CULTURE MATTERS!
Clips of thousands of Norwegians after the football match, 'rowing' while a drum beats. Like on a Viking ship. I've seen clips like these over the past few days and they've moved me. I've cried over them. Real tears.
Not because Norway beat Brazil. But because what I see in those clips is everything we've forgotten in Europe. Where we come from. Our culture. Holding on to who we are and standing up for it.
It moves me because we've forgotten our tribe. Standing together. And that has meant we've allowed other 'tribes' - who share neither our view of life nor our values, and who don't appreciate our culture - to take up space, even though they aren't compatible with Europe and the Western world.
I cry and I grieve, because it becomes so clear that we need to come home.
Thank you to the Norwegians for making this visible by doing something as simple as gathering around what is theirs. Without apology. Tens of thousands of people rowing in rhythm to a single drum - as the Vikings they are. As the Vikings we all are, we who come from the North. This is what a people looks like when they still remember who they are.
Maybe I cry because I recognize something I thought was lost. It isn't. It's just waiting for us to come home.
The drum is still beating. The question is whether the rest of Europe can hear it.