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“How
do you regard the Swedish?”, asked a Stockholm reporter to the then
English Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher: “Neutral”, was the reply.
The
key word is “lagom”: there is not a precise equivalent in Italian for
this word, but its meaning could be conveyed with the words “la via
di mezzo” (the middle course): neither embrace one cause nor the opposite,
in short no excesses, in judgements, in work, in feelings.
In
the Sixties, Jean Luc Godard shot Masculine/Feminine here: “I am back
from a nation made up of six million zombies”, he said as he got home.
It is not easy to tell you about “ the middle course “, but I can try.
Strange but true, you may think you know almost everything about Sweden,
but you hardly get to read anything about the subject. There are no
translated essays available, and the bibliography available in English
or French is poor.
The
“Swedish model”, socialism combined with capitalism, sexual freedom
and equality, functionalism in design, were used between the Sixties
and the Eighties as the official slogan in the political and ideological
confrontation involving intellectuals, political parties and trade unions.
These
concepts did not displease the communist and socialist left wing, which,
thanks to them could avoid the idea of economic failure of state socialism
and parade the role of a “non-bourgeois architecture”; neither did they
displease the Christian-Democrat and/or republican centre, eager to
convey a more modern public image, sensitive to the needs and to the
protection of the weak. They were opposed by the right wing, which regarded
as blasphemy the concept of a guardian-state, planning your life from
the cradle to the grave, and viewed sexual equality as an eccentric
idea.
An
unhappy people, made up of suicides and alcoholics, was the overall
concept. Deep in the years of terrorism, with all the related emergency
and militancy machinery, emerging into the following years with a return
to the private sector and to a quest for welfare, the Swedish model,
no longer exciting, was set aside.
The
first film on sex education, Ingmar Bergman’s arrest for tax evasion,
Ewa Aulin naked at the cinema, Olaf Palme’s murder upon leaving a cinema,
the Abba’s triumph on a stage, the Volvo’s triumph on the roads, resurfaced
and mixed like flotsam from different wrecks... We started feeling again
the flavour of Sweden in the Tangentopoli period, but it had a bad taste.
The welfare state was about to collapse: unemployment rate 14%, the
Social Democrats turned out of the government, National Debt 80 % of
GDP. At the beginning of the year 2000, the news coming from Stockholm
described a country with a 4% rate of growth, twice as high as in the
rest of Europe, a 6.5% unemployment rate, the lowest in the continent,
and an inflation rate not exceeding 2%.
Still,
the Social Democrats are again the ruling party, and the Swedish Welfare
continues to be a reference point, so much so that the average Italian
views this country as Wonderland. So what has changed in Sweden, and
to what extent? And how much and how can economic formulas alter a life
style, a growth model? Setting aside interested mythologies, what is
it that makes this country a unique specimen, to be paraded but hard
to imitate? Lagom, the Swedish would say, the middle course, in fact.
Out
of nine million inhabitants, there are a million immigrants, and half
of these come from ex-Yugoslavia, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon. The
Swedish society, which used to be ethnically homogeneous and monolingual,
has now become multiracial.
They
had their share of tension and xenophobia, especially in the early Nineties,
when the economical crisis peaked, but in the course of time the mechanism
of reception, introduction, integration and protection was oiled to
perfection, the Swedish being masters in the art of organisation. Grants
for ethnical press, radio and television programmes in foreign languages,
educational courses from the secondary level... Respectful and equalitarian
as they are, in the field of rights the Swedish are irreproachable.
They tend to be short in feelings, but that is their nature.
Sweden
is the third largest country in Europe, after France and Spain, but
it has an extremely low population density. They are used to being on
their own. The Internet boom, “the capital of Europe” according to Newsweek,
also makes sense form this point of view: isolated, well-read, with
an excellent command of the English language and an education system
which favours science and technology...
In
the year 1900, there were more telephone sets in Stockholm than in London
and Berlin. Today, 60% of bank transactions is conducted on-line. The
change from the agrarian to the industrial society resulted in the disappearance
of the patriarchal family and of the village: against the risk of fragmentation
and in order to maintain a strong collective link, towards the end of
the Twenties, Albin Hansson, Social Democrat leader and subsequently
Prime Minister in the inter-war years, theorised in their place “the
common home, where there are no privileged or underprivileged people,
sheep and goats! Equality, cooperation and assistance are the prevailing
concepts. Sweden for all the Swedish!”.
Two
years ago the daily newspaper Dagens Nyether disclosed the forced sterilisation
programme involving, between the Thirties and the Seventies, approximately
63,000 Swedish regarded as socially useless individuals: mentally retarded,
insane, alcoholics, handicapped, epileptics. Even though a modern and
leading country, only 14% of the Swedish politicians are below 35 years
of age.
But
on the other hand, 40% are women, as are half the ministers. The Premier
is the Social Democrat Goran Persson and his is a minority government,
supported form the outside by the Left-Wing party and by the Green party.
Compared to the elections for the previous four-year period, he has
lost 10% of the vote, dropping from 45.3 to 36.4, the lowest popularity
rating in the history of the Social Democrat party. He will probably
regain ground with the next elections, in 2002. Persson learned from
the mistakes of Ingmar Carlsson, his predecessor who was defeated at
the beginning of the Nineties. No trumpeting, no promise or threat of
“tears and blood”. At the beginning of the decade, Carlsson announced
an austerity programme: no right to strike for two years, wage, price
and rent freeze. Electors voted him out and gave preference to Carl
Bilt and the Centre-Right. When the latter tried to cut back on the
Welfare State, he was dismissed too.
Persson
negotiates, cooperates, he regards the Government as a team. To the
Left-Wing party, which asked for a reduction in working hours, he offered
additional days’ holiday instead, and in this way settled the problem.
He can rely on the support of the trade unions, in January he will denationalise
the railways, as was previously done with the postal services, but 60%
of city-owned enterprises remain. On the other hand, state industry
is only 5%, and this shows that, from an economic point view, Socialism
plays a very insignificant role in Sweden. Taxation on private income,
which can reach 56%, the highest in the world (whereas taxation on businesses
is in line with the European average levels), a liberalised economy,
sound infrastructures and the influence of the new economy are the factors
which have enable Persson to overcome the deadlock of the economical
crisis. Indeed, each attempt to affect Welfarism has had electoral repercussions,
and whatever was cut back on one day, somehow reappeared the next day.
The
Swedish preferred to be hit for money rather than having to question
a system they were used to and which they identify with. So, although
they have slimmed it down, they have obtained 360 days’ leave with 80%
pay per child, two weeks’ holiday for the father upon the birth of a
child, health care and care for the elderly, unemployment benefits,
home allowance, etc. By the new year, Sweden will take over the presidency
of the European Union, and this will enable it to gather its breath
after the Danish refusal had rekindled an anti-union attitude which
here represents the majority.
At
least until the year 2004, a referendum is out of the question.
The
Swedish will remain outside the Euro zone, but will benefit from the
unified market for exports. In short, neither too involved, nor too
near the edge.
Again
and always lagom, the middle course.
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