Zeke: "Dear foreigner..."

Dear foreigner,

As you’ve probably already noticed, Sweden is amazing. If you’re a tourist, that is. For refugees it’s like every other place; not home.

In any case, I’m a weekly columnist here at Nyheter24 and English isn’t my native tongue so bare with me ‘cause I’m going to give it a 3500 character try to explain Swedishness.

On the positive side I’m proud to say that Swedes are genuinely friendly, consistently polite, intellectually tolerant, technologically advanced, utterly creative, cautiously well-dressed and have a far higher beauty average than most other European countries. Alongside these, in themselves impressive traits, it’s also worth mentioning that we were among the last countries to let a right-wing extremist party in to our parliament. Our economy is not nearly as fucked up as yours probably is, our politicians negligibly corrupt and our legislative as well as enforcing powers are pretty OK. Really fucking far from being great but better than most.

So, plenty of reasons to visit Sweden, to invest in Sweden and to say swell things about Sweden. But, if you’re considering moving here I feel compelled to balance the image of Sweden a bit.

There lurks a disappointing surprise in the shadows of what’s Swedish, a hidden feature it takes years to understand. There is no term for it in anthropology books, no description of it on Wikipedia and no slang expression to refer to.

It’s represented by popular bloggers and respected journalists and all of them embody this abject but yet so defining Swedish attribute. The ugliest corner of the Swedish soul is her self-righteous and condescending way of relating to her opposites, it’s her self-proclaimed right to judge the ones that wouldn’t follow her lead. And there it is, the only possible deal-breaker I can offer. The Swedes’ notion that whatever they’re doing is so right that they’re entitled judgment superiority over the rest of the world. Is not racism ‘cause it’s not ethnic and it’s not stupidity ‘cause Swedes are educated and intelligent.

I find these crusaders of The Only Truth utterly boring. Maybe it’s because I have a natural disbelief for people that claim the interpretative prerogative. Or maybe I just hate their smug smiles on the cover of magazines only built to sell the notion of perfection that is so totally dishonest, so phony in its core, that it becomes a doctrine of lies I would kill to keep away from my kids. Or maybe it’s because their message lacks substance beyond superficial accomplishment.

Let’s call it cultural intolerance.

It manifests itself in the lack of sub-cultural movement, in the politically correctness that paralyses all true debate and it’s obvious in the cultural consensus hysteria that cripples everything deviant.

Sweden is utopia on the verge of becoming dystopia, a place so shiny it risks becoming blindingly ugly.

With that having been said, let’s not disregard Sweden as a whole. These men and women (mostly women, errand girls for the 21st century patriarchy*) don’t represent all things Swedish. How could they? They are not real, they are idealized and modernized Barbies for the digital masses. Idealized mostly by themselves, that is.

The only thing that stands between Sweden and true perfection is a ghost.

* Thank you Quetzala for the insight.