Today it occurred to me that the Swedish multiplication of ombudsmen against discrimination of various groups is itself a form of discrimination. At the basic level discrimination means that someone who doesn’t conform to the societal norm for what a person should be like gets bullied. Look at it on the schoolyard and you will see that any ‘aberration’ — how is that for a word which epitomizes the discriminative attitude!? — will serve as an excuse to bully. It only so happens that the societal norm in most of the Western world is a rich, healthy, white and straight male, who in most places should also be a protestant, or here in Sweden preferably a secularized protestant. I am male, straight and white, but fall short of the other criteria, and I can tell that there is no difference when I get discriminated against because of lack of money, lack of health or for being a Buddhist. I’m sure that lesbians can confirm that it feels the same whether they bully you for being a woman or for being gay. Not to speak of disabled women, who generally bear two ‘aberrations’ fully visible! To have different ombudsmen against discrimination based on gender, disability, sexuality, ethnicity or religion can only mean that these different groups are pitted against each other in a divide and conquer strategy. Which is to be expected, since it draws attention away from the fact that in the end everyone diverges from the norm in some way, and society probably isn’t prepared for that realization. Come to think of it I don’t think there is a separate ombudsman against religious discrimination. Alas not a sign of insight, but only of the fact that society picks and chooses which minorities it feigns respect towards. Members of the ethnic majority who defect to exotic religions aren’t among them. Neither are fat people. They should need an ombudsman, unless the schoolyard situation has changed since I was a kid. Of course I was only lame, so I took part in bullying the fat kids, thus helping the norm to stay in place.

— / BP