It is scary and very serious. It is nothing but scary and very serious. And I find it almost impossible to wrap my head around.
I am born eleven years after World War Two. I grew up during the Cold War in a skinny neutral country squeezed in between Nato and the Soviet Union. And the sound of the brown shirts and boots marching on the European Continent was still echoing. World War Three was hanging as a brownish-yellow nuclear cloud over us and the horrifying and unreal stories from Germany and Poland were still told and all too real. The Berlin Wall was built, it was cruel and evil times, but the worst of it had passed and there was also an awakened hope for a new and shiny future.
Still, a scenario where the Wall was chopped into fragments and torn down by people with their own hands was impossible. As the Soviet Union falling into pieces. Unthinkable. But it happened. A different world took shape as the buses with people wanting to face history still made their stops at Auschwitz and Treblinka. We would never forget. We would never ever forget.
A week ago there was the election for the European Union. The Union feels distant to a lot of people close to the Polar Circle. Distant in geography but also when it comes to politics. What are they doing down there in Brussels? What has it got to do with us? It costs us a lot of money and do we get anything out of it? Opinions which are understandable although I am not defending them.
Imagine my surprise watching the news this week hearing a French woman in Paris expressing the exact same feeling: “Brussels is so far away, I feel it has very little to do with us.” Therefore she didn't vote. I was stunned I have to say. So, who feels close to the European Union? And, of course it explains the low voters participation most everywhere in Europe.
In the 2010 election for the Swedish parliament the voters participation was 84,63%. The EU election a week ago drew 48.7% to the polls which was more than the average in the Union, 43%. It is still way too low though, only every other Swede found it important to have a say in the EU.
But Sunday evening when it turned out the Sweden Democrats, a nationalistic party with racist and fascist overtones, had done their job very well and won 9,7% of the Swedish vote, I am sure there were Swedes regretting their passivity when it comes to EU. As well as in most of Europe. As the French woman in Paris expressed it in the news story: “In hindsight, I should have voted.” Front National took 25,4% of the French vote.
Because it wasn’t only in Sweden the nationalistic party grabbed a large portion of the vote. It is happening most everywhere, and with much higher numbers, Sweden is thank God still only a little player in this dreadful game. But I would say we are in a bit of a chock. It wasn’t until the Swedish election 2010 we had a nationalistic party in the parliament. Sweden had been the naive innocent thinking it couldn’t happen here. But it did. It did happen.
During the broadcasted election evening a week ago there were numerous reports from around Europe showing nationalists marching. I am watching it, but I can’t take it in. There is a large number of angry young men without work and memories from what we promised never to forget, acting in frustration. But waiving from the top of the parties are also middle aged blond women who simply should no better. Who’s parents and grand parents are linked to a time when nationalistic, racist and fascist movements caused the most horrifying memory in mankind. Did they forget to tell? How is it possible that these women, mothers and daughters 2014 in the ultimate time of stories, information and communication don’t know better? No, I can’t wrap my head around it.
It might have been in the late nineties. My actor friends Matt and Elizabeth had a couple of actors from Russia staying with them as they visited Seattle for a few days. We were all sitting at their dining room table chatting, when one of the guests asked a question. He was upset. Why was there a statue of Lenin in Seattle? They had been in Fremont during the day, and there is no way missing Lenin while walking through the neighborhood. It is one of those statues shipped all over when Soviet collapsed. It’s big and it’s real.
Fremont is an arty neighborhood, at that time even funky. My friends tried to explain the character of the place and that the statue was a little bit of a joke. The Russian actors didn’t see the fun in a former Soviet Lenin statue in Seattle, and I could understand them.
I am a Swede, and I grew up in Sweden. The little skinny neutral country squeezed in between the former Soviet Union and Nato. At that table that evening I felt the outcome of that. And squeezed in again. I knew about the Lenin statue of course, and to be honest it always made me a bit uncomfortable. I could absolutely understand the humor in it, the joke, looking at it with my Americanized eyes. But that evening at that table I felt the Russian actors pain and emotion, Lenin in Fremont was an upsetting incomprehensibility to them. I could relate to that. I had been living close enough. But that time was over, thanks God.
2014 Vladimir Putin is on a mission to restore the old Russia. There are unsettling things going on not too far from here. Experts say he is probably looking at the Baltic countries too. I see it. I hear it. But I can’t take it in. A war-like situation so close to here hasn’t happened since I was little girl. I have clear pictures of Prag August 21 1968, the frightening reports on the radio breaking up the Swedish late summer greenery. It can’t be for real what’s happening now? But it is. As the brown shirts are, marching in Europe. And I just can’t wrap my head around it.
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