No arson on Vitosha

The Bulgarian police has investigated whether arson was behind last summer's fires on Vitosha Mountain, and found no one guilty, SEGA [Spasi Vitosha] reports.


Suspicion about arson have circulated since days after the fires. The fires erupted in an area seldom visited by tourists, so it was unlikely that a visitor would have lit it by mistake. But the police have now gone through material filmed from helicopters, seeing no signs of anyone at all, even though an arsonist would need quite some time to get from the spot.

This is hardly compelling evidence, but it is still worrying. Bulgaria, as the rest of the Balkans did endure an extremely hot summer due to climate change, and if this fire erupted without human interference, more fires is a likely scenario to play out in the years ahead.

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy I would like to add that whereas climatologists are not so certain that global warming causes hurricanes, there is no doubt that global warming will lead to more draught and floods.

Also in Sweden the last summer has been discussed this week in the public radio. It was extremely wet, which made some farmers suffer, while others saw record harvests. Again - it is not proven that climate change leads to more hurricanes, but certain that it will change rain patterns.

I think this illustrate how climate change will be a very different experience in different places. To some Europeans it will mean dangerous events like wildfires and floods, to some it will mean that some places for growing potatoes will have to be abandoned for others.

The second scenario, which is more likely for Sweden is probably a whole lot easier to live with, and would so be if we ate only potatoes. But the true impact on Sweden will come not from extreme events, but from disruptions of global supply chains in other countries.

To round off, I couldn't help but laughing at this commercial, visible next to the article in SEGA.


Santa Claus in a sun chair... the airplane exhausts say "nothing's wrong". Quite a telling picture of what climate change will look like. The irony is not lessened from the fact that the ad is for an oil company - Overgas
 

Climate change arrives in Sweden

2011 is likely to go to history as the year that the New Climate started affecting Sweden. Not only has this Christmas been one of the warmest ever - insurance costs caused by extreme weather was up 18% since last year according to the local insurance industry. A spokesman for the insurers explains that climate change will mean more extreme weather, with increased prices for insurances as a result.

The insurance industry has for a long time been the great hope of many industrialists, including me. Not because an inherent goodness - this industry is probably as controlled by greed as any other. Which is what makes insurance companies interesting - they are set to lose a lot of money from more volatile weather, and have a strict vested interest in combating climate change.

It is nice to see the Swedish insurers out of the closet - hopefully they can lend some weight to environmentalists demands for more robust climate politics. I have a secret dream that they would actually use their power and refuse to insure companies that work against them - like oil drilling companies. BP would not exist today if Deepwater Horizon had not been insured. On the other hand it is probably a very bad idea to let private companies use political power.

Nonetheless, climate change is now not only a question for environmentalists. It is a new business reality that has officially arrived in Sweden.

Hypocrisies

Swedish local communities can veto against wind power - but not against oil drilling. What is fair about that?

Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie

The lawn outside my flat is clean. That might not sound impessive, given that my country of residence is Sweden, but if you'd been here during the weekend you would be surprised. Valborg, the 30th of April, is something like the Swedish "Students Day", and it is celebrated with plenty of alcohol, and tons of litter in the streets. Think food left overs, whine bottles, beer cans, plastic plates, underwear, demolished bikes...



It is somehow odd, when you have once been to countries where people do what they can to avoid dirt, to note that for Swedes, partying is very closely related to dirt. The dirtier the better. It is interesting how a Bulgarian who likes cleanliness is perfectly able to keep a place in order, even if he or she is drunk, whereas a Swede loses this ability after the first beer. Once the party is on, normal values do not apply.

Hold on, you say - not only Swedes live in Sweden. It is a little premature, almost racist to blame this mess on the mentality of the Swedes. True enough - almost a third of the inhabitants of this corner of Sweden would not call themselves Swedes, but if you go to celebrate 30th of April, that is not the impression you'll get. You will rather come to believe the myth that all Swedish peopel are tall and blonde, for the people who ravage in the streets are predominantly blond and tall. All well educated with good manners - le charme discret de la bourgeoisie.

It is the class/ethnic dimension is what makes it worth blogging about the fact that the lawn today, two days later is clean. Who do you think cleaned it? Tall, blonde Swedes? Not so. I saw a few women of Asian descent, who surely didn't take part in the celebrations, and have personally met the slighlty disabled guy who takes care of this specific lawn. He is Swedish, but lacks in education and manners. After all, who minds cleaning up after themselves if there is an under-paied sucker from a different social group who does it for you?

And what is wrong with that? After all, it takes all sorts of people to make the world, and isn't it a decent job also to clean streets and markets. Undoubltly so, but I think most Swedish people visiting Bulgaria reacts strongly on the fact that everyone cleaining the streets is a roma citizen, and Bulgaria has a pretty bad reputation about discrimination. It looks like one kind of poeople cleans up after another kind of people, and we feel that it is scandalous. It is.

But what is different in Sweden? Nothing but the language of the street cleaners. And the fact We not only litter the streets, but indulge in polluting them, perversly enjoying the fact that it is someone else's mess to clean up.

A touch of Balkan

A life is a prolonged period of time spent longing for memories or fantasies. Eternity is those short interruptions when desire is directed towards the moment.

At the moment I spend most of this life longing either for Bulgaria, that I left a little more than a year ago, or longing for an idealized Swedish childhood with dizzy contours.



I spend most of today on trains, and doing this in Sweden 2011 is something that reminds me a lot more about Bulgaria than about Sweden in the late eighties/ early ninties.

The trip from Lund to Gothenburg turned out a lot more convenient than I had feared at one moment. Due to strong winds (more about this later), trains did not run on schedule from Malmö, which affects the entire southern Sweden.

My train was merely 20 minutes late, but trains have been rescheduled we stop only once between Lund and Goteborg, which means that I know no one will come asking for my seat, and I wasn't pennywise to not buy a seat reservation. My brother did, though. His train is on time, but the seat hehad booked turned out to be one for wheel chairs.

There is nothing particularly about a delayed train, or a misunderstanding about a seat reservation. Things like that happens once in a while everywhere. What gives me the feeling of being back at the balkans is that every single time I have been travelling with train in Sweden the last year, something similar has happened.

Trains replaced with buses, criminals on the train and delays. Hours of delays. My brother could add his own experiences to this list, and so could thousands of other Swedish travellers. Not only Swedish, by the way. Last week the German travel bureau Dertours announced that they will stop selling train trips in Sweden, due to the unreliable schedule. Sad news.

It is comparably comfortable to be delayed in Sweden, though. Trains and stations are warm and cosy, and nothing like a Bulgarian train. What gives you the feeling of being in the Balkans is the certainity that some kind of surprise will await you at the station. You count on the train being delayed but go there a long time in advance to be on place when the plan changes. When the train is on time, that is so uncommon, that it also counts as a surprise...

It is a tense feeling in the stomach, a heightened attention about what is happening around you. Is that train over there yours? What is that update on the screen? What did the loudspeaker just say? There can be no relaxation until you get off the train at the right destination. Brace yourself.

Could this be otherwise? Every delay usually have a pretty good explanation. Temperatures were very low this winter, and it did blow hard winds today. But when problems occur this often, there is a systematic error. A train system must be adapted to the weather being where the trains run. And while we are struggling to cope with 20th century weather, we by now know for sure that temeperatures will be more extreme and winds blow harder in a not very distant future. The weather is already more extreme than it was back in my idealised Swedish childhood but there is more to come.

The spectre of climate change poses a formidable challenge to the Swedish train infrastructure. I hope that engineers are already counting on more weather resistant trains, and that polticians are getting ready to pay. For we do need trains, in order to keep our civilisation alive without fossil fuels.

8th of March - the anti corruption day

It is the International Women's Day, and I find myself being an angrier feminst than ever. I am born 1980, and it seems to me that we have already passed the Peak Democracy, sometime around 1995. Society is definitely more traditional, more conservative and more male dominated than it was ten or fifteen years ago.

One example of this is the horrendous rulings by the Swedish Supreme Court. Two weeks ago the court ruled that the men who had bought and sold a 15 years old disabled roma girl in the center of Malmö were free of guilt, and the girl was probably lying. One of several similar cases where men who have been convicted in lower courts for crimes against women are freed in the supreme court.

Utter rubbish, that can only only be explained with one thing - when men commit crime against women, or Swedish against immigrants, judges rule as mildly as possible. Maybe becasue they are all Swedish males themselves.

The Swedish legislation in these matters is strict, and a lot of efforts have been made at combatting this kind of crimes with harder legislation. But the supreme court seems to hold an opinion of their own, that sexual crimes are not really crimes, and in a court the judge's opinion weighs heavier than the politician's.

Which is how it should be in a democracy... at least how it is supposed to work on the paper.  The 20th century showed that political power over the courts lead to tyranny. In the 21th, the independence of courts have turned into a problem. Not only in Sweden - I remember a seminar in Buglaria where environmentalists asked a juridical expert what to do about corruption within the juridical system. The answer was that very little can be done, since politican for good reasons are banned from controlling judges.

When corruption gets into the heart of the juridical system it easily gets very entrenched. The price for that is, as always, paied by those with the weakest voice in society. Like environmentalists, minorities and women. This day is for them all.

Which is why I would like to use this occasion to propagate for a Swedish writere whod edicated her life to the defense of all voiceless people in society - Elin Wägner. She wrote a number of novels, a lot of political writing, and was an activist against war between the world wars. If women like her had power and not only influence, the world would be a better place.

Read about Elin Wägner at Wikipedia
... and on Maladets!

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.

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)

What kind of Europe does Stockholm want?

 After the collapse of the EU budget talks this week, Barroso was clearly dissapointed with a small group of countries that fought against increasing the EU parliament's budget. One of these countries was Sweden, together with the UK and the netherlands. To the Swedish minister of finance, it was irresponsible to expand spending while European states are slashing expences. To Barroso, and the MEP's, it is pennywise to try to build an integrated Europe without money.

To me, the differing opinions are less interesting than the fact that they differ. Maladets! has long since noted a growing rift between the Swedish liberal right government and European institutions. It has been about Israel and the Euro. More recently the EU directive on maternity leave was heavily critizised by Swedish liberals in the government and in the press.

For the Swedish left, it is easy to sarcastically label the EU-weary liberal right as nationalists and inward looking. In deed - the Swedish right wing has historically been very quick to label anyone who questions EU policies as a nationalist, so it might not be more than fair that they are judged by their own standards, but I don not think this is a correct analysis.

The Swedish liberal right is not inward looking, and they are fond of European integration. It is not just for show that the liberal party is the only Swedish party to seriously campaign for euro membership. Moreover, the Swedish government is far from isolated when its opinions run counter to Bruxelle's. As Barroso pointed out, there was a number of countries who opposed the EP on this issue. A number of countries, who tend to think the same in European debates. So it is rather about conflicting visions about europe, where continental Europe (read: France) stands against the north western periphery, like the UK and Scandinavian member states. And Germany lingers somewhere in the middle.

The issue at hand - what resources should the European parliament reign over, is emblematic. The Cameron-Reinfeldt axis in the north west seem to favour a Europe with a downsized bureaucracy, that decides as little as possible. Its foremost function is to make sure that member states are not unduelly distorting competition. It is easy to see the contours of a neo liberal night watchman state, but we must admit that this vision also allows for any  social policies, as long as they are administered on a national - not European - level.

On continental Europe, the push for a more active EU seems much stronger. I can imagine that there are different forces at play here. One is the more ambitious franco-german vision of the European union, that sees national legislation and bureaucracy replaced with a European legislation and bureaucracy, that is bascially the same thing on a bigger scale. As an example, the Euroepan Union is already involved in a great deal of projects that a night watcher state would shun. For example, many readers will be familiar with the Youth in Action programme, in which the European Union finances thousands of volunteers every year with the direct ambition of spurring social change - creating a European consciousness among the continent's youth.

If we compare this vision of the EU, with the north western idea of a night watchman state, it is very easy to recognise an old historical heritage. Whereas the british isles spawned liberals like J.S Mill, Adam Smith and Spencer, continental Euope fostered ideolgies like Marx's socialism and Durkheim's organic solidarity. 

But maybe more relevant than historical precurrents, is the fact that different countires expect very different things from the EU. Some contries, like the Scandinavian, percieve themselves as wealthier than the EU at large, and are so according to economist's common sense. For a cynic, it is easy to see how Sweden would pay money to an EU budget but less clear what Swedes would benefit.

On the other hand, there are a whole lot of Euroepan countries who perceive themesleves as, and are, less wealthy than the EU at large. In these countries, social policies are hard to find because they are difficult to fund. An enlarged EU budget, and wider responsibilites for the Union, might well mean a great improvement for citizens' welfare in poorer EU countries.

In today's Sydsvenskan, the editor in chief notes that the collapsing bugdget talks will seem like a friendly chat compared to the upcoming talk about agricultural subsidies. Here enormous economical interests clash with strong ideological convictions, and it is a safe bet that Sweden and the UK will be on the same side against France again.

Crises come,a dn crises go - and the Union will survie also this row, of course. But if the counterparts in the same in row after row, the European Union might at one point seem like a confederation of wider regions, not a federation of national states. But maybe that is a natural development? It is interesting to ponder.

Sverigedemokraterna - more important than the suburbs?

Sweden is head­ing to­wards elec­tions, and a few minutes ago I watched the tow main con­tendands for the prime min­is­ter post, the socialist Mona Sahlin and the right wing Fredrik Reinfeldt de­bate our coun­try's fu­ture. It was a nice de­bate, where the journ­al­ist brought up a num­ber of in­ter­est­ing sub­jects. Half an hour in­to the pro­gram, she raised the top­ic of the situ­ation in the poorest Swedish sub­urbs.

Carl's hard choices

Swedish politics used to be easy - the right was pro-EU and pro-Israel. The left was more interested in the developing world and pro-Palestinian. But the times they are a'changing - I have blogged about the EU issue before, and with the Ship to Gaza tragedy on his hands, our

Stockholm and Brussels revisited.

Awkward. Maybe that's the best way to describe Sweden's relationship to the European Union. Last week the former Finnish prime minister Paavo Lippanen vented his spleen on Sweden, that unlike Finland chose to remain outside the euro zone. That is maybe not really fair of him - the Swedes who voted no to the Euro did it becasue they thought joining the euro zone would harm the Swedish economy. Lippanen probably thought that it would do the Finnish economy good, and not only out of his belief in the European project. Lippanen was especially disappointed with his social democratic counterpart in Sweden, Göran Persson.

Be it fair or not, Dagens Nyheter's liberal chronicle writer Michael Wolodarski agrees with Lippanens criticism of the Swedish social democrats. That probably comes easy to Wolodarski, but the writer is worried about the current liberal right government's luke warm attitude towards the euro. Prime minister Reinfeldt, who used to be a staunch euro supporter, has publicly expressed his doubts about the project, and seems happy to keep Sweden out of the current turmoil.

Picture from the European Parliament

For Wolodarski, who is more of a liberal ideologist than a politician this is incomprehensible.

Stockholm vs. Brussels - a new deal?

Greece's close-to-bancruptcy has rattled the EU. The seriousness of the situation is underlined by the magnitude of the answer that came form the EU finance ministers last week. The fantastic sum of 750 bn EUR is supposed to calm the markets, and to show how dedicated European leaders are to save the Euro. Only time will tell if it is enough.

Yesterday the European Commission announced that a whole number countries, among them Sweden and Bulgaria did not meet the requirements to joint the Euro zone. Estonia did meet the criteria, but this looks more like a polite way of saying that the Eurozone has more than enough of its own problems right now. One of this problems is obviously the different economic realities in the different euro zone countries - and each new member state will make the divergence even bigger.


Image by irene

In spite of headlines talking about the collapse of the Euro, both Bulgarian and Swedish politicians have stated that they are looking to join the Eurozone, which seems suidical at a first look.

Free schools - a way to make the family matter more than the individual?

This is the third post discussing a trend I see in the Swedish education system, a trend to use public institutions to shield middle class Swedish citizens from foreign or native competition. In the first post I discussed the decision to charge non-EU students with tuition fees. In the second post I examined the new system of merit points, who unintentionally(?) discriminate foreign students. In this post I take a look at the primary school system, that probably never before in Swedish history has been so segregated as it is today.

If we follow the Swedish educational madness down to the earlier school years, the raison'd'etré

Merit points - a way to keep middle class schools pure?

In the last post I tried to explain the proposal to charge foreigns form outside the European Union with tuition fees. I also argued that it was unlucky, since it is unfair, and would would make Swedish universities less internationalized, in a time when they should become more.


Tuition fees for non-EU students is the wrong thing to do, but in isolation the arguments are somehow intelligible. Swedish universities do lose out one a lot of money from students who are rich enough to pay, but not smart enough to get scholarships, compared to universities in the Netherlands, the UK or elsewhere. And it is quite a problem for the vision of Europe that education costs so much in some places and is free elsewhere. Even more problmatic is that the relation between costs and high quality education is seldom straight forward.


Tuition fees, however, is just a part of a vision of education that is shared not only by the

Tuition fees - a way to keep Sweden Swedish?

I live in Sweden together with my Bulgarian girlfriend who is studying on the psychology programme in Lund, one of our dear country's most renowned sites of education. The education itself is no doubt high class, but God knows that not everyone was prepared to accept a foreign student when we came here. She, and to some extent both of us, have encountered endless obstacles and more red tape than we could ever imagine. and we have both seen a lot.

The university of Lund is well accustomed to exchange students studying master programmes, but the prospect of an individual from Bulgaria who wants to enroll in a Swedish university just like one of us was, and for many is still is, beyond comprehension. I liked to think that that the two of us are the forerunners of a true European, or even global, generation, and that university staff will eventually get used to a world where people don't necessary live in one country their entire life. Also, my own positive memories form Swedish universities made me benevolent, and a few years in more chaotic countries has induced in me a profound respect for the Swedish kind of law-abiding bureacracy.

Maybe I was naïve, but five months ago I didn't interpret these obstacles as any institutionalised racism. But the recently announces decision to ask non-EU student for tuition fees made me suspicious, and the recent schism between our minister of higher education Tobias Krantz and Högskoleverket - the Swedish university authority , made my innocence look embarrasing.


The issue at hand is that mr. Krantz has proposed a system where foreign students are accepted

Refugees hostel attacked in Southern Sweden

This morning, right before 05.00 a fire was discovered outside a hostel for refugees in Vellinge, a neighbouring village to Malmö in souther Sweden. The night was rainy, and a police officer stoically commented "a fire doesn't start by itself in this weather".

I have recently written about this story. It goes like this:

• Due to unknown factors many refugge children come to Sweden without their parents.
• Most of them arrive in Malmö, because it is the southernmost entrance point to Sweden. (Most likely someone is paid to take them to Sweden, and drops them of once they cross the border)
• Malmö can't find places to host the refugees, and have asked neighbouring municipalities to help.
• Most of the neighbouring municipalities don't want to help Malmö, unless they get money from the state. The state mumbles something about human rights, responsibities etc. but without money on the table nothing happens.
• Vellinge has a very outspoken mayor, who has told all media that he will not take over any problematic refugees from Malmö...
  
• Malmö eventually paied a private company to host the refugees. Guess where the hostel is situated...
• in Vellinge. A huge scandal occurs. The official Vellinge yells about their right to rule as they want, and that Malmö didn't inform them about the hostel. The rest of Sweden more less hypocritically accuse the Vellinge inhabitants of racism. Plenty of normal people who happen to live in Vellinge are embarrased and frustrated by the whole mess.

 And this night some racist tried to set the hostel on fire.


I find the whole story utterly disgusting. Putting the blame entirely on Vellinge is missing the point. After all, 15 Swedish municipalities make exactly the same statement as Vellinge, but they are not stupid enough to boast about it in the papers.

Thus, the whole story has developed into a power struggle between the state, Malmö and Vellinge, who all use these people who decided to come to Sweden for their political means. the traaditional "blame game" as we know it from Bulgarian (or other) politics.

In Bulgaria the politicians at least had the decency to argue about waste, in stead of treating real people like waste. But obviously that was a bigger crime in the European eyes. The European Comission has recently started a trial against Bulgaria over its garbage disposal in Sofia. Bulgaria has protested, and I must agree...  How about starting a trial against Sweden over its  refugee "disposal" in Malmö/Vellinge.

As any modern state Sweden has an obligation to defend human rights of all people staying on its territory. Swedish authorities now shamefully fail in safeguarding the most basic human rights of the refugees, including the 3rd article - the right to live.

The  UN's declaration of human rigths begins with statint that "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights". I see no freedom. I see no equality. And most of all I miss seeing dignity.


Further reading:

If you read  Bulgarian, the situation of paperless immigrants have been discussed also in the Bulgarian blogsphere recently:


http://svetlaen.blogspot.com/2009/11/blog-post_09.html
http://svetlaen.blogspot.com/2009/11/blog-post_15.html
http://svetlaen.blogspot.com/2009/11/blog-post_17.html

Welcome to Sweden

I remember last summer, laying on a beach at the Bulgarian Black Sea cost and spelling my way through an entire Kapital saturday issue. The topic of the issue was the waste-war between Sofia's mayor Bojko Borisov and the premier minister Sergei Stanishev hat raged on and on until Borisov replaced Stanishev as he leader of the Balkan country.

The problem in Bulgaria at the time,  was that the city Sofia produced much more waste than it could digest. Stanishev said that this was Borisov's fault, Borisov blamed Stanishev etc. Sofia wanted to dump the waste somewhere else, but no one wanted to accept the waste. Of course. Eventually a solution was found, where the waste is taken to the village Shishmanci where it will be processed in the European way.

I dont't think this story showed the gentlemen from their best sides, but unfortunately they arenot alone. Here in Sweden the same drama is now unfolding, only that the argue is about people treated like waste, and not waste given political significance.

Malmö is the biggest city in southern Sweden, and the obvious point of entry for refugees coming to Sweden from the continent. Lately there has been a great influx of children without families, for reasons that I don't know. The radio this morning said the number of single refugee children are currently around 90.

These kids come to Malmö, are put in a hotel, where they are supposed to stay for some days until a more suitable long-time housing solution is found. Unfortunately, finding a such solution have been a nightmare for the Malmö municipality. Eventually they hired places by a private company in the care business (otherwise working with mentally disabled, for example), in a smaller town nearby called Vellinge.

The Vellinge local politicians object and say that they don't want any refugees kids there. This is Malmö's problem, that Malmö should solve. One could mock the right wing mayor*, usually a staunch market fundamentalist, for messing up with what a private company in his municipality does. But unfortunately his socialist competitors agree with him on this issue. Citizens have also protested to show that they don't want anything else than blonde kids with rich parents playing on their streets.

This is one of the scary aspects of immigrant policy in Sweden - there is a conservative consensus spanning over all the biggest parties that ensure that exactly this policy is not affected by elections.

What is not scary, but shameful, is the narrow mindedness of the Vellinge politicians. Vellinge happens to be one of Sweden's richest municipalities, i.e. one of the richest in the world. They don't have any social problems compared to other places in southern Sweden like Malmö or Landskrona. They have 3,6 % unemployment when the national ratio is 8,4 %. If vellinge can not afford to help these children, who on earth can?

The protests show the great Western misunderstanding that everyone comes here, as if these 90 children were all refugees in the world. The greatest numbers of refugees still live in very poor countries neighbouring their home countries, and we are simply helping out, as little as we can.

The scandal that is now played up in national media is a huge disgrace, not much different from the Bulgarian waste scandal.  But we are talking living, vulnerable children, that need any help they can get. But at least we are processing them in the European way...

*We don't really have mayors in Sweden, but I use the word for convenience. He has a similar position.

Stockholm's cheapest latte

I spend my mornings in front of the radio these days. Just minutes ago, a journalist told that a caffe latte costs only 10 SEK (1 EUR) in the Swedish parliament café. In a normal café, including at the universities a similar beverage would cost three times more. Why? Because the parliament staff have ordered the café not to charge more for the latte... originally they wanted cheap  lunches, but that is unfortunately forbidden by law.

I don't know if the café is open for citizens in Stockholm... if anyone can go there for a cheap caffe latte, I guess it isn't corruption...

In Sweden everyone pays one Euro  for their coffe. The homeless get 1,5 dl brewed coffee for their euro, the members of paliament get 3 dl latte.



Picture from Flickr, by avlxyz. License: Share Alike

Justice po Shvedski

Imagine that you have a dad that tend to end up in problem with other people. Imagine that he one day ends up beating another guy up pretty badly, but you don't know if he attacked or defended himself or when the defense became an attack... Bad things happen, don't they? I guess most of us would be able to forgive our dad also this. We might even accept that he has to spend years in jail. But could you imagine that you and your entire family would to go to jail for what your dad had done?

Readers that have vivid memories of Eastern Europe under communist rule, including today's Moldova, might not have too big difficulties imagining even this. But who would imagine that this is happening in Sweden. The year is 2009.

The story has caused quite a lot of media attention in Sweden, more about that later. Recently Maciej Zaremba, a polish born Swedish journalist I hold in high esteem, published an article about what is definitely one of the most rotten juridical scandals in Sweden in modern times. It is called "Another view of Vojakkala".

The village Vojakkala is located in the very very north of Sweden, were people don't speak Swedish but a dialect of finnish called Meänkäli . As you might well imagine, this place is surrounded by myths about men who drink vodka and kill each other with knife from time to time. There is no chance for any police to know what actually happens there. So who would be surprised by a feud between neighbours? That's what those people do, isn't it?

Yes, there is a feud. On the one hand we have the odd family Grönfors. On the other hand a mafiotic group of villagers that claim that the Grönfors destroy their village, and therefor during years have boycotted them. The Grönfors' have not been able to shop in the store in their village store, or to fix cars in the village for years. Because they are... Grönfors.

13 May 2008 one of the neighbours, let's call him S, parked his car outside Grönfors house.S hated the Grönfors more than anyone else did. Strangely enough had gone to some length to hire the house next to theirs.

He walks out of the car and gets beaten down by Allan Grönfors. With an axe. This gives Allan eight years in jail. Fair enough I guess. Allan's sisters get eight months of jail for protecting him, and his brother and father gets 6 years each for planning and helping Allan. In Sweden you get 10 years for murdering someone, but the family Grönfors are sentenced en masse to 22 years of jail. Almost "a 25er" with Solemnization's words.

And after all there are som worrying details. The fact that the murdered S shows up in court with a bandage but as live as I am writing this might indicate that Allan didn't really try to kill him. If you try to kill someone with an axe and fail your a pretty lousy murderer. Allan said that he was afraid and acted in self defense. The two guns and 36 bullets found in S's pockets might indicate he was not there for a cup of coffee.

The Grönfors were not a normal family. Allan had problems with communicating with people and preferred to communicate with animals. The only person he could related to was his mother. The mother died and was buried in Finland. Allan used to travel 350 km every day to visit her grave.

Those who need a word for it say that he had Asbergers syndrome, a light for of autism. Everyone knew that Allan was odd. But if you left him alone he didn't trouble you.

Also S had a history, of course. He was not supposed to be on the spot at all, actually. The police had banned him from coming anywhere near Grönfors, after a serie of verbal attacks and threats. For example he put up loudspeakers next to Grönfors house, saying that he had take his mother from the grave and what he had did with her. Etc. etc.

S was maybe the most active in the anti-Grönfors camp. But he was not alone. A mafia of local shop owners backed him. On internet forums like this it was discussed on how the Grönfors should be dealt with.

Interestingly, none of the close neighbours, except for S himself have had any problems at all with the family.

This could have been just a tragedy. But in stead it turned into a scandal, when the court put some strange sense of "order" above law, and refused to listen to the defendants. It preffered to listen to an angered local opinion that wanted someone punished. An opinion that was served exactly what they wanted by mud crawling local and national media.

This story left such a bad taste in my mouth. It is a shame for Sweden, a country with a good reputation in other European countries. A reputation we owe to people like Zaremba.
Maciej Zaremba is one of the few that has stood up in this case. Not for Grönfors, but for justice. The family was not punished for the crimes committed but for who they were. They were Grönfors. And they were roma.