On Monday I attended a “debate” in the press room of the foreign ministry, topic Hur ser dom på Sverige? — How do they (foreigners) see Sweden? “Debate” is in scare quotes precisely because there was nothing scary to it. Everybody on the panel was über-polite to one another, agreed with everything, thought it worth adding a point perhaps or underscoring a particular sentiment while the audience snarfed down some rather fine wine during working hours. This audience consisted primarily of aging foreign correspondents, who during question time proceeded to ask questions that were really answers, to which the very polite panel listened intently.
The stunning conclusion: The image Sweden has abroad does not correspond exactly to reality. As to why this might be the case, the consensus was that there had been a miscommunication somewhere, a failure shared by both Swedes and foreign correspondents to be as accurate as they could be.
While various anecdotes to this effect were recounted over the course of an hour and a half, I devised an alternative theory, which I’ll run by you now. Could it be, possibly, that Sweden fulfills an indispensable role in national political debates everywhere as an ideal — a shorthand for an kind of polity against which to compare the local failures or successes? Perhaps American Republicans require Sweden to be a socialist suicide central. Perhaps Eastern Europeans demand that Sweden be a capitalist success. Maybe Southern Europe wants Sweden to be efficient. I can go on, put you get my point.
Against such a deluge of idealizing for local consumption, there is not much that Sweden can do, besides perhaps trying to ride on the coattails of a net positive fallout. What’s so bad about being a land of blonde athletic reserved singing nudists? It beats being a land of beery pedophiles, right?
If my theory is right, then a far more interesting (and difficult) question to answer is, Why Sweden? Why has Sweden, and not Finland or Canada or Australia, become a global yardstick for measuring progress, especially if, arguably, Sweden itself does not measure up to the myth? I don’t know the answer, but I think, in part, it has to do with historical accident; and once Sweden was typecast as the Jean-Luc Picard of nations, boldly going, it was a role so compelling that subsequent career turns just haven’t registered. There needs to be a Sweden on the world stage; if it didn’t exist, they’d have to invent one.
If Sweden ever wants to opt out of this role, it will not suffice to write more letters to the editors. Drastic measures will be needed. Drastic measures like… “When Good Swedes Go Bad!” the TV show, from the people that brought you “When Good Pets Go Bad!” and “When Chefs Attack!” I envisage the pitch would go something like this:
A fascinating, frightening program that shows what can happen when sweet, doting, responsible Swedes revert to their natural behaviour. Amazing, never-before seen footage of shocking real-life incidents will show ordinary members of Swedish society letting their true instincts take over:
— A CEO savagely guts his company for personal gain
— An unemployed loser turns on his foreign minister
— A tame village pastor murders his wife once too often!
— An alcoholic shoots the prime minister in the back
These are just a few of the horrifying events that are caught on camera and give us all a lesson in what can happen when government fails to act responsibly and treat its citizens humanely. Earth’s best friend? You will never look at Swedes in the same way again after you see what happens ÎWhen Good Swedes Go Bad’.
That should do it.
Even if Sweden unleashed a horror upon the world, it wouldn’t make a difference. Look at Abba.
This idealized view of Sweden is held by only a certain segment of the population in the States.
Sweden is much more often demonized in the U.S., portrayed as a socialist dystopia where 75 percent of everyone’s salary goes to the government, where no one gets married anymore and everyone walks around naked all the time and forces birth control on their children as soon as the children hit puberty.
Yes, Sweden as an idea is very much contested in the US, and my point is that neither side is very much interested in the “true Sweden” because a caricature of Sweden is much more useful to national political debates.
Francis, how is that a dystopia? ;-D
Yeah, yeah… I was just paying too much attention to your, um, liberal bias there, Stefan, because to a Republican in the U.S., Swedes are proto-commies and by nature bad, bad, bad from the beginning, so they can only go, well, worse, I suppose.
I am spaniard and Sweden is for me an example of how a country could be. Maybe I have idealized its welfare society, its economic strength having 1/4 of Spain population, and many other news that reach our country about Sweden. Of course, it’s also related with my political ideology.
I have been in Stockholm just six days last september, and although it’s not time enough to have a real vision of a country, I saw some aspects of Swedish society which impressed me somehow. Honesty, public spirit, political implication (the country was inmersed in the euro referendum)… Sweden always produced me an strange attraction to me, from my ignorance.
I am still ignorant about Sweden but my interest about it has grown and I try to be in touch with whatever happens in Sweden.
Who knows if sweden.se is an objective source of information about Sweden. I visit this portal frequently. But there are facts and statistics which are difficult to deny, (OCDE, SCB, WHO); and with its defects, Sweden is a model of how a country like mine, Spain, could be.
Regards from Madrid.
The first Swede I ever met had black hair. It was freshman year at college. The whole dorm felt cheated. Meanwhile the poor guy spent his first six weeks assuring people that Sweden is not 100% blond. Lesson learned? The idiot should have bleached his hair, he would have gotten laid a lot more.
Your dorm felt cheated? I moved to Sweden on the blond hair principle, figuring that a brunette female would be something original and refreshing to all the blond Swedish males. Think of my disappointment when I moved into my dorm. All that upheaval for nothing!
I should have known though. I moved from Ireland where apparently all of the woman had red hair, and there too I wasn’t original…
It’s funny, but when the first president came in power in Romania after the ’89 “revolution” he invoked the Swedish model. It all seemed so far fetched, in a country coming out of a dreadful tyrannic system that had thrown it into feudalism and frustration (like communism often does to societies).
I still think there is a fundamental difference between the Scandinavians and the southern and southeastern Europeans. Just like you couldn’t imagine Italy similar in any ways to Sweden, how could Romania ever be?
I haven’t been to Sweden, but I was in Norway and I know these to nations love to hate each other, but are they so different after all?
Ellen,
Crossing borders can boost your mojo. My ultra-whiteness has, on occasion, made me a sexual object for women in the Asia Pacific. And in the old days I let them use me, being the cheap slut that I was. Try Morocco, it’ll work for you.
Jame