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!!!

Scanian – its mother couldn’t call it beautiful

Intuitively one could think that the Scanian dialect derives its rollercoaster diphthongs and occasional guttural grunts from the Danish language, which is of course in close geographic proximity, over the Øresund. Historical ties between the two have always been close. The Danes ruled Skåne until 1658, and similarities abound.

The idiosyncratic Scanian dialect shares little or no direct ancestry with Danish. The roots of Scanian are in French. French-speaking aristocracy, in the 17th and 18th century, on holiday from Stockholm used local Scanian servants. Thus a heavy dose of the Francophone was transmitted to the Swedes of the south. Linguists believe that this link is responsible for many of the features of the dialect that survive today.

I recently saw this theory born out in a piece of theatre sport, where a Swedish actor (non-gender specific, but she was a chick) assumed a ‘’Allo ‘Allo!’ type French resistance fighter accent. The result was basically pure Scanian, and the actor couldn’t keep a straight face.

The Scanian dialect comes hand in hand with a healthy belief that if you’re not Scanian, you’re a bit weird. This is in stark contrast to the Danes who believe that if you’re not Danish than you’re a blithering twit, and Denmark is the epicentre of the universe and the land of milk and honey. This comparatively self-effacing outlook is nicely exemplified by the joke about the federal politician who told the Scanian that there was good development potential in Skåne. The Scanian, to whom he had made the comment, replied


-Aou, ja ved ent de. Po tre sior har vi vann o på den fjärde Lappland.

-Yes, and what are those. We have water on three sides and on the other, Lappland.

The Church play KB Hallen 24/4

This is not a post but a plug for The Church who play Kulturbolaget in Malmö on the 24/4.  Steve Kilbey, their lead singer, is married to a Swede and spends a fair bit of time in Stockholm.  I guess that's why they are coming this way.

These guys have been playing together for 35 years, so they are not going to go out gracefully.  But then again, who would want them to. . .  You high theorists can call it spontaneous, drug-addled, fridge magnet poetry but I'm a sucker for lyrics like the unguarded moment.