My New Moleskine

It is the 27th of January, and I have some reason to celebrate. Today marks the first day in my brand new Moleskine calendar, and I can start using it. I have been waiting for a month, at least. If I took my financial situation seriously, things like these would probably be exactly what I should spend less money on. On the other hand 15 EUR can seem cheap for something that is used 365 days in a year. But there are bigger problems than my private budget. Vanity like this is choking the earth to death.

By Zedlik (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

More people live more comfortable than ever, which is a good thing, and we can thank capitalism and consumerism for that. Our civlisation is heavily dependent on an ever increasing group of consumers, and that is why it makes consumers out of substistence farmers with an amazing speed. Few people miss the toil of their parents. This is a great world. But can not claim that we save it for our children.

The climate is changing, making it harder to survive. Especially for those mentioned above, who just have put poverty behind. To future generations we hand over a more densly populated world with less natural resources, less arable land, less water, less biodiversity. Technology will maybe help them survive another year, but if the long time trend is not reversed, there is simply no future for humanity. Which will probably be great for the few species that will remain on earth after we have gone.

This time of year the newpapers are filled with analyzes of 2010 and forecasts for 2011. If you look at economical history, anyone will tell yo that the supply of natural resources is pivotal for human economy. Yet almost no economical forecast, positive or negative, take the diminshing supply of natural resources into account when they predict the future. Economists seem to presume that the earth will look thes same in 2011 as it did in 2010, when the only thing we know is that it will not. Which is why they are always wrong.

Our outtake of natural resources is megalomaniacal - in a time when close to everyone speaks about the environment, and green entrepeneurs spawn as mushrooms from the ground. The problem with these entrepeneurs is not what they do, but what they do not do. As long as green consumerism doesn't make us consume less, it achieves nothing. It is our endless hunger for stuff and services that keeps chinese coal heated factories running and fossil fuel trucks rolling on our highways. For those of you who haven't seen it , I warmly recommend Annie Leonard's The Story of Stuff, for a witty explanation of how our consumption impoversihes the earth.

The problem is that consumerism does not only impoverish the earth, it also enrichen us in terms of money and wealth. With our current economical thinking that wealth is the quantitative sigen of wellbeing we are forced to choose between the generation currently living in wealth, and the unborn millions. And it would be deeply unmoral to pritoritize the welfare of a human being that doesn't exist, over one that exists here and now.

Maybe this is why it is so hard to break with consumerism, even though we all know that it is the root of all our problems? Or maybe it is because consumerism speaks to our human weaknesses rather than our morals. I could well have made my own calendar out of recycled paper, but it was unrestricted vanity that made me buy a Moleskine calendar instead. That was my contribution to a shopping spree that is bound to end in chaos.

What we need is a way of understanding economics that can differentiate between wealth and wellbeing. With a such understanding falling profits, or falling GDP wouldn't be a problem at in it self, since that could just as well indicate that we manage to live well with less money, as economic problems. But to get there, we must get over our vanity.

The Road - Cormac Mc Carthy

I did the mistake, grave as always, to read the book (in Swedish translation) after I had watched the film. Not only does some of the tension get lost when you are familiar with the plot - when I read the book I could not see anything else than the actors' faces in front of me. Nonetheless, this is a story that is worthy of all the attention it has received, both as a book and as a film.


The story is simple. In a near past a catastrophe has happened, and human civilization has crumbled. A man and his son leave their home in northern USA in search of more agreeable conditions further south. What has happened, where they are and whether there is some piece of land untouched by the catastrophe is not very relevant. This is a story about how humans deal with catastrophes, how we invent religious rituals when we need them , and that without morals and values we are not human any more.

This is a real page turner, and there is a constant nerve in the book, not so much because what is actually happening to the two, but because of fear of what will happen. This is probably one of the bigger differences between the book and the film - the film dwells much more on horrible details of cannibalism, and lustful memories of love. Just like a film must do.

So why has it become such a success? One obvious explanation is the fear of a catastrophe in the near future. Both climate change and peak oil can make you wonder what will actually remain of life as we know it a hundred years from now. The road can be read as one suggestion about this.

But what is so scary with the story, and what gave me the creeps, is not the horrible circumstances the two live in. It is much more the sense of living after "peak civilization" so t say. And I think this is something that resounds with today's generations. Our culture is retro, our politics are old fashioned. We are told, and it is easy to accept, that we have come to the end of history, where all countries are ordered along 20th century lines. Even the internet, our generations biggest upheaval, has become more of a distribution channel for the entertainment industry than a new way of perceiving democracy.

So even if we don't share the physical circumstances of the protagonists in the Road, it is very easy to recognize the feeling of living after the party has ended. Too easy to not be touched by the book.

The revenge of history

Bulgaria was one of the few east european countries that prosecuted communists after the fall of communism. Todor Zhivkov, the party secretary who had ruled the country more or less as his kingdom was sentenced to seven years in jail, years that he spent in house arrest due to fragile health.

But except for a few spectacular cases like this, the past was left untouched. Maybe convicting Zhivkov even helped to direct public anger away from fellow travellers, and soon more pressing problems emerged when the nation tried to eek out a living within capitalism.

For these reasons or other, Bulgaria was unusually late with opening the files of its former secret service (DS). Not until 2006 where the files opened, and in 2007 a parliamentary commission was appointed to examine them.

This commision, in media referred to as the files commision, has now done its work and released a list of names of people who were cooperating with the DS. Suprising or not, a large number of ambassadors currently working for Bulgarian embassies appear on this list. Among others, the ambassador to Sweden...

The Bulgarian PM Boyko Borisov has publicly called for these ambassadors to be replaced. Tough words form a man who has served as a body guard to mr. Zhivkov himself, but he obviously has a point, and the liberal parties agree with him on this.

Borisov as Zhivkov's body guard

The socialists on the other hand, defends the ambassadors, and point at what they have done for Bulgaria's EU and NATO integration. Which is also a valid point, I guess.

Is it right to bring up someone's past twenty years later? If yes - than what room is there for forgiveness and development. If no - then anytthing can be done, as long as no one finds out at the moment. This is a problem that any country with a totalitarian past, not only ex- communist, but also the ex- fascist Portugal and Spain for example, must deal with. I guess that what the files commission's work shows is that the history is something you must deal with. If you try to hide it it will come back with revenge.

Reading Elin Wägner

Since the snow fell and made Lund's cobbled streets dangerous for biking, I have been travelling by bus 20 minutes every morning. That is just about enough for one chapter in one of the most inspiring books I have reading my whole life - Väckarklocka (1941) by Elin Wägner.

Elin Wägner, picture from Wikimedia Commons

Halfway through it, I can't help but wondering what the Swedish brand of liberalistic feminism actually means for women. Wägner would argue that our society only lets women repeat the mistakes of men, without making any concessions to womens knowledge, traditions and abilities. What the earth and future generations needs is a more feminine way of life. I remember that my grandmother used to say the same thing, and I'll be damned if she is not right in the end. Because she is a mother. And mothers always are.

Wägner's idea of equality is not necessarily to treat men and women the same way. It is much more about giving equal weight to all voices in society - men and women alike. Only thus can we keep the most precious pieces of traditional knowledge while adapting to the future.

She sees pre-history as a relatively stable state of female domination, when human life aimed at surviving  without disturbing the other species in nature.The focus of this civilization was nursing, caring and respecting, not to take more than needed, and always to sustain life, not kill it.

At some point, the timing was different in different corners of the world, there was a male revolution. The entire history since we have written sources have been one of increasing male domination and a mission to conquer nature (other nations, other races, other genders...)

I don't know if Wägner would agree with me, but I read this as a struggle between ideas, not physical people. For different reasons one idea has appealed to men and another to women, but there is nothing that says that an individual of any gender should feel more attracted by one idea than the other. Men can care, women can conquer. All should care.

The book gives plenty of examples, from ancient history to the fight for universal suffrage in the early 20th century to illustrate Wägners view of history. A brief look at Wikipedia indicates that it is a debated topic still today whether a Matriarchy as Wägner describes it has ever existed. On the other hand, we generally accept the idea that a people's choice of Gods say something about themselves. People in autocratic male societies very often worship an autocratic male god - so why presume that the people who worshiped fertility goddesses were not matriarchies?

That is not really important, though, since Wägner has something to say about here and now. In her concept of motherhood, the essence of matriarchy, she unites ecology, solidarity and democracy. She also gives a coherent answer to the seemingly eternal problems - why do we start wars?, why are we so unjust? and why are we so stupid that we time after time deplete the very resources we depend on? Think Peak oil, or how the ancient Greeks cut down the forests around the Mediterranean.

How well does such a message fit into the current (Swedish) feministic debate? When I see how questions about gender equality are discussed in Sweden, I think too much emphasis is laid on the equality between individuals, and too little on the lack of values like nursing and caring. Very much is said about women's right to make a career, and very little about the downsides of a society where individuals strive to make personal careers.

Needless to say, equality between individuals is utterly important. Women has as big right as men to do whatever they please, and it is a good thing about Swedish society that it is open for untraditional choices. But that equality often generates very little freedom - a great majority of the women who try making a career face invisible hurdles like exclusion from decision making circles, discrimination if they
choose to have a baby etc. At one point in their life I think very many of them will agree with Wägner that a highly competitive labour market is a way for men to keep occupying the most important posts in society.

How do we come to terms with that problem? That has been the question for all feminists since the most disturbing forms of legal discrimination were abolished. Wägner is probably right that if we want anything to change, we must dare looking beyond this society and pay a much greater attention to the millenia of womens experience that we try to live without. We must strive for a society where equality means every individuals right to be what they are, not replace one idea of what women are - housewives, with another - career women.

Fotball fans in Eastern Europe

I was shocked to hear about the racist riots in Moscow last weekend. A hooligan supporter of Spartak Moscow was shot by caucasian men, and footbal fans retaliated with a mayhem that ended with two people dead. I am no good at russian, but I think it is a good thing that Gazeta.ru dares calling the beast by its name - pogroms.

In the Guardian article above western commentators and russian liberals sees the Russian authorities as partly responsible for fomenting xenophobical feelings to divert frustrations over social and economical woes.

Making a political connection is probably correct. For all I know about Russia, it would be impossible to imagine any other kind of organised people than football fans to cause such havoc in downtown Moscow.


And Russia is not alone. Football fans are pivotal actors on the political scenes in many post-communist countries, not least on the Balkans. In the book This is Serbia Calling, Matthew Collins mentions how it was the fans of Red Star Belgrade that both brought Milosveic to power, and fought the decisive battle against his police when he fell.


Fan's graffiti from Beograd

The football fans of Bulgaria are not any more pleasant than the Spartak Moscow ones - they were probably the only kind of people that truly scared me while I was living in Sofia. In the beautiful film Eastern Plays they are depicted as doing the dirty work for politicians. Something that is easy to believe but maybe harder to prove.

But after all, who was it that decided the course of events on 14/1 2009? The people I talked to after the riots all said that football fans came uninvited to the protests, to fight with the police. For the fun of it? Or did someone want them there?

I don't know. Their presence turned the demonstration violent, and changed the political dynamics into something that was impossible for the Stanishev government to manage.

Someone who wants to really understand the politics of Eastern Europe should make reasearch on the violent football fans. maybe someone has already done it - if you know of any such work, please let me know!

The realities of war

The last couple of weeks living in Sweden has felt almost like living in the big world. Not only are we prosecuting the world's most wanted man - mr. Julian Assange of Wikileaks - yesterday the scandinavian idyll was struck by a suicide bomber, a fact that has made headlines on both sides of the Atlantic.

As for Assange, I will not say anything for now. Let's just remember that in a democracy everybody is innocent until proven guilty. The suicide bomber, however, is obviously guilty, and the country is struggling to understand where he came from.

There are a few ways to explain this phenomenon. One, that is not too uncommon, is that Islam is essentially an evil religion, and that the best muslims are the most secularized. But any muslim who takes his faith seriously is prepared to kill in the name of Muhammed, these almost exclusively white, male, christian commentators think.

Moderate muslims on the other hand, nervously remind us that this man was a lunatic, a fact that has nothing to do with his religion. Just as we don't take christian lunatics, of which there are a few, as the representants of an entire civilization, this guy shouldn't be seen as anything else than a criminal.

This view is of course true, but some people might see it as a little simplistic. They would point at a society that excludes large groups of muslims, and say that allowing social problems like these, is like asking for this kind of troubles. If someone had seen this guy in pre-school, and cared for him, he would never have gone this far. Which is also a valid point, I think.

What all these views overlook is the fact that we are in a war. In a message to the Swedish news agency TT, the bomber said that this was a revenge for what is happening in Afghanistan, and the most probable explanation is to see it as an act of warfare. Isn't it a little strange that we take it for granted that individuals sacrifice their lives for a cause when they wear army uniforms, but not when they look like civilians?

War scenes painted by Francisco de Goya

Sweden is in a war in Afghanistan, and like any other war civlians are hit hard. For millenia we have been aware that war has a very butalizing effect on whoever takes part in them, and for every combatant the line between covilian and enemy soldier is soon blurred. We are horrified when a self proclaimed taliban fighter tries to kill civilians in Stockholm, but isn't it a whole lot worse that NATO troops killed 160 Afghan civilians in 2010 (until 1st of November)?

A suicide bomber in Stockholm is horrible news, but hardly surprising. Civilian deaths is just the reality of war.

(Some links are in Swedish - I apologize to foreign readers)