An interesting article about Sweden in the UK's Guardian on Sunday describes the decay of Sweden.
Uppsala's Chief of Police, who was a rabid anti-sexism activist, but who has been found guilty of abusing and raping women and children is central to this portrait of Sweden. The journalist compares him to a character out of Henning Mankell or Stieg Larson's crime books.
Sweden has an international and domestic image of itself as an equal, modern country with a strong tendency for concensus. According to the journalist, this image is way out of sinc with the Göran Linberg scandal.
He goes on to describe cut-backs in the health care system, political corruption, abuse of power, the assassination of Olof Palme, the submarine scandal, and sex scandals involving MP's as examples of things that break through the Swedish facade and reflect a society crumbling from within.
To read the article, follow this link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/01/goran-lindberg-sweden-crime-palme
Well, there is possibly a international image of Swedes that we have that image of ourselves but I don't think Swedes in general share that sentiment. In my opinion are we very much aware of our shortcomings as a nation and that we sometimes focus to much on those shortcomings. Haven't you heard Swedes say "that's very un-Swedish" and using that phrase in a positive way? Can you imgagine an American saying the same thing and mean anything else than something very negative. Un-American... that could provoke nasty things in the US.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, "un-Swedish" can just as well be used in a negative way, it depends on what you are relating to. If you add "un-Swedish" to i.e. "Building Standards" or "Food Handling Procedures" it puts a very negative spin on it.
Other than that I think it was an excellent article that shines a spotlight on some very strange things that has happened in Sweden the last 40 or so years.
Thank you for an excellent blog!