there cant possibly be more to say on the matter, can there? But I can’t not. Adding to the chorus of voices rising in protest is more meaningful than passively standing by.

My country is the best country in the world. They all say so. Five years in a row they’ve said so. We’re richer and healthier than anyone else. We pride ourselves on being tolerant and open, and by giving to those in need. We’re good people, us norwegians. If someone needs our help, we give it, be it through money or through spreading the gospel.

Our ties to Africa have been especially strong. For decades our good Christian men and women have been present on the continent, providing hope and salvation to the disbelievers. And we’ve all contributed to it. In my first three years of school, we all gave a pound to Cameroon each week. I remember the slide shows. The missionaries always had slide shows. The pictures of Africans. A simple people in colourful and elaborate clothing. Grinning relentlessly, thanking us for their new tractor and their new saviour. 

A simple people they were. People who needed our help, who needed to be adjusted to our way of life. A lesser people. We loved them, but we patronized them, we didn’t sympathise - we pitied. You cant hold sympathy with someone further down the hierarchy - such is the grammatical structure.

This was years ago. Today we are told that the Africans are just like us. Just as worthy as us. They’re not simple, they are traditional, they have a different, but equally good, culture. We even have Africans in our own country, now! Oh yes, the times they are a-changing ..

But no one told me that the notion of the equal African applies only to the one in Africa. The African in Norway is nothing more than that pitied man on the slide shows from Cameroon, the one that hasn’t yet been baptized.

It’s been a week since the incident that shook Norway. When Ali was attacked and laid bleeding and unconscious in the park in front of his wife and child and all of their friends. When they called the ambulance that refused to take him. When they had to hear the paramedics call him a pig, a swine, tell him that his chance had passed, that he should just lie there. And then they drove away.

 The police came too. Tapped unconscious Ali on the head with a Bic pen, in an effort to give them his ID. His ID. Ali is a norwegian citizen. He’s lived in Norway for more than 20 years. After these 20 years he’s still nothing but a Somali refugee forced to carry ID at all times. For what purpose, noone knows. They, too, left him unconscious in the park.

His friends put him in a taxi and got him to the hospital. Ali is still in a coma. The hospital says Ali received proper medical assessment and treatment when the paramedics didnt even lean over to look at him. They knew of him. A trouble maker. Dangerous. Claims that have all been withdrawn now, as there is no history on Ali. He just looks like another Somali man. You know, these Somalis, they all look the same.
 

I am shocked. I shouldnt be. It’s a rising trend. I see it everywhere. But I dont hear it. Usually the witnesses aren’t white. Black voices raised are ignored. Ali was lucky in that sense, that his friends in the park were white.  Lucky Ali.