I walked past a minefield the other day. The sun was shining, I had just walked 20 kilometres through the Swedish countryside. I was approaching Harlösa and inbetween a couple of houses, in the middle of the lilac bushes and blooming cherry trees, there was a green field with a ridiculously small sign with a skull on it and the words “danger mines”. A thin rope hovered just over the ground, nothing prevented me from stepping over it.
I had just been forced to make a detour
from the pilgrim trail because there were 6 army tanks driving around like
crazy. Most of the day the sound of our footsteps had been accompanied by the
background noise of bullet shots. It hadn’t really worried us. We were smiling when we were told that the tank tracks all across the army training field, in the middle of Sweden's best birding area and a nature preserve of international
interest, actually helps
rare flowers to avoid extinction.
At the same time people were walking
the streets in Istanbul being violently hit by water cannon beams, inhaling
tear gass.
What are we doing here?
