Memo
To: Sweden
From: Me
Re: Your PR problem
As an academic, I travel to Europe and the Middle East
sometimes to do research. More than once I’ve had the experience of taking a
deep breath when someone asks where I’m from and saying: “Well…
I’mAmericanbutIdidn’tvoteforGeorgeWBush.” Or,
“I…amfromtheUSbutIswearIbelieveinevolution.” Or of just kind of giving my
inquirer a wearied look and saying, “Listen. In spite of anything Justin Beiber
says, most of us know that there’s a difference between North and South Korea.
But yeah, I’m an American.”
So, listen, Sweden. What I’m saying is that I know that we
wouldn’t do much better if we, as a country, tried what you are trying:
Creating a national Twitter account and letting one average representative of
your population take control of it each week, and narrate their experience as
average Swedes and share every passing thought with the greater universe in an
effort to share what life in your country is like and what typical Swedish
concerns are. It must have seemed like a great idea.
Only, you’ve authorized a national spokesman and turned him
loose with no plan, retaining no control. And instead of Mr. Smith Goes to
Washington meets The Network, it’s turned more into Bye Bye, Birdie meets 2001:
A Space Odyssey.
This week’s average Swede, the first one to take over the
blue bird’s reigns since many Americans became aware of this project via a
Sunday New York Times feature spent the second day of her tenure 1) musing
about how childbirth is kind of like strangling your children with your vagina;
and 2) using her platform to finally find out what Jews are and why people hate
them.
When Justin Beiber says he really opposes the kind of
government they have in Korea, we all have the recourse of saying, “We’re not
all like that!” Even if he is, we can still try to defend ourselves by saying
that Justin Beiber is not the typical American. Your government, on the other
hand, declared this woman to be completely representative of Swedish people.
She is officially the average Swede. And I have absolutely no interest in
visiting a European country whose average citizens obviously don’t have to
study European history in any way and don’t have enough command of basic logic
and rhetoric to discern that resting a question on the premise that everyone
hates Jews might be a flawed way to approach whatever it was that she was
trying to accomplish. Sweden, if this is your average citizen, I’m sorry honey,
but you seem kind of scary, especially to someone like me, a history-class-appreciating
American Jew. Maybe I should be thanking you for the honest heads-up.
There’s a reason that 14-year-olds don’t get to drive cars
here. It’s the very same reason we don’t just hand over the keys to the
national twitter account for any old Dick or Jane to take a spin on the — well,
the spin machine. There would just be really bad carnage and nobody would be
able to look away. I’m sure that the average American would say dumb,
uneducated stuff if we let him take over the national twitter account. So we
don’t have a national twitter account. We’re at least smart enough to protect
ourselves from our average citizens.
This, Sweden, is exactly why we don’t nationalize private
utilities and resources. It’s a slippery slope there. Universal healthcare one
minute and then suddenly you turn around and there are bloody genitals and
anti-Semites all over your internet and nobody wants to visit your country
anymore.
Or, with tongue not quite so firmly in cheek, seriously,
Sweden? Find some above-average Swedes or scrap the project. You’re not doing
yourself any favors.
***
The world helpfully informs her that Jews are things with big noses, but that you still can't tell 100% because Jewish women aren't circumcised:
Back to her merry life:
An al-Jazeera journalist calls her out on brushing off the whole kerfuffle, but not before another Swede helpfully defines Jews as "Germans of a different faith":
Not to pass up the opportunity to make it worse, she compares *herself* to a Nazi on trial:
Not really a save:
Updated at 7:55: Unconscionable question from the Tweetosphere to @sweden. Yet she still manages to one-up the bad with her reply. I'm framing it this way only because she brought Hitler into it first but, seriously, is she trying to offend every single group of people Hitler tried to eradicate?
Updated again at at 9:08, 6/14: Sonja, just drop it. Seriously. If I send you a copy of the Very Short Introduction to Judaism, would you be willing to go the whole rest of the week without tweeting the word "Jews"?
No comments:
Post a Comment