A year ago I read Victor Klemperer's diaries. They taught me how quickly people were lulled into xenophobia, nationalism, fascism, and at the end, Nazism, although Nazism carried on for quite some time.

I snapped the above pictures last week. The top one shows a propaganda poster for what may become the second biggest political party in Sweden, following the election on Sunday. The bottom one is a splinter party that started from the top one. They're both xenophobic and deeply hypocritical, much in the same vein as NSDAP colluded; they're both deeply rooted in antisemitic and racist traditions. The vice chancellor of the top one recently noted that Jews and Sami are not Swedish; racist fuck.

So, when I tried to remove the bottom, islamophobic, filthy piece of propaganda, a man wearing sunglasses came up to me.

—What do you think you're doing? he asked.

—I'm attempting to remove this propaganda, I replied

—You can't do that, he added.

I stopped my feeble attempt to remove the placard and instead turned to face the man.

—Actually, I can, and it's not bad; don't you think the bad thing here is trying to turn people against Muslims for no good reasons? This is really just xenophobia, don't you think? I asked.

The man looked at me for an uncomfortably long period of time and said:

—We'll know what to do with people like you once we are in power.

I laughed at him; personally, I felt he was a bitter and angry person, but come Sunday, which is election day, xenophobes will most probably have more political power than in a long time.

The day after that happened, I visited my local pizzeria. As I waited for food, a bunch of middle-aged white men sat listening to one of them. Suddenly, that one man said something like "Yeah, the niggers need leadership, 'cause that can't do that themselves". I just thought, fuck this, and walked over to them.

I said I couldn't help but hear what was said, and asked them if they genuinely believed persons of a particular skin colour to be inferior or superior to others. No response from them. They looked at the floor, at their beers, not at me. I also added that changing one's skin colour doesn't change one's intelligence; nothing from them on that, either. I said they could not only be reported to the police for saying stuff like that but that at least the head guy would receive sentencing in a court of law if they were reported. Silence. I told them that their worlds would open, should their minds not continue to be so closed. I took my pizzas and left.

We must never normalise these things and always stand up against them, whenever and however they may appear.

My parents were both born into World War II. As the kids of their generation, and generations that follow, have history, our minds, and vast reservoirs of thinking, let's use the past to not only forge the future but our present; combat xenophobia as soon as it rears its head. Let's question ourselves and each other to become better persons, and perhaps first and foremost to help others that are as lucky as we currently are.

Remember NSDAP. Remember what sverigedemokraterna and their lieges continually prove themselves to be, and be anything other than that. Where they live in hate, live in love. It'll do, always. And remember that freedom of speech and democracy is always threatened by xenophobes.