The person that took offense explained that as woman can't take of their shirt in public neither should men. And although the comment seemed quite aggressive at first, after listening to the train of thought we understood it was not so much a matter of imposing a rule, but a request for solidarity.whatistheideal hat geschrieben: ↑Mo 3. Jul 2023, 03:56May I ask, why is it offensive to change your shirt?Juul-Amsterdam hat geschrieben: ↑So 2. Jul 2023, 21:50 This was my first time at Fusion, and it was absolutely amazing: we saw some great acts, and loved the beautiful artwork, lighting, food, topics, people, creativity and stages. We also talked to a lot of people there, and some really changed my perspective on a few subjects, which was very inspiring. For example: a friend who sweated a lot from dancing wanted to change his shirt as it was soaked, and he had a spare shirt with him. As soon as he took it off to change into a clean one he was called out for doing that. It had never occurred to us before that even changing a shirt may be offensive to some, but -after some explaining and exchanging views- we understood the point.
There was however one thing that I didn’t understand, especially since many of the people at Fusion are very aware of the world around them and therefore seem to try to live by the “vote by consumption” principle: how you spend your money is how you want the world to be. Examples we saw were only vegetarian and vegan food; supporting causes by buying a beer; traveling by train, bus or bike; and not buying clothing brands associated with nazi’s.
What surprised me in this context was the scale of the use of drugs. Not because of any moral or health issue -being born&raised in Amsterdam I have a very relaxed take on that- but because of the system you support when buying them. Personally, I think drug cartels are scary, so I don’t buy their stuff. I know the answer many may give: “true, so we need to legalize everything.” I agree, but that hasn’t happened yet, so here we are. Actively supporting a lot of what is wrong with the world by consciously buying the product of extremely violent organized crime organizations. Perhaps an interesting workshop topic for next year?
Anyway, a shout out to all the people that organized or worked at Fusion: thank you for all your efforts, it was great!
Funny enough after making this to some extend valid point, as an extra reason against taking off the shirt he added he didn't like the fact my friend sweated and didn't want to be confronted with that. With that comment -which might qualify as body shaming- he weakened his previous argument substantially. We just wished him a great Fusion and left it at that.