Swedish Documentary

I have been struck not once, but twice by the high level of documentary film making that is alive in this country.  These are haunting stories that pack a tremendous punch.

Exhibit 1
Hasse Wester's extremely poignant and empathetic portrayal of the decay of Goan village life in Den Gyllene Stranden.  When Hasse first came to this village twenty years ago it was a coastal pastoral idyll.  He learnt the language (local, not Hindi) and and learnt the ways of the people.  The documentation of his return visits seen from within Hasse's quintessential Swedish life provides is the material of this wonderful story.  The Goan sands, and the village become 'touristed.'   

Exhibit 2
Ett Stycke Sverige is the story of Eric, a north Swedish farm boy.  He worked for a general and through dilegence advanced through the agricultural ranks.  Then came the message that the farm he had worked his life on would be made into a golf course.

Eric could not bear to watch.  He went out the back and shot himself.  I'm partial to swinging a club now and then but will never tee off for a round at Vidbynäs Golf club.  

The two tales are of people and the erosion of their self worth.  The people are separated by continents and the documentaries only share the fact that they were aired last month on Swedish 
TV,  yet they strike a unison chord, and ask few questions but tell no lies.

Sheila

Quaint and slightly annoying, Sheila has stuck in my head, like the sound of the overland trains if you live near the northern line in London (and also because Sheila's what we call birds in Australia).   The samples are a bit overpowering. . . particularly the old pommy git going on about his walks around London 
and the vast surburban churches. 
Samples are there to refer to another time and place but the nth degree is always challenging.  More to the point, one must dig Jamie's lyrical sense:

Her lingo went from the cockney to the gringo
any time she sing a song, the other girls sing along
and tell all the fellas that that lady is single
a fickle way to tickle on my young mans ting

He relishes that London existence that I once did, but the highs come with the lows and Sheila meets her fate

i say giggidibigidiup just another day
another sad story, thats trajegdy,
paramedic anounced death at 10.30
rip it up kick it to spit up the views. . .
i guess the carpet weren't rolled

The New Face of Sweden

I interrupt this hibernation to take issue with Matthew Engel's article in the Financial Times with the same name as this blogpost: the new face of Sweden.

It is just another typical media much ado about nothing and is evidence to the truth that zeitgeist can never literally be captured in print.  I particularly take issue with the articles focus on Rosengård:

'The migrants are concentrated in one district, Rosengård, with the newest ones in the sub-district of Herrgarden, where the male unemployment rate is 82 per cent.'

Rosengård is no bed of roses; no Kensington or Beverly Hills, even though Zlatan grew up there.  However, there is a counterbalance to Rosengård called Möllevången.  The majority of inhabitants of this inner city suburb are also immigrants and live in a thriving community that serves also as the unofficial arts centre of town.  Möllevången, or 'Möllan' (mill) as it is affectionately known is also the place in Malmö to buy fresh produce.  There's a Saturday market in the square, and as all locals know it doesn't do to drive down Ystadsgatan on the Saturday morning.  At these times the safe and decorous Swedish rules of traffic engagement do not apply.  It's like Baghdad, but that's okay because right across the square is Baghdad Livs 
(Baghdad convenience store) one of the icons of the area .  Möllan also offers some of Malmös best bar life. A night at Skolegatans öl kaféet or Tempo is always a night well spent.

Drinking aside, multi-kulti, mixed racial community living along with the effect of immigration on the individual will never be without it's hard questions and even harder realities.  Sweden might one day move to an immigration policy aimed at attracting skilled labour as Canada and Australia have pioneered.  

I don't see this as a moral back pedal, the fall of the socialist state, or failure on the part of the 
Swedes. However, I think it is spurious to represent Rosengård as the only face of Sweden without at least visiting Möllevången, and the hope and goodwill that resides there.  Perhaps the Financial Times should focus their journalistic muscle on the Swedish economy which with its' strong output and budget surplus is in a leading position to weather this 'recession'.

Anna in Malmø

When one listens to a singer day-in, day-out, one builds up a mental picture of how the singer looks.  Anna Ternheim's 'Seperation Road' had fastened itself in the CD player in the car, so Anna Lejon and myself had listened to it constantly all last winter on the cold bridge to Denmark.  The mental picture I had of Anna Ternheim is nothing like her presence on stage - sensitive, shy and restrained.

She played at Malmö festival and it was fantastic!  If Charlie was the bird and Edith was the kid sparrow, Anna is the dove.

Arne Zaring

I met a poet, or closer to the truth, we re-met a poet.  I recognised Arne from various art openings around Malmö.  He was always happily drunk, and I was invariably with Harry and pretended that I was Norwegian.

Arne is a poet, so did not buy my passable Norwegian.  He saw beyond it, like Underifrån, [from underneath] his most startling piece to date.  By a strange twist of fate many of his poems have been translated into arabic, possibly because his daughter is married to a Moroccan.  Maybe the poet like the profet is not accepted in his own country.

Renzo and I spent an hour over beers at the café trying to explain to him that emails were cheaper than six and a half crowns it costs to send snail mail.  Like my pigeon Norwegian, Arne didn't buy it. . . he needed to hold the paper and then scribble some more on it.

Moral: Suffer the fool, until you are sure he isn't

Listening to Martha in Saudi

Sitting in a hotel room in Jeddah and waiting for someone to take me to the airport for my flight back to Sweden.  Touring around here (Jeddah, Riyadh and the Eastern provinces - Al Dammam, Al Jabyl) has been crazy.  Adopting to life within a society ruled by Sharia law can be perplexing.  One struggles not to allow western prejudice rail against the black abaya ghosts that haunt public spaces and the noteable absence of women.  Then there's the heat.  

There has been one person that has kept me sane through this tour, so here's to you Martha.  I hope you never have to come here.  Heres a photo I found of her, in black, in solidarity with the women of this country.

Var blev ni av, ljuva drömmar om en rimligare jord?

When I was at Uni in the 90s, it was a cool political acknowledgement to make that 'the socialist experiment was dead.' Well, forget that rot. It's not. Just come to Scandinavia. . . or if you can't do that, just listen to Monika Zetterlund sing, Var blev ni av, ljuva drömmar om en rimligare jord?

Here is the last verse, and my crappy translation:

Var blev ni av, ljuva drömmar om en rimligare jord?
Ett nytt sätt att leva? Var det bara tomma ord?
Var är han nu, våra frihetsdrömmars junker Morgonröd?
Han rör ju på sig, så han är nog inte riktigt död....

What has become of you, wonderful dream of a fairer world?
A new way to live? Was it just empty words?
Where is he now, our dreams of freedom in red?
He moves himself, so he is not really dead...

Socialism o muerte!!!