Sometimes the world strikes me

Sometimes the world strikes me as an evil, superficial and generally less than optimal place to be.

The recent events.
The terror attack on NYC.
The subsequent militaristic speeches by various heads of state.
The increase in crime against people of different ethnicity in my own peaceful homecountry.
The seemingly widely supported idea, that by attacking and killing more innocent people terrorism can be stopped.
The feeling that because some people in the developing world are violent, psychopathic fanatics, we should cut severely in our development aid budgets.
The justifications for cutting civil liberties.

All these things ominously combine to make me feel a lot less optimistic than I did a few weeks ago.

It has also been a lesson in the dangers of complacency, of relying to heavily on my elected government, or any other people to represent my values.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke

To me that means that as long as good men (I happily and selflessly include myself in that category :-) or women wear their values as underwear, the values of those in power, those of less tolerance and those of a more violent desparation will shine all the brighter for it.

• I believe very strongly in the need to do something about the disparaties between the rich and the poor in this world.
• I believe almost fanatically in the rights of every human on this planet (and elsewhere of course).
• I am intent on tolerance as the number one value in an increasingly intolerant world.

But so far I have carried this belief inside me, keeping it to myself, analysing it, thinking about it, but only rarely sharing it.
Maybe it's because I grew up in a society where peoples beliefs, religious or otherwise, are considered a personal matter.
Maybe it's just the fact that I'm a bit of a coward.
The fact remains that every day I read the news and it represents breeches in those values. By individuals, by governments (western as well as others) and by organisations (those considered terrorist as well as many considered tolerant). Only rarely do I read about actions taken and words spoken that live up to my values.

I am not doing anyone a favour by keeping those values to myself.

Working a "normal" job in the IT industry is rewarding in many ways.
So far it has paid well, it's been fun, it's allowed me to work with great people, and challenged myself intellectually.
But it's hardly a clear cut channel for my values.

But my work is such an important part of my identity that more often that not, I forget my values in my quest to be confirmed in that identity.
I want to be good at what I do, because I get a lot of satisfaction from that positive feedback.
Because my job is so important to my identity, I need to be constantly confirmed that I do it well.

But am I proud to go out there and say, I'm a damn good consultant in Mobile Internet? Not in the long run.

I guess I am trying to redefine not who I am, but who I am perceived to be.
I'd rather be thought of as "that idealistic, naive socialist who thinks he can actually change anything in the world", than "that excellent IT consultant with the general skills and the great understanding of business and technology" or whatever it is they think about me.

I'm proud to live in Denmark for a variety of reasons.
Most of those reasons involve the fact that the Danish system places a high priority on maintaining a financially equal society where the difference between rich and poor is amongst the smallest in the world.
This seems to make people think of us as a socialist. If socialism is what makes it so, and socialism is what ensures that we are one of the countries spending the largest proportion of GDP on foreign aid, so be it.

I am less proud of being Danish when it comes to integration.
The right-wing parties that seem to want to declare a general ban on Islam, rather than think about how to succesfully integrate people with different cultural backgrounds.
The outspoken fanatics that seem willing to pick up the rocks, throw them at muslim stores and burn down the mosques, in a horrid "Krystalnacht" type scenario.
The few fanatical danes, that just like the few fanatical muslims, are relaying the wrong picture of the masses.
They scare me.

I keep returning in my mind to the nightmare scenario. What if a terrorist attack were to hit the danish parliament?
Would there be enough danes to march through the streets, smash the windows of muslim stores, and burn down the mosques.
And what support would that kind of action get with the general public.

How far are we away from that kind of scenario? Not far enough in my opinion.

I want to do something. I want my actions to represent my values in some sense. I want to be able to say that I, for one, am not complacent. But I'm not sure I have the will, the courage and the balls to do it.

But I'll give it a try :-) Wish me luck!