Last weekend I visited the Stockholm Pride parade 2017 with my daughter, a determined 19-year-old vegan, h-person and human rights enthusiast. We didn’t join the actual parade, but regarded it interestingly from aside as spectators.

About 50.000 people did however join the parade, in various shapes and costumes. Or as most of the paraders, in perfectly ordinary saturday attire. That most people wore regular clothes actually struck me as rather odd. I was expecting extravagant costumes, or nothing at all perhaps, sexually explicit statements as we’ve been led to believe from news snap shots and media angles. Perhaps I don’t have to say that this was actually the first Pride parade I ever experienced.

Another thing I noticed was that 50.000 people is a whole of a lot of people. As I looked through the parade programme in advance, I expected the parade to pass us in an hour, two at the most. The entire parade route was just two hours. But as it turns out, after two hours of watching, only half the parade or so had actually passed us. We didn’t stick around to the end. As it turns out, 50.000 people in a long line – be it ten or 20 people wide – will occupy most of the space the two-hour walk demands. And then some. I doubt everyone had even left the starting point before the head of the parade started to arrive at the destination.

Perhaps the most important observation from the Stockholm Pride parade was two-fold. As much as the joy and love streaming from the parade gladdened me, the actual necessity of its existence in the first place saddened me.

To feel the love and happiness of 50.000 people spilling over us spectators (perhaps equally many) is a fantastic and wonderful experience. To be part of a manifestation of the shere size, no matter of its intent and statement, is often an overwhelming thing in it self. Add that the single statement is love and equal human rights, and the emotion is completely overwhelming.

But, the flip side to that is the nagging feeling that this statement is still, in the year of our lord 2017, very much-needed. Still people – a lot of people – reason that hbtq people are sick, odd or have less value. Still millions are persecuted because of sexual, political, racist or religious beliefs (to name a few reasons).

For me, though, Pride is not just about hbtq people and gay rights, but about everyone suffering from persecution, regardless of the form that persecution presents itself. Pride is about respect and acknowledgement of human rights. All human rights. It is about accepting everyone’s differences, everyone’s abilities and inabilities. Of seeing the best in people, seeing each and everyone’s ability to better himself, or just accepting who we are, but never letting our ambition stand in the way of one another.

This was made perfectly clear by a few parties of the parade. With message boards reading We walk for those who can’t, the parade picked up another ingredient of love and respect, namely solidarity. Perhaps that last ingredient is the most important one; without solidarity there is no love, nor respect.

Manifestations of this kind are important, and, come to think of it, perhaps equally important even if its opposites would not exist. Constant reminders of the positive may be equally, or perhaps even more, important were there nothing for it to contrast with.