Anna Lindh didn’t make it. She died at 5:29 am; the announcement was made half an hour ago. Other posts about the murder of Anna Lindh.We watched the press conference at work. People teared up. One sentiment expressed: What kind of country is this becoming? Well, the answer is: A good country. Maybe that’s why she was targeted.
Stockholmers went to work with a leaden step this morning. From my 46 bus, as it drove along Södermalm’s northern shore, you could see the city’s gorgeous skyline, and in the middle of it stood the NK tower and its rotating logo, as if it were a beacon marking the deed. People stared. Then, at Slussen junction, the bus stopped next to huge posters of a smiling Anna Lindh hawking yes votes. Today, these pictures felt eerily like tributes.
Anna Lindh isn’t doing as well as originally reported. She’d be out of danger if only the bleeding from her liver would stop. It’s on everybody’s mind here.
And today is September 11. Two years ago, in a few hours, I saw a plane smash into the World Trade Center, and then I saw the towers collapse. I certainly hope it is the most awful thing I will see in my life, and while I remember it every day, September 11s will never be the same.
Who could hate a Swedish foreign minister so much? Especially Lindh? I think the answer is simple: People who hate the open society; people who have been on the blunt end of a Swedish foreign policy that promotes democracy, accountability, and human rights. Without any evidence, let me venture that if it was a hit job, the police should be looking at the Russian mafia for its child prostitution rings, and at Milosevic afficionados.
I heard of the knife attack that seriously wounded Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh in Stockholm’s NK department store this afternoon as I was writing for this blog that the most newsworthy event here today was an op-ed piece [Swedish] by Economics Nobel Prize winner Joe Stiglitz in Dagens Nyheter. That certainly isn’t true anymore.
As the manhunt continues for a bloodstained assailant in a military outfit, Lindh is being operated on, but she is apparently not in critical condition. It doesn’t seem fitting to drone on about EMU minutiae just now, so read the Stiglitz piece at your convenience and I will perhaps post something on it tomorrow.
Update – 19:24 CEST: Parallels with the murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, who was gunned down in central Stockholm in 1986, are obvious. That tragedy came to signify a loss of innocence for Swedish society, on par with Kennedy in the US, and later Pim Fortuyn for the Dutch, and the lesson from all these events is that there is always bound to be one nutcase for whom the lure of notoriety through harm proves irresistible.
While no doubt Prime Minister Persson has protection, I doubt Lindh did, and I suspect she preferred not to have any. Eventually, you just have to settle for acceptable risks. Certainly she has had much exposure of late, campaigning heavily for Swedish entry to EMU, but I have this feeling the substantive reason for the attack may not have to do with the upcoming referendum. Much like the assumption was that Fortuyn was murdered for his right-wing views during an election campaign — when in fact the murderer was an animal rights activist — I wonder if the attack on Lindh, though precipitated by her recent visibility, is not the result of a grudge unrelated to economics. I only think this because the EMU campaign, while spirited, has hardly been acrimonious.
Update – 19:57 CEST: Swedish TV is having its own case of CNN-itis, where there hasn’t been any news for hours yet coverage remains non-stop.
IKEA’s product naming conventions exposed. Next time I need to send an anonymous letter, forget cutting words from newspapers; I’m going straight for the IKEA catalogue. Worthy of Henning Mankell, don’t you think? Kurt Wallander would eventually solve this following puzzle, but only after far too many victims have died:
I first noticed Asne Seierstad, a (yes, blond young) Norwegian who reported from Baghdad during the war, for the unexpectedly vicious bouts of envy she elicited among some Swedish friends. Unperturbed, Asne’s just written a book about a season she spent with an Afghan family, and it’s gotten this rave review.
Argh. I can’t take this. The no side is going to win in Sweden’s euro referendum, and for the first time in my life I am going to hold a majority opinion. This is making me feel queasy, so in the interests of a closer race, I’d like to examine those cases where voters should, rationally, vote yes to the euro, purely out of economic self-interest.
1. You own stock in or work for a Swedish company that gets the the bulk of its revenues from euroland. Such a business would be able to eliminate all costs associated with managing exchange rate volatilty, and this should add a percentage point or two to the bottom line. Some of Sweden’s largest companies, including its multinationals, fall into this category. If you were the CEO of such a company it would be your duty to shareholders to lobby for joining EMU, regardless of its greater good. And indeed, this is what many captains of Swedish industry are doing, on TV and in the papers.
The same goes for smaller businesses and freelancers. If you make the bulk of your money in euros, it’s in your best interest to vote yes.
However, there aren’t that many of you. Exports constitute around 45% of Sweden’s GDP, which is quite a high number, but of that only about 40% is to euroland countries. Only about 18% of Sweden’s GDP is directly attributable to trade with EMU countries.
There is little doubt that some companies will benefit if Sweden adopts the euro. The costs, however, would be borne by the country as a whole, in the form of interest rates that are not optimal for Sweden’s economy, because they would be optimal for Germany and France, mainly.
2. You are an immigrant from an EMU country and you send remittances home. You’d save on the costs of converting your money, and you would not be subject to the vagaries of a floating exchange rate regime. Conveniently, you get to vote. If you are a Swede but spend most of your money abroad, the same argument applies.
3. Your wages are paid in euros. If you’re posted here from an EMU country, either for your business, or as a diplomat, or as a correspondent, chances are you’re getting paid into your bank account back home. The euro in Sweden would make things a lot easier for you. Since you get to vote, make sure it’s yes.
4. Your prestige as a European leader rests on your country adopting EMU. If I were Göran Persson, I would vote yes early and often.
Having resigned myself to cajoling from the sidelines in the upcoming referendum on whether Sweden should join the EMU, I was surprised and, to be honest, gleeful to find an actual röstkort, or voting card, in my mail when I dropped into Stockholm for a job interview this past weekend. It appears that, as a resident, I am eligible to vote in this referendum. And vote no I will. My reasons are here, here and here.
I’m really quite flattered by this. This is making me very grateful to Sweden. It will in fact be the first time in my life that I get to vote. Admittedly, it is unusual to find a Belgian who has never voted — you are obligated by law to vote if you are in the motherland on election day. But I’ve hardly ever lived in Belgium, and certainly not on an election day. Meanwhile, Belgians living “abroad” were not eligible to vote until this year. So don’t blame me for my dismal voting record, blame the size of my country — I never manage to stay in itThis weblog was all set to ease slowly back into substantive issues after a summer’s worth of somewhat superficial travelogging (one of the downsides of reading this blog is that when I’m shallow, you’ll know about it), when in popped this gloriously bloggable röstkort..
Everywhere else I’ve lived, I’ve been subject to the usual regime of taxation without representation. The US was especially happy to take my tax dollars without asking me how to spend them. Voting opportunities, then, have not exactly been falling in my lap.
Until now, apparently. I had been under the impression that even progressive Sweden would leave weighty decisions — such as whether to switch currencies — to Swedish citizens only. Every Swede I’ve talked to had assumed so too; Anna and Magnus were in despair at my newly acquired electoral clout, though perhaps their reaction had more to do with how I plan to use my vote. I can see their point, however. How dare I have a say in the future of Sweden so rapidly after my arrival here; I’ve been a resident in Sweden for less than a year. All I had to do was turn up and register for an ID card.
I went to a party for foreign ministry types Friday night, where EMU discussions were rampant. I posited a few theories. Perhaps my röstkort was a mistake? “The state never makes mistakes,” one Swede replied, with a wry smile.
“It shows they’re desperate,” said another. If they’re letting foreigners vote, it’s because they need all the yes votes they can get, and foreigners, presumably, are already sold on the euro. Would this be legal? Quite possibly, because these folkomröstningar, or referendums, are not actually legally binding, though they have a moral authority that a Swedish government would find impossible to ignore.
Nobody was in any doubt that the result of the referendum will be a no. Polls have shown a consistent majority for the no-camp, though I wouldn’t write off the yes camp just yet: In particular, many Swedes have been on vacation in euroland, where they used and possibly liked the euro. The mood of these returning holidaymakers has not yet been captured by polls.
Almost everyone at this Stockholm party intended to vote yes. In the spirit of debate, I told several people that their voting intentions stem from nothing more than desire to vote in favor of whatever rural Sweden is against. If the farmers are against it, then it has to be a good thing, goes the rationale. This mental shortcut is lazy, for it leaves out the possibility that most no-voters have reached the correct conclusion for the wrong reason. I believe this is the case. Most reasons for voting no are bunk, but this does not invalidate the no case — most reasons for voting yes are bunk too.
Also, the euro vote is not necessarily a choice between what is good for Sweden and what is good for Europe. I am convinced that a no vote is the best thing both for Sweden and the EU. Expanding EMU beyond its optimal area is going to lead to political frictions as soon as member countries’ immediate economic goals diverge, as they are already beginning to do. I am a strong believer in keeping the monetary and political spheres separate, because I hope that the EU keeps on growing. The EU should be a club for countries that observe best practices in democracy, free trade, and human rights, not an exclusionary Christian country club, not an economic fortress, and certainly not, as one person was hoping, a “counterbalance” to US power (oh the folly of that idea).
But I am repeating myself; more interesting was the positive reception these ideas got from many of the people I talked to. The economic risks were readily acknowledged; instead, the maintenance of political clout within the EU was touted as the ultimate reason for their yes vote. “Sweden should be a joiner,” was the refrain. “Sweden should be in the lead.” Sure, unless the planned activity is jumping off a cliff.
I could of course be wrong. The euro might just work fabulously, despite the risks. I promise to vote yes in 5-10 years if this is the case, so that Sweden can join at the same time as Poland and the Baltics. In the meantime, Sweden’s GDP growth looks set to handily outpace that of euroland. Adopting the euro is a decision that is practically impossible to undo; there really is no need to rush into itImages courtesy of my röstkort. This last image instructs me to eat a hot dog after voting..
I will vote conscientiously on September 14, but there is one thing that receiving my röstkort has allowed me to do right away. I now have a much more satisfying way to end EMU arguments. I tried it on Anna, and boy does it work: “In any case,” I told her, “my vote will cancel out yours.”
In the summer of 1999 my morning commute went thus: I would walk up St. Marks Place to the N/R subway under Broadway, which took me to the Financial District, home of the whopping equity bubble.
Just off St. Marks and 2nd Ave, I would stop by the Porto Rico Importing Co. to pick up a coffee. At the time, I still smoked, and because it is hard to light a cigarette with matches while holding a scalding beverageI always used those free flat matchbooks from grocery stores because the half-life of any lighter in my possession was measured in hours., I would first set the cup on the window ledge of a bank just next to the store. The cigarette and coffee lasted exactly as long as it took for me to get from there to Broadway. My commute was well-rehearsed.
One drizzly morning, the window ledge had an old, damp letter lying on it. Absent an owner, I took it. Two things were immediately clear: It was addressed to a Margaretha Lennerbring, living in Stockholm, and it was mailed in 1970. I couldn’t read Swedish, but I knew several people who did. I showed it to them. It was a love letter! A young Swedish man doing his military service had written to his girlfriend
Lucidor turns out to be a renowned 17th-century Swedish poet, not the least for having composed some of the country’s favorite drinking songs..
I kept the letter. Over the past four years, I’ve come to feel responsible for it, and these last 9 months, as my Swedish has gotten progressively better, I have returned to it periodically, as a yardstick for my comprehension.
I have a theory as to why it was on the ledge that morning: In 1999, the corner of St. Marks and 2nd Ave still had second-hand book peddlers on the sidewalk. The peddlers feature tangentially in the 1992 King Missile cult spoken word/song hit Detachable Penis (Lyrics). I imagine somebody bought a book there, found this incomprehensible letter in it, and discarded it. Perhaps they couldn’t bring themselves to actually throw it in a garbage can, so they left it on the window ledge, feeling guilty, not wanting to favor the cause of entropy (our common enemy).
This letter has been important to someone, important enough perhaps even to drag it across the Atlantic. All would be clear were I to find Margaretha. To that end, the Swedish studies task I set myself yesterday was translating the letter in full:
Page 1
Hässleholm, 1/7/70 (the night before)
Hey sweetheart,
Thanks for the letter, it was really kind of you. I was in such a good mood all Monday thanks to your letter. It’s really great that you have already met Timo, and, by the way, say hi to him for me.
I have been to Sergels– and Hötorget [Shopping center in Stockholm].
Here at PZ [P2? army regiment?] it’s the same shit as usual, lying and crawling in shit, and last night (Tuesday) we thoroughly cleaned our whole [military] company, although it was not approved, so we can do it all again, unfortunately.:
Page 2
It is not so fun to go home to Halmstad when you aren’t there, the only fun thing was when I, Kent and Gustav (Kent’s father) worked on Kent’s boat and drank beer (and I thought of you, you sweet “witch”). I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to call you a witch. On Saturday we were in Mellby, first at Christer’s house, and we were all in a good mood (Christer, Kent, Roger, and I), although after a few hours in Mellby, Liza came with another boy, whom I’ve never seen before, and then Kent became angry (I think it was jealousy) and we went home early.:
Page 3
On Sunday we continued to work on Kent’s boat until 5pm and then I had to dash home to eat and then I took the train to Hässleholm. By the way, little Maggan didn’t come down because Ryden and I were at her aunt’s place (I think) and she said that Maggan had hurt herself and so couldn’t come, but we got a free snack [fika] out of it.
Now you have to wait a moment because I am going to take a smoking break. I’ll be back soon, darling. Now I have smoked.
I’ll write a letter before I come up to you because I must figure out train schedules:
Page 4
and connections so that I can tell you when I come up to Stockholm so that you can come and meet me at the station. I can perhaps already come on Thursday noon, if that’s okay with you, because I long for you so much. I get paid about 350 kr now in wages because we will definitely go to Göteborg LV 6 on July 27.
Kiss and hug from Bengt and I hope that you don’t forget me.
Write soon darling and I will read your letter many times so that I stay in a good mood. Bye [Maggan…?] sweetheart.:
Here are the most important clues, then:
. Today, it is student housing, and most likely it would have been when the letter was written. Perhaps “Lucidor” refers to a building, floor or university society named after the poet.
Update (29/6/2003): It does indeed: The building is called Lucidor, and here it is on the web.
While there is plenty of information here, there are also plenty of questions, namely:
Update (30/6/2003): Maggan is the diminuitive for Margaretha, says Joachim.
So, does anyone reading this know these people, or know how to find them? Or perhaps someone can answer some of the military or university clues? There seems to be only one Lennerbring living in Sweden — perhaps I should send him a letterUpdate Dec 1, 2003: The story continues here.. Posting this information here is not as passive as it seems; I expect Google to hoover all this up, and between now and 20 years from now I am sure I will get searches that refer to this post, perhaps even a Lennerbring googling him or herself. I can wait.
Last weekend I was witness to the most important Swedish ritual of the year — Midsommar — wherein small children are converted to socialism whilst adults revel in the ungodly pursuit of booze.
My midsommar took place on the Stockholm Archipelago, which was constructed to maximize the amount of coastline, so that a waterside summerhouse could be had by all according to need, not greed. Joachim and Elise and their two-year old, David, invited me.
Before setting off, I was instructed by my hosts to report to System Bolaget, the state organ in charge of alcohol dissemination. I have a love-hate relationship with this monopolistic institution. Although I am against monopolies in principle, there is something to be said for the state deriving significant income from my drinking habits — clearly, our interests align in his case.
Most System Bolaget stores look like pharmacies. You take a number; while waiting for your turn, you may peruse giant glass-cased display shelves of wine organized by color, region, price and type. Go to the counter, where a functionary takes your order and fetches it from their stock. At first, I would simply ask for the vintages or brands I craved, but now I have discovered another advantage to the monopoly regime: Since I am not about to buy this alcohol anywhere else, store employees are actually quite happy to discuss my purchase at length. They even have a help line.
Let me just repeat that. They even have a help line. In other words, whereas other countries might subsidize AA centers, in Sweden a government employee will gladly help you plan your next blinder.
On the ferry to Ljusterö, which was chockablock Thursday afternoon as the city emptied, the boozing started in earnest. On deck, in the rain, a man cradled his case of oversized beer cans, going through them at an impressive rate, but careful to keep the empties so he could recycle. His pal decided to gift ferry passengers his guitar music, and he was soon joined by a chorus of woken, wailing babies.
Two hours later, I was on “dry” land again, with dry in scare quotes as it was still raining, and would do so for most of the weekend. The upside, however, was that we could take David snail hunting. The modus operandi was to place one of David’s toy animals within talking distance of a snail, and then to engage it in conversation. David did most of the talking: “Hej snigel! Hej? Hej! Hej snigel?…”
On June 20, Midsommar day itself, we were prepped for the ritual dancing around the maypole (majstång), which symbolizes the pivotal role the state plays in Swedish society. First, we all drank shots of aquavit purchased at System Bolaget. Then, the children were carted off by tractor, probably to a re-education camp, while the adults made their way to the festivities:
Before proper homage could be paid, the maypole had to be raised. For this, foreign labor was required, so I volunteered, and together with other Swedes we hoisted the great green branches of government. Those who work for the state even got to wear branches on their head
:
Just in time, the children reappeared, and they proceeded to do a dance where they act out how they are but small helpless deaf frogs (små grodingen, ej öron), in need of welfare.
Afterwards, back at the summer cottage, many of the invited guests took part in an impromptu soccer match in the rain. It was eerily like the last scene in Tillsammans/Together. The object of the game, much like with parliamentary proceedings here, was to ensure a draw for the sake of the children. We quit when the score was 14-14.
June 20 was also the day that one guest, Ludwig, turned 5. He got a cake and a bug examination kit, so we set off to find some bugs. We soon found an ant and a milkweed bug, and I suggested we put them together in the same box to see who would win a fight to the death. We never did find the answer, for Ludwig kept on rescuing the ant. I think he will grow up to work for SIPRI. There was no sun, so the magnifying glass proved useless.
There was some hope, however, in the form of Ludwig’s younger brother, Erwig, who the next day was caught using his boot heel as a WMD on snails. They performed an ostracism on him, and by now he’s probably been cured of all antisocial impulses.
With every passing day, I get closer to the dark underbelly of Sweden’s soul…
Zed and Clarice swept through town over the weekend, bringing Georgian cognac The cognac came labeled with a strange and wonderful script I had never seen before.
and taking with them most of the contents of Södermalm’s thrift shops. Clarice had a Berlitz European phrase book from 1974 with her, with a chapter for Swedish:
The section on dating in particular suggests the 70s were a simpler time, before pickup-line inflation, when smoking was a language common to all, when the romantic (and the optimistic) could hope to get lucky during a night on the town armed with nothing more than this Berlitz guide and courage-through-lager. I wonder if the editors field-tested their lines. I imagine they assumed a typical “date” would go something like this:
Of course, the “datee” would only be able to nod yes or no, since the “dater” wouldn’t understand actual Swedish responses Some helpful phrases for dating in Georgian.. However, there is this helpful icebreaker:
The highlighted part especially seems like a good idea, though the more logically aware might hit a serious philosophical impasse if they ever needed to look up the phrase “Just a minute. I’ll see if I can find it in this book” in order to use it.
The Economist focuses on the Nordic region in a special report this week. I scanned the part where it reports on Sweden’s upcoming euro referendum:
Elsewhere this issue, The Economist is not at all impressed with Germany’s performance as the supposed economic engine of the eurozone: “Only partly in jest, The Economist suggests that a better question is not whether Britain should join the currency zone, but whether Germany should leave.” Very interesting reading, and relevant to Sweden’s decision whether to join EMU; does Sweden really want to have the same interest rate required to get the German economy back on its feet?