Swedish Press Magazine - Kooking With Karl Blog

GUNILLA EKBERG AND HOW BUYING SEX BECAME A CRIME IN SWEDEN.
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Sweden in India.
MARCH 2009
Vol. 80: 3
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Next issue deadline: 20 March 2009
If you are following my virtual trip
"Around Swedish America in 365 Days"
(at nordicway.com) you know that I am
virtually somewhere in Minneapolis right
now. In reality I am hard at work in
Vancouver getting this issue out to you.
I say this because there are still some
readers who think that I am actually doing
the trip in person. They would be surprised
to know that when I wrote about the manhunt for the Mad Trapper of Rat River (on
Day 22 of the trip) I was actually doing it
from India (-see pages 16-19 and 23).
That is the beauty of modern telecommunications - that you can publish a magazine
or on the web from absolutely anywhere in
the world albeit, in my case, with a few
technological problems that were quickly
fixed by a more computer-savvy daughter.
Right now I am wondering if the virtual
tour should make its way back to Vancouver on May 9 for the celebration of the
80th anniversary of Swedish Press. As you
can see on page 8, we will celebrate this
important jubilee with a commemorative
issue and a banquet. We very much hope
that you, dear Reader and Supporter, will
join our guest of honour, Ingrid Iremark,
Sweden's Ambassador to Canada, on this
special occasion to pay tribute to Swedish
Press. Welcome to the banquet! And if you
would like to send a congratulatory note to
the paper, please fill in the coupon on page 4.
This will be the third time your present
editor is participating in a jubilee celebration and in all likelihood this will be the
last. So we hope to see you there. We have
some great memories from the last two
celebrations and this one will be the one to
top them all!
Most jubilees come and go as a matter
of course. A celebration is just a way to
remind us of the passing of time. In the
Swedish Press March 2009
Over 1600 participants registered to ski
either classic or freestyle cross-country skiing at the Mora Vasaloppet in East Central
Minnesota on the second Sunday of February. The morning temperature was 15 degrees
above zero, which made for a fast track and
good conditions. The 80th participant in the
59K ski race to reach the finish line at the
37th annual Vasaloppet was Chip Gerdin of
Minnesota and Wyoming. “The conditions
were excellent,” he said. The virtual Trip
Around Swedish America (below) passed
Mora on Day 49. Photo by V. S. Arrowsmith and
drawing by Lennart Österlind.
case of Swedish Press there would be
nothing to celebrate if the publication had
not proved itself over and over again and
managed to stay alive!
There have been over 2 000 Swedish publications in North America through the
years. Now there are only 2 left. So a celebration is really in order.
Have a nice March!
PS.
Anders
You can read about singer
Alice Babs' anniversary on page 30 and
purchase her Jubilee Edition CDs with 28
newly discovered and previously unreleased tracks on page 36 (the back cover).
3
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by Maestro
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On the Occ
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Anniversar
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on
RSVP
s
Door Prize
There have been more
than 2000
Swedish papers
in North America.
80
Now there are only 2 left.
So let’s celebrate
the 80th Anniversary
of Swedish Press!
Please mail to Swedish Press, Box 4302, Blaine, WA 98230 USA. or
Swedish Press, 1294 West 7th Avenue, Vancouver BC V6H 1B6, Canada
Swedish Press 80th Anniversary Dinner
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ThisMonth
As a major fan of Henning
Mankell’s Kurt Wallander detective series,
it was extremely interesting to read in the
January Swedish News about the real-life
exploits of a pyromaniac who has been
keeping the residents of Ystad in fear for
the past four years. As the Wallander mysteries are set in Skåne and specifically in
Ystad, I wonder if the authorities have considered asking Mankell to allow Wallander
to get involved in solving this case?
My wife and I always enjoy reading the
Swedish Press, relying on your online SweMail translation to understand most of hard
copy text printed in Swedish. Eric Bender
Kirkland, Quebec
Nu har vi förlorat en svensk
till, en som jag tror alla
grabbar var stolta över specielt
på 50-talet. När Ingemar gålva
Floyd så jobba jag i koppargruvan i Britannia Beach och
då svällde nog bröstet lite
grand för nu hade vi en svensk
tungviktsmästare. Vilken kille eller kanske
jag får säga kålle, han var ju götebogare.
Nog har det varit många goda svenska
idrottare men men Ingemar är en som man
inte glömmer. Sankte Per blir nog glad att
ha dig Ingemar Johansson.
Karl Sundin
Abbotsford
Födelsedagar i mars 2009
Kathryn McKay, 16 år
Erica Munsterman, 15 år
Isabella Allgurén, 5 år
Caroline Petcu, 11 år
Martin Abrary, 10 år
Marley Axelsson 9 år
Martin van Laetham, 8 år
Jessica Lee, 16 år
Madeleine Ericsson, 10 år
Karin Andersson, 16 år
Beau Asplund, 15 år
Hugo Nickoloff, 5 år
GRAT
TIS!
6
7
12
12
17
18
21
25
28
29
30
30
Kids love to see their name in print. Let us
know when your children and grandchildren
are celebrating their birthdays so we can include them on our birthdays list - a Swedish
Press tradition since the 1940s. Ed.
Swedish Press March 2009
On the cover: Archipelago bound boats at the Nybro
dock. Photo by Preben Kristensen/Stockholms Visitors Board and courtesy and © ImageBankSweden.se
1
Swedish News: Saab cit loose by General Motors
9
Tennis match behind closed doors
10
In focus: Criminal gangs and their “collection service” 12
Henric Borgström: Penningrullning lönas mer än vård 13
Lent Bun Traditions
16
Sweden In India
17-19, 23
Interview: Gunilla Ekberg on prostitution laws 20
CompanyFile: Percy Barnevik’s Hand In Hand
23
Treats a la Liz and Anders Treiberg in Victoria
27
LastWord: Karl Oskar var inte typisk av J-E Strömbäck 34
Regular Features First of all 3 Skämttecknare 12 Picks 6-7
First page news 9 Glance 10 Focus 12 Swedes in the news 13
Local 14 Tradition 15 Business 22 Sport 25 Treats 27 Landskapsnyheterna 28 SwedenNow 30 Calendar 31 Ads&Info 32
Your article “The Postal
I had the opportunity to
attend the Swedish American Chamber of
Commerce, San Francisco Business Mixer
on February 11th. The venue was the wonderful Local Kitchen and Wine Merchant
restaurant in the financial district and the
guest of honor was Swedish actor Andreas
Wilson. He is a talented and attractive
actor from Sverige who has starred in Jan
Guillou’s Ondskan (Evil), and is currently
filming in San Francisco…as well as being
an Abercrombie and Fitch model.
I spend my time learning Swedish and
watching Swedish movies to further my
own “själv utbildning”. I read in the Swedish
Press’ April 2008 issue an interview with
Jan Guillou about his movie. I promptly
ordered the movie from NETFLIX and
was very moved by the powerful performance by Andreas Wilson.
Anyway the restaurant was a lovely wine
bar…too lovely!! I arrived early with a
friend and sampled MANY wines and by
the time Andreas arrived, I’m afraid I wasn’t as eloquent as I would have liked to
have been, but he was patient and listened
to my “dåliga svenska” and even posed for
a photo (above). Darren Roth Vallejo CA
History of Sweden” (Jan09) prompts us to
share this story with you: In 2008 we set
out to locate some of my wife’s relatives &
history. We traveled to Borås one evening,
stayed at a hotel before setting off to track
down her relatives. The next day we set
out, even with a GPS, on this adventure. It
should have taken us only a very short
time to arrive at their address. However,
not familiar with how Swedish addresses
are determined we soon found ourselves
lost. The GPS attempted to get us back on
course; however, this stubborn Swede kept
going another way. What I am saying we
just got lost. The address we were trying to
locate was XXXXX Varnum, Hokerum
00000 Sweden. We were attempting to
search out “Hokerum.” After well over an
hour of being lost we came across two lovely
ladies who were out for a walk. We showed
them the address, said we were looking for
Hokerum. They replied very nicely, you
don’t want Hokerum, you want Varnum.
As these lovely ladies were attempting to
give us directions, a Postal delivery man
drove up. One of the ladies asked if he could
direct us to where we were going. “OH
YES” he said. I deliver to these folk and I
am heading that way. Have them follow me
and I will get them there, and he did. He
was a such a friendly person and a great
credit to the postal authority of Sweden.
We now tell our friends, this is the first
time we have been delivered to a mail box,
in a car, directed by a postal delivery man
in a foreign country.
Richard & Phyllis
Brynteson Rockford, IL
5
SwedishPicks
Intelligent?
Classic Cars
Car manufacturers need all the support
they can get right now, and that is maybe
why Sweden Post produced a series of
well-known car models from the 1940s
to the 1960s. These were all cult cars that
people were passionate about, like the
Volkswagen 1200 "Beetle", the Volvo PV
444, the Cadillac Coupé de Ville, the
Citroen DS that was fondly called "the
toad" in Sweden, the 1966 Mustang and
the all-Swedish favorite, the Volvo
Amazon (above). No Saab in the series?
Breaking the Stigma
Mental illnesses can affect persons of
any age, race, religion, or income. They
cannot be overcome through "will power"
and are not related to a person's "character"
or intelligence. But because of the stigma,
people often conceal symptoms and fail
to seek treatment. It takes real courage
from someone like hockey player Daniel
Alfredsson (above) to speak out. He is
one of the most valuable hockey players
in the NHL and now he is part of a
campaign by the Royal Ottawa Foundation
for Mental Health to combat the stigma.
Mental illness is an issue that has affected
him personally as his sister, Cecilia has
struggled with generalized anxiety
disorder for the past eight-years.
Verkligen?!
Äntligen har det svenska skatteverket – av momsskäl – bestämt vad livsmedel är för något: “Som livsmedel anses
alla ämnen eller produkter som är avsedda att ätas eller rimligen kan förväntas
ätas av människor.” Alltså om det som
man köper i mataffären uppfyller denna
definition gäller 12% moms, om det å
andra sidan inte “rimligen kan förväntas
ätas av människor” är momssatsen 25%.
Tryggt att veta.
Sthig Jonasson
6
Stockholm has been chosen as one of
the Top Seven Communities of 2009 by
The Intelligent Community Forum, ICF.
The other communities on the list are
Bristol, Virginia; Fredericton and
Moncton, New Brunswick; Eindhoven,
Netherlands; Issy-les-Moulineaux, France
and Tallinn, Estonia. One of these will be
picked as the Intelligent Community of
the Year on May 15 to replace Gangnam
District of Seoul, South Korea.
“In the mid-90s, Stockholm, the economic
and political capital of Sweden, established
a company called Stokab to build an openaccess fiber network. Today, the 4 500
km network connects more than 90
competing service providers to government
and business customers. Though the city
already has a 98% broadband penetration
rate, Stokab will also provide FTTP access
to over 95 000 low-income households in
public housing by the end of 2009”
writes ICF in its citation.
Butiks
Svinn
En svensk tvåbarnsfamilj betalar
2 500 kronor extra varje år för att butikerna
måste kompensera sig för stölder och
svinn. Varje dag sker det 55 000 snatterier
och stölder i svenska butiker. Det är lika
många som polisanmäls under ett års tid.
Bara 1% av alla butiksstölder upptäcks.
De vanligaste varorna som stjäls inom
dagligvaruhandeln är kött, kaffe,
batterier, godis och hygienprodukter.
Stölderna i svenska butiker har börjat
öka. Efter en nedåtgående trend under
flera år började de återigen öka 2007.
Sverige har störst butikssvinn i Norden
och satsar minst på att motverka det.
Enligt Svensk Handel uppgår butikernas
svinn till drygt 12 miljarder kronor årligen,
varav 9 miljarder är från kundstölder och
resten interna stölder.
Swedish Press March 2009
SvensktPlock
Den svenska älgstammen
har krympt och det är främst de stora
ståtliga tjurarna (nedan) som minskat i
antal. Brist på äldre älgtjurar ger i sin tur
klena kalvar. Situationen är så allvarlig att
både Svenska Jägarförbundet och forskare
vid Lantbruksuniversitet slagit larm.
En för låg andel tjurar i åldrarna sex till
nio år kan bli förödande för älgstammen.
Om tjurarna inte når upp till sina bästa år
kan det störa kornas brunstbeteende. De
tackar nej till unga halvfärdiga tjurar och
väntar på de äldre och ståtligare hannarna
som de föredrar. Följden blir att de betäcks
allt senare på säsongen, kanske först vid
andra eller tredje brunsten. Följaktligen
föds kalvarna allt senare på våren och får
sämre vikt eftersom de inte hinner växa
till sig under sommaren.
Den helt dominerande dödsorsaken bland
älg är jakt. Under älgjakten dödas ungefär
en tredjedel av alla älgar i Sverige, vilket
förra året innebar cirka 80 000 älgar. Så
älgtjurarna blir i genomsnitt inte äldre än
två till tre år. Men sina bästa år når tjuren
biologiskt först efter ytterligare ett par år.
Det finns studier som tyder på att unga
tjurar inte har lika god spermakvalitet
som de äldre och att de får färre kalvar.
I dag består den svenska älgstammen av
160 000 till 200 000 djur. Det är en
kraftig minskning sedan åttiotalet, då
stammen beräknades uppgå till cirka 300
000 älgar. Den nedgången har genomförts avsiktligt, eftersom älg kan orsaka
stora skador i både skogen och i trafiken.
Swedish Press March 2009
What is Art?
While the art world is still discussing
whether graffiti is art, Magnugs
Nugstafsson got a passing grade for his
student project when he graduated from
the Konstfack art school in 2008. His
two minute long film, Territorial pissing,
features a masked graffiti artist splashing
masses of paint in front of a crowd of
metro passengers. The artist also then
breaks a window. The number on the car
is also visible, as is the fact that it is
stopped at a station, meaning it was in
traffic during the recording. Two copies
of the vandalism video have been sold
for a total of 65 000 kronor. The buyers
are a Finnish art gallery and an elderly
collector from Norway.
A “scientific” essay by the same
student contains two pages with the text
“bla-bla-bla”. The essay also includes the
student’s views toward critics of graffiti:
“If it costs society so damn
much, screw cleaning it up.”
The Stockholm county
transit authority SL is now
seeking 100 000 kronor in
compensation from
Konstfack and is
also demanding an
apology. The film and
another project has also
sparked outrage from the
Minister of Culture,
Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth.
No longer so private ...
Some quaint details from the private
diaries of King Karl XIII have recently
been disclosed in an article in the magazine
Populär Historia. Tucked among the
ruminations on the duke’s travels, military
duties and experiments in alchemy carried
out in his own laboratory, there are small
illustrations of the male reproductive organ.
The sketched penises appear to coincide
with sexually productive moments in the
duke’s life. For example, accompanying
an entry relating to a concert on October
10th 1785 is a sketch of a single penis.
After attending an oyster supper later that
month with his wife, Hedvig Elisabet
Charlotta, Karl XIII has thrown in two.
The diary entries are from May to
October 1785, a time when Karl XIII was
37 years old and still a duke. He acceded
to the throne in 1809 at the age of 60. He
died nine years later, having suffered a
stroke shortly after becoming king.
Tyhe King (above) was talked about as
having a whole harem of mistresses, including
noblewomen such as Augusta von Fersen
and Mariana Koskull and singers and
actresses such as Charlotte Eckerman.
The leather-bound volume was passed
on to school principle Anders Nyström by
his mother, who received the book as a
gift in the 1950s. It was when he read an
article about Karl XIII in Populär Historia
that he took a closer look at the diary.
7
A Swedish court has granted automaker Saab's request for protection
from creditors while it tries to mount a
survival plan. The move comes in the
wake of Saab being cut loose by its owner
General Motors that, itself facing mountainous debts and an uncertain future,
refuses to continue funding Saab's losses.
In a plan submitted to the U.S. Treasury,
GM said the Swedish company would
become an independent business as of
January 1, 2010. Earlier GM had warned
that Saab would have to file for bankruptcy
protection unless it received help from the
Swedish government, which in turn flatly
refused to step in and rescue the auto maker.
GM bought 50 percent of Saab in 1990
and acquired the rest 10 years later. According to some reports it could pump $400
million into Saab if the Swedish government
guaranteed loans of $590 million. Many
analysts believe such sums would be far too
little to turn Saab around, and they question
whether the brand has a realistic future.
Late last year Sweden said it would provide its vehicle industry with up to 25 billion crowns in aid to help it through the
global economic crisis, mainly in the shape
of loan guarantees. Besides giving Saab
access to these, the Swedish government
has emphatically ruled out rescuing the
auto-maker in any other way, fearing it will
set a precedent. Swedish officials have also
repeatedly resisted efforts to nationalize
Saab. Instead Industry Minister Maud
Olofsson, who has been sharply critical of
GM's decision to let Saab go, has suggested
that the company’s technological knowhow could be put to use in more in-demand
sectors such as wind power.
Once renowned for its cutting-edge technology and futuristic designs, Saab has in
recent years suffered from an aging product
line and plunging sales. In the fourth quarter last year, Saab's sales nosedived 38 percent to just 17 900 cars. The company has
registered chronic losses over the past 20
years. It made a loss of SEK 3 billion last
year and expects a similar loss this year.
Saab employs about 4 100 people in
Sweden, 3 700 of whom work in
Swedish Press March 2009
SAAB CUT LOOSE BY GM - NOW RESTRUCTURING
Trollhättan. Including suppliers, some 15
000 jobs in Sweden are believed to be at
risk if the unit disappears.
Sweden's two carmakers are a source of
pride for its citizens, having helped shape
Sweden's image abroad with their focus on
safety, family motoring and high engineering standards. The future of Volvo is somewhat secure even though it has been put up
for sale by its owner, Ford Motor Co.
Saab came to life as part of Svenska
Aeroplan, a company founded in 1937 to
build military planes. The first Saab cars
were built after World War II. Known for
quirky vehicles with ignition in the floor
and a griffin insignia, Saab became a more
conventional brand under G.M. It borrowed
the underpinnings from some of Opel’s cars
for its lineup, which includes sedans, wagons and a sport utility vehicle.
A court approved restructuring in Sweden
is similar to bankruptcy protection in the
United States. Under Swedish law, the reorganization is a self-managed process headed by an independent administrator
appointed by the court who will work closely with Saab's management team to present
a proposal to creditors within three weeks
of the filing. During this period, Saab said
that it will continue to operate "as usual and
in accordance with the formal reorganization process, with the government providing some support during this period".
The 2008 Saab 9-5 with Saab’s Griffin
symbol (inset)
A reconstruction usually entails an
arrangement through which creditors agree
to write off a portion of the company’s
debts. The agreement must however be
approved by a certain percentage of creditors before coming into force. While a
reconstruction takes place, creditors can’t
request that company’s assets be seized or
that it be put into bankruptcy proceedings.
Restructuring will allow parts of Saab to
survive and could enable suppliers, who
would lose all the money owed them by the
company if it filed for bankruptcy, to get
some money back by agreeing to accept
partial repayment.
How this will pan out will depend very
much on what kind of agreement the two
main players, the Swedish government and
GM, can come to and what kind of interest
there is in Saab among investors and potential buyers.
"Even though we have not been actively
searching for new partners, we have had
many knocking on our door showing interest in Saab," says Saab CEO Jan Åke
Jonsson. "With an all new 9-5, 9-3X and 94X all ready for launch over the next year
and a half, Saab has an excellent foundation
for strong growth, assuming we can get the
funding to complete engineering, tooling
and manage launch costs."
9
News at a Glance
TENNIS MATCH BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
Malmö City Council has decided that the
upcoming Davis Cup tennis match between
Sweden and Israel will be held behind
closed doors. The decision follows a vocal
campaign against the match in protest
against the situation in the Middle East.
"We have made a judgment that this is a
high-risk match for our staff, for players
and for officials," says the chairman of the
sports and recreation committee of Malmö
City Council, Bengt Forsberg. The match was
scheduled to be played from March 6th at
Baltiska Hallen which holds 4 000 spectators.
A "Stop the Match" campaign has been
underway in Sweden since Israel's offensive in Gaza erupted last December, and
thousands of demonstrators were expected
to rally outside the Baltiska Hallen during
the match. The match between the two countries
hit the headlines in January when a prominent Social Democrat in southern Sweden
likened Israel to apartheid South Africa and
Nazi Germany in calling for a boycott.
“Israel is an apartheid state. I think Gaza is
comparable to the Warsaw ghetto,” said
Ingalill Bjartén, the vice chair of the Social
Democratic women’s organization in Skåne.
VÅRD BLIR SKULDFÄLLA FÖR BARN
En ny lag ska skydda barn från att
skuldsättas av sina föräldrar. Men Kronofogden varnar för att tiotusentals minderåriga faller utanför därför att lagförslaget
reglerar inte skulder till landstingen för
obetalda vårdavgifter.
Antalet barn i Kronofogdens register har
sjunkit, bland annat efter en tidigare lagändring som gör att barn inte längre kan tvingas betala parkeringsböter.
Hos inkassoföretagen låg 63 000 kravärenden gällande barn när kontrollmyndigheten
Datainspektionen gjorde ett koll. En stor
del av ärendena kom från landstingen och
landstingens bolag. Den övervägande andelen fordringar är från offentlig sektor. Det
gäller vårdavgifter eller kontrollavgifter i
kollektivtrafiken.
Inom de flesta landsting är vården gratis
för barn, men för uteblivna besök tas avgifter
ut av alla. Är vårdtagaren ett barn läggs
skulden på barnet om inte föräldrarna betalar.
Att skolfoton och bokklubbar kan bli en
skuldfälla för barn är känt sedan tidigare.
Snart omöjliggörs det genom den nya
lagändringen som innebär at föräldrar inte
kan handla så att barn sätts i skuld.
10
MINORITY LANGUAGES TO BE PROTECTED
The Swedish government has pledged to
do more to preserve and promote the country’s official minority languages.
Since 2000, Finnish, all Sami dialects,
Torne Valley Finnish (meänkieli), Romani,
and Yiddish have been given special status
as national minority languages in Sweden.
In a referral presented to the Council on
Legislation, the government proposes a new
law for national minorities and their languages, as well as changes to the Sami parliament law and the laws governing social services.
Minister for Integration and Gender Equality
Nyamko Sabuni wants to ensure that people who want to use Finnish or Sami in their
dealings with the five major state agencies the Tax Agency, the Social Insurance Agency,
the equality and discrimination ombudsmen, and the Office of the Chancellor of
Justice - should have the right to do so and
be made aware of that right. She also wants
the agencies to make an effort to hire
employees who are fluent in the languages
while other agencies will be urged to at
least have employees who can speak
Finnish, Sami, and Torne Valley Finnish.
Sabuni also wants to impress upon municipalities to ensure that children of national
minorities have a chance to learn and use
their own languages. Local authorities also
need to do more to inform the minorities
about their rights and give them opportunities to participate in the political process.
According to Sabuni part of the problem is
that municipalities often confuse national
minorities with ethnic minorities. While,
for example, five children are needed for
ethnic minority language instruction to be
Ethnic minorities are not part of the proposed
national minority language law. Photo and © Bengt
af Geijerstan, Bildhuset courtesy ImageBankSweden.se
provided, only one child is needed for the
same service to be provided when it comes
to national minorities.
POLICE ACADEMY REPORTS ITSELF
The National Police Academy, Polishögskolan, has reported itself to the police after
details of a culture of racism at the school
have been brought to light.
The allegations emerged in an article in
Dagens Nyheter featuring a man dubbed
"Ahmed" who is a student at the academy.
He was born in the Middle East and came to
Sweden as an infant. He claims to have
never experienced racism of the kind that
he endured while at the police academy,
maintaining that several teachers deliberately obstructed the education of students
with immigrant backgrounds.
Last month a video recorded during unrest
in the Malmö suburb of Rosengård also
provided evidence of the use of racist and
abusive language by several police officers.
RISKFRI DISKRIMINERING
Krogar som misstänks diskriminera
vissa etniska grupper blir sällan dömda,
eftersom det är svårt att bevisa att någon
verkligen utsatts för negativ behandling.
Om någon för att säkra bevis filmar händelsen blir själva det faktum att de diskriminerade förutsett diskrimineringen ett argument för lägre skadestånd. Det är innebörden av en dom i Högsta domstolen mot en
grupp juridikstuderande som filmat när några
av dem nekades att komma in på en krog.
Swedish Press March 2009
CHEATERS EXPELLED
The number of students expelled from
Sweden’s colleges and universities for
cheating jumped by nearly 30 percent last
year, according to a new study. A total of
398 students were expelled in 2008, compared with 310 in 2007.
All of the country’s public colleges and
universities as well as three private institutions were included in the study, which was
carried out by Sveriges Radio (SR).
It is generally believed that universities
and colleges have become better at detecting cheating. The use of various computer
programmes that reveal copying from the
internet has increased.
The school where cheating has increased
the most is the Royal Institute of Tech-nology (KTH) in Stockholm, which disciplined 32 students last year, up from only
nine in 2007. At the other end of the spectrum, the Royal College of Music in
Stockholm and the University College of
Opera haven’t had a single meeting of their
respective discipline committees to investigate a cheating case in more than 10 years.
The most common cheating cases involved students copying from the internet
without citing the source of the information.
But unauthorized collaboration between
students, as well as cases involving the oldfashioned method of sneaking notes into the
exam room were also discovered last year.
SWEDISH STUDENTS SLIPPING
Swedish students still perform above average in the majority of international studies
conducted over the last 20 years, the
Swedish National Agency for Education
(Skolverket) has concluded. But performance has declined and Swedish students are
falling behind.
Sweden is above average in reading comprehension in all the surveys. In the natural
sciences Sweden had been above average in
all the studies until 2007 when it fell below
in one of them. In math Swedish students
are currently above or average in all studies.
More News:
First Page News
News in Focus
Swedes in the News
Swedish-American
Business News
Sport
Landskapsnyheterna
Swedish Press March 2009
9
12
14
15
22
25
28
The Social Democrats and party leader
Mona Sahlin are slipping in the polls
NEW LOW FOR SOCIAL DEMOCRATS
The opposition Social Democrats now
have the lowest level of voter support since
the 2006 general election, according to a
new poll. 36.7 percent of those polled
would vote for the Social Democrats if an
election were to be held, which is the party's
lowest result since the election in
September 2006. However the tripartite
opposition still maintains a 7.4 percentage
point lead over the Alliance government.
Another party losing support is the
Christian Democratic Party clocking in at
3.4 percent, which is below the four percent
threshold required for representation in parliament. The party is overtaken by the farright Sweden Democrats who have the support of 4.1 percent of the electorate.
SWEDES FLEEING POLITICAL PARTIES
Political parties in Sweden continue to
lose members. Five of the seven parties represented in the Riksdag lost a total of 9
000 members last year. The Moderate Party
was the biggest loser with a drop of 6 400
members. The party’s membership has
dropped by 20 percent, to 54 858 members,
during the last two years. While the Social
Democrats also continue to lose members,
the rate of attrition has levelled off since
2007 when the party shed 19 000 members.
Only 519 more left the party in 2008.
The only party to gain members last year
was the Green Party whose membership is
now at 9 110.
The downward spiral in the membership of
the traditional political parties started in the
early 1990s. Since then, the number of people with a membership in political parties
has been cut in half. At the same time,
smaller political parties, not currently represented in the Riksdag, have been attracting a growing number of members. The farright Sweden Democrats added 400 members to their lists last year and now have a
membership of 3 300. The Pirate Party has
also made substantial gains but then all that
is required to become a member is the click
of a mouse in the party’s homepage.
SOLID SUPPORT FOR NUCLEAR POWER
According to a new poll, six of ten Swedes
are in favour of building new nuclear power
plants. A majority of supporters of all four
of the centre-right governing Alliance parties, as well as a majority of Social Democratic
voters, support the government’s recent
reversal of the decades-old policy of phasing out nuclear power in the country.
It is only among the supporters of the Green
Party and the Left Party that a majority is
against building new reactors.
The center-right governing Alliance
recently revealed its new energy policy
reversing an earlier goal of phasing out the
country's remaining 10 nuclear reactors by
2010. These reactors provide half of
Sweden's electricity. Additionally, under the
new plan, the use of fossil fuels as a heating
source will be abolished by 2020, and
Sweden's entire vehicle fleet will be independent of fossil fuels by 2030.
BANK CREDITS TO NAZI GERMANY
Swedish finance minister, Ernst Wigforss,
approved secret Swedish bank credits to
Nazi Germany in 1941, according to documents which were recently uncovered in a
filing cabinet at the finance ministry.
The loans of 40 million kronor, a large
sum of money in those days, served to
increase Swedish exports to Nazi Germany
which, according to some historians, was of
far greater importance than opening the
country's borders and train lines for the use
of German troop movements, something
Wigforss was a renowned opponent of.
Ernst Wigforss, who died 30 years ago,
retains a revered place in the hearts of many
in the Social Democratic party. He was
vocal in his criticism of the prime minister
and Social Democrat party leader, Per Albin
Hansson, for allowing the German Division
Engelbrecht transit through Sweden, thereby assisting the Nazi invasion of Norway.
The diary of the then head of the Riksbank, Ivar Rooth, indicates that both he and
the Swedish foreign office (UD) held strong
reservations over the bank credits which
would enable Germany to supply less goods
to Sweden in return for iron ore and other
materials crucial to the war effort.
The approval of the bank credits meant
that Sweden avoided demands from Germany
for direct Swedish state aid and that Swedish
boat yards could continue to build vessels
for Nazi Germany's navy. The credits were
the first breach in Swedish resistance to
Nazi Germany's demands and appear to
have been given without much coercion.
11
In Focus
CRIMINAL GANGS
-Va, har du Fahrenheit?
-Ja, hurså?
-Är inte det en killparfym?
-Ja, men jag gillar ju killar. Tyvärr är det inte
så ofta jag kommer nära dem, men sä här
kan jag lukta på dom hela tiden,
-Fast de vill att du ska ha tjejparfym, det
attraherar dem.
-Varför har de inte på sig det själva då?
-Men snälla, då skulle de ju inte ha någon
anledning att jaga tjejer!
Svenska SKÄMTTECKNARE #145
Kajsa Ekis Ekman är en journalist
och bloggare som skriver fantastiska texter
som denna som illustrerats av den skickliga
grafikern Maja Sten. De representerar en ny
generation som arbetar i många olika media.
media.
The worsening economic times could very
well be working to the advantage of
Swedish criminals. According to Swedish
police, the collection services run by gangs
are thriving, and are now often also used by
regular businesses. When conventional collection does not produce results, the brutal
tactics of the gangs seem to do the trick.
Very often the people who are asked to pay
up are innocent victims who comply with
the demands made by the gangs without
contacting the police, preferring instead to
just forget about the unpleasant encounter.
Despite this, the number of blackmail cases
reported to the police has almost tripled,
from around 600 cases a year in 1998 to
1,715 cases in 2008. Of the thousands of
cases investigated by police only seven
have resulted in charges. (And this may be
the reason why this crime category has
grown substantially more than all others
during the last few years).
One such successful case involved a construction company, with several projects in
Gustavsberg, outside Stockholm, that had
been forced into bankruptcy as a result of
the economic slow-down. Electricians,
painters and other construction workers
were left high and dry, without work and
without being paid for the work they had
done. Enter the Red & White Crew, a subgroup of the Hells Angels, that took on the
task of collecting the money owed to the
Välkomna till svensk gudstjänst i Vancouver!
Söndagen den 26 april kommer Anna Runesson från Svenska kyrkan i
Toronto till Vancouver för att fira svensk gudstjänst. Gudstjänsten
hålls i Danska kyrkan i Burnaby och börjar klockan 16.00.
Om någon önskar dop eller vigsel under besöket är ni välkomna att
kontakta Anna. Hör även av er om ni skulle vilja ha hem- eller
sjukbesök.
Anna Runesson, arb: 416-486-0466; mobil: 905-818-0230.
Hemsida för Svenska kyrkan i Toronto: www.svenskakyrkan.ca.
För er som vill läsa mer om Svenska kyrkans utlandskyrka
(tidigare känt som ”SKUT”) går det bra att titta på sidan
http://www.svenskakyrkan.se/ (klicka på ”Samhället och världen”
och sedan ”Utlandskyrkan”).
Hjärtligt välkomna!
construction workers. Just before Christmas,
one of the gang members phoned the owners of the company telling them that there
was no way they were going to be able to
walk away from the outstanding debt, and
that they would have to pay up from their
personal assets.
The three owners of the company contacted the police before arranging a meeting
with the gang in central Stockholm. The
police stormed in and five gang members,
aged between 21 and 26 years, were charged
for blackmailing.
There are a few other such success stories.
The leader of the Gävle chapter of Original
Gangsters is presently in custody for a very
aggressive attempted blackmail. A 33-yearold probational member of the Bandidos is
also in custody for attempted blackmail
against the owner of a construction company in Malmö. In Kristianstad a 29-year-old
member of Brödraskapet Wolfpack is in
custody for blackmailing a gambler whom
he dragged into a forest, tied up and assaulted with a knife and shot in the leg. In
Upplands-Bro a 25-year-old robber, connected with the Fucked For Life gang, managed to get a young couple to fork out SEK
100 000 by assaulting them and threatening
them with a knife.
Criminality has changed a lot in Sweden
during the last ten years. Crimes and methods that in the past were associated with the
mafia or foreign crime groups are now quite
commonplace in the country. Large-scale
cocaine smuggling, kidnappings, prostitution, robberies in the SEK 30 million league,
murder on demand, car bombs and automatic
weapon shootouts are no longer uncommon. Neither are bribes to prison staff and
other officials, or threats to witnesses, police
and prosecutors. It is however blackmail
cases that have increased the most - a
whopping 20% between 2007 and 2008 and the rate has in all likelihood accelerated with the recent hike in bankruptcies,
especially in the service- and construction
sectors, that are the favourite targets of gangs.
According to the recently published book
Svensk Maffia by Lasse Wierup and Matti
Larsson, there are some 10 major criminal
gangs operating in Sweden with some 75
local chapters. The largest group is the
Hells Angels, with chapters in Malmö,
Helsingborg, Bromma, Nacka, Gunnilse,
Karlstad, Göteborg, and "hangers on" chapters in Luleå, Norrköping, Eskilstuna and
Uppsala. The Red & White Crew and the
Red Devils belong in the Hells Angelsdominated sphere with fifteen local chap-
12
Swedish Press March 2009
ters. The members of these two sub-groups
are often aspiring to become full-fledged
Hells Angels, often doing the dirty work for
the big guys, whose main focus is money.
According to some ex-members, the reason
for joining the Hells Angels is for the camaraderie and the love of motorcycles.
The other big criminal group in Sweden is
the Bandidos Motor Cycle Club which, for
a long time, was in a war with the Hells Angels.
Bandidos have almost as big an organization as the Hells Angels with local chapters
in Helsingborg, Göteborg, Stockholm,
Säffle and Ludvika and six local "prospect
chapters". The Diablos, X-team, Loyalty
BFL and Evil Crew, with some 19 local
chapters, also belong in the Bandidos
sphere. This gang includes the most diverse
group of people including "neo-Nazis,
Latin Americans, Eastern Europeans and
people from the Middle East", and interestingly very few drive motorcycles.
The third largest criminal gang is the Outlaws Motorcycle Club with chapters in Stockholm and Åtvidaberg and two prospect
HENRIC BORGSTRÖM:
PENNINGRULLNING
LÖNAS MER ÄN VÅRD
Finanskrisen borde föranleda en
hel del omvärderingar. Men lönesättningen kommer nog att överleva också
den här krisen. Det går knappast att rucka
på den absurda värderingen av arbete.
Lägst avlönade är de inom vård och utbildning, i mitten finns de som arbetar med
prylar och högst upp i pyramiden återfinns
de som arbetar med pengar.
Men de flesta betraktar sig som sanna
humanister, inte som prylfixerade, inte som
pengagalna. Därmed borde väl lönepyramiden vara upp- och nedvänd, de som
ägnar sitt liv åt människor skulle ha de
höga lönerna, de som rullar pengar på jobbet få nöja sig med de låga lönerna.
Nu sätts dock löner efter marknadsekonomins principer, inte efter folks
moraliska känslor. I en marknadsekonomi
styr utbud och efterfrågan prissättningen
också på arbete, alltså lönerna.
I finansbranschen är utbudet av villig
arbetskraft stort, många studenter i ekonomi vill inget hellre än att sitta bakom flimrande skärmar som speglar värdepapper
eller försöka tillämpa teoretiska modeller
på vad företag egentligen är värda. Efterfrågan på arbetskraft till finansbranschen är
idag obefintlig under krisen och den var
inte särskilt stor ens före dess utbrott.
Swedish Press March 2009
chapters as well as the Rough Creed and
Black & White Crew with four local chapters. Brödraskapet Wolfpack was formed in
jail, but now has chapters in Västerås, Göteborg, Kristianstad and Stockholm. There are
also a lot of local gangs, often with an ethnic
identity, like Original Gangsters, Fucked For
Life, Chosen One, Tigrarna, Asir, International Criminal Elite and Werewolf Legion.
Groups and chapters change all the time
and over time, so they are not that easy to
track. Members often operate on their own,
with or without kick-backs to their gang. They
may choose accomplices from outside the
gang and the trend seems to be towards
"business trumping club loyalties", according to the authors of Svensk Maffia.
Every now and again gang warfare breaks
out somewhere in Sweden with shootouts
where innocent passers-by have narrowly
missed getting injured. In one incident a
bullet came through an apartment as two cars
were shot at several times. Last summer a
number of people were injured in what the
police believed to be a conflict between the
Enligt teorierna för marknadsekonomins
funktionssätt skulle därmed lönerna vara
mycket låga i penningens tjänst.
Då måste det väl handla om extraordinär
skicklighet när finansknuttarna toppar löneligorna. Men är det någonting som finanskrisen visat så är det bristande skicklighet
på alla nivåer. Det viktigaste i penningrullningens tjänst är riskbedömning. Ju större
risk desto högre avkastning. Obefintlig
risk, som t ex köp av statens obligationer,
belönas med lägsta avkastningen.
Men det är just här på penninghanteringens
allra viktigaste område som misslyckandet
har skett, allt från de högsta bankdirektörerna som vi ser högst i löneligorna ned till
kundrådgivarna bakom marmordiskarna.
Och ändå lär de få behålla sina höga löner.
En del av dem upplever en ny guldålder
som konsulter för att röja upp i det låneträsk som bankledningarna skapat.
Visst skär bankerna ned en del just nu.
Men det gäller bara i undantagsfall de som
mest bidragit till krisen, bankledningarna
och de entusiastiska försäljarna som på
bankernas nyspråk kallades analytiker
fram till IT-krisen för åtta år sedan och
sedan döpte om sig till aktiestrateger.
Att fallera i riskbedömning trodde vi att
bankledningarna var immuna mot, de som
ändå genomlevde den svåra fastighets- och
finanskrisen i början av 1990-talet..
Problemet är att många av de tongivande
i goda tider är 30 – 35-åringar med de bästa
Brödraskapet Wolfpack photographed
inside the Kumla prison in 1997
Bandidos, many of whose members are in
jail, and several other more loose-knit
nameless criminal networks whose members either have a common background or
have served jail time together. It is not easy
for the police to investigate these crimes
since there is often a strict code of silence
The Minister of Justice Beatrice Ask has
just kicked off a program that tries to identify vulnerable youth and provide them with
assistance before they are lured into gangs,
and conversely assist, and provide protection to, those who are attempting to leave,
or have managed to break away from, a gang.
betygen från akademierna, de duktigaste
räknemästarma rent tekniskt, men de saknar egen erfarenhet av tidigare kriser. De
som levt i medgång med höga löner har
dålig kunskap om hur problemen med
överbelånade kunder ska lösas.
Få känner sig medansvariga, det går ju
alltid att skylla på den amerikanska bolånekrisen och amerikaners och européers rädsla
inför framtiden. Men den omsorgsfulla kreditprövningen på hemmaplan, den glömde de.
Det finns naturligtvis en förklaring till att
finansfolket seglat genom ett halvt årtusende
med de högsta lönerna, de påstås ju fungera
som ett smörjmedel i ekonomin så att kapitalet
skickas dit det kan användas på bästa sätt.
Och allmänheten som betalar kalaset förblindas av sin önskan att tjäna ytterligare några
kronor på värdestegring. Därför tjänar finansfolket mer än teknikerna – men tänk om
teknikerna gång på gång hade misslyckats så
kapitalt att hela samhällsmaskineriet hotades.
Ändå tillåts finansfolket klättra vidare mot
de högsta lönerna medan vårdpersonalen
och skolfolket fortsätter i låglöneligan.
Kvar finns den obesvarade frågan – varför
ger vi inte mest till de som vårdar våra nära
och kära och utbildar våra barn.
Eller snarare – varför orkar vi inte ta tag i
det uppenbart absurda att finansknuttarna
har långt mer än dubbla löner jämfört med
dem som sysslar med våra liv.
Henric Borgström är mångårig ekonomijournalist i svensk press, radio och TV.
13
Swedes in the News
FLOP ON BROADWAY ① Peter Stormare’s
Broadway debut has been cut to pieces by
critics. “One of the worst revivals I have
ever seen,” says Ben Brantley of the New
York Times of Henrik Ibsen’s classic Hedda
Gabler, playing at Roundabout Theatre in
New York until March 29. Stormare as the
manipulative lawyer is described as having
“the hardy, thuggish air of a Russian mob
czar”. The cool reception has had a negative
effect on ticket sales and they are now being
sold off at a 40 percent discount, something that is highly unusual on Broadway.
One of Sweden's most accomplished actors,
Peter Stormare has performed leading roles
in Long Day's Journey Into Night, Miss
Julie, King Lear and Hamlet under the direction of the legendary Ingmar Bergman
at the Royal National Theater of Sweden.
But this is the first time in ten years that he
is back on the stage, more recently having
performed in several Hollywood films alongside actors such as Nicole Kidman, Matt
Damon, Chloë Sevigny and Willem Dafoe.
DEBUT ALBUM The Swedish pop sensation ➁ Lykke Li is getting rave reviews on
her North American tour in support of her
supple debut album, Youth Novels. The
free-spirited and multi-talented 22-year
old indie singer, who mixes electronic pop
and acoustic soul, has awed audiences
with her surprising, infectious charisma.
Lykke Li released her first album in 2008
and has quickly rose to international fame,
collaborating with artists such as Kanye
West, Santogold, Röyksopp, Q-Tip, as
well as Sweden's own Kleerup.
director for Sörenstam’s business brand
since December 2006. Before heading off
on a honeymoon ski trip, Sörenstam hosted the Annika Invitational, an American
Junior Golf Association event for 60 top
females around the world at the Ginn
Reunion Resort, where she has her academy. She also appeared at the PGA
Merchandise Show in Orlando, and was
later honored at the “Annika Celebration"
at Ginn Reunion Resort, which featured a
skins game among Sörenstam, Lorena
Ochoa, Paula Creamer and Natalie Gulbis.
PORN KING IN TAX ARREARS The “porn
king”, ④ Berth Milton, has been hit with
an 865 million kronor tax bill in a ruling by
the Stockholm County Administrative Court.
According to the Länsrätten, Milton earned
1.35 billion kronor in unreported income
between 1996 and 1999. “If I sold refrigerators, none of this would have happened. It’s
only because I’m involved with pornography,” said Milton who has vowed to appeal
the ruling. “They can’t handle that I manage
a pornography company in a legal manner.”
The investigation of Milton’s tax arrears
has dragged on for the past decade. The main
part of the lengthy judicial process has been
centered on determining whether Berth
Milton is required to pay taxes in Sweden,
even though, since the late 1980s, he has
operated his company from his residence in
Spain. In 1999, he took his adult entertainment empire, Private Media Group public,
making it the first porn company with a listing on New York’s Nasdaq stock exchange.
The portfolio includes four magazines,
DVDs, websites, and licensing activities.
ANNIKA INVITATIONAL Four weeks after
the Swedish golf star ended her Hall of
Fame career, ③ Annika Sörenstam wed
Mike McGee at Lake Nona Golf and Country Club in Florida. Annika’s Swedish
friend Maria Bertilsköld was the maid of
honor. About 125 guests attended the afternoon ceremony and evening reception.
McGee, the son of former PGA Tour player Jerry McGee, has served as managing
1
14
2
3
THE BIRGIT NILSSON PRIZE DEBUTS The
late Swedish soprano ⑤ Birgit Nilsson
herself picked Spanish tenor Placido Domingo to receive the first prize given in her
memory. The $1 million Birgit Nilsson Prize,
the biggest prize in classical music history,
will be handed out at the end of the year in
Stockholm. Nilsson, who died on December
25, 2005 at the age of 87, first sang with
Domingo at the Metropolitan Opera in 1969
in a matinee production of Tosca, after
which she praised his "superb" acting and
"gorgeous singing." Domingo meanwhile
once said in an interview that Nilsson's
recording of "In questa reggia" was one of
his all-time favourites, but added that "the
recording cannot compare to the sound I
heard when singing with her." Nilsson's
most famous role was that of Isolde in
Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde,
with which she took La Scala by storm in
1956 and established her credentials as
one of the 20th century's great Wagnerian
sopranos. Birgit Nilsson made her last
public appearance in 1984 and published
her autobiography La Nilsson in 1995.
INSPIRERAD AV FARMOR Årets kock är
➅Victor Westerlind från restaurang
Fredsgatan 12 i Stockholm som även kammade hem silvermedaljen genom kocken
Christofer Ekman. Bronset gick till Alexander Sjögren från Vendel Ales Stenar i
Kåseberga i Skåne. Förutom titeln fick
Westerlind Gastronomiska Akademiens
mejerimedalj i guld. Fem män och en kvinna tävlade i Lisebergshallen i Göteborg om
den prestigefyllda titeln Årets kock. Finalisterna hade fem timmar på sig för sina två
tävlingsuppgifter. Den första var att ur en
hemlig råvarukorg tillaga en kötträtt baserad på en kotlettrad av gårdsgris. Innehållet
i korgen fick de reda på 45 minuter i förväg. Den andra uppgiften, var att tillaga en
modern restaurangrätt baserad på sej, blåmusslor och räkor. Sin inspiration till matlagning hämtar Westerlind från tidigare
generationer. - Jag har vuxit upp med farmors matlagning. Hon var hushållslärare.
4
5
6
Swedish Press March 2009
Local News
WASHINGTON
N
O
T
E
S
Michael M. Wood, the U.S. ambassador
to Sweden (until January 20)
was honored during the Change
to Green seminar at the House
of Sweden for his great contributions to the field of green
technology. SACC Washington
DC presented Ambassador Wood with the
2008 Wilhelm Wachtmeister Award (a glass
bowl by Ingegerd Råman), in the presence of
Ambassador Jonas Hafström, representatives
from industry and government.
Ambassador Wood is being recognized for
his achievements especially with the program One Big Thing that he founded, which
so far has resulted in projects on both sides
of the Atlantic valued at between 150 and
200 million dollars.
N
NEW YORK
O
T
E
S
MThe Swedish artist and sculptor Carl
Köhler (1919-2006) worked in a modernistic tradition and often found his
motives in the world of theatre, music,
dance and literature. Right
now many of his portraits of
authors, like Joyce Carol
Oates (left) are on show at the
Brooklyn Public Library
(until April 4). “He was wellknown by art followers in
Sweden, but he was not as
well-known to the general
public” says his son Henry
Köhler who is the curator of the show. “For
this reason, I believe he would have been
honored to have the opportunity to display
his work here in New York”
N
OTTAWA
O
T
E
S
MIkea plans to demolish the east end of
the Pinecrest mall and build a new 37,000
square meter two-storey store that wil be as
big as 8 football fields. Ikea owns the entire
mall that it bought from Zellers in 1993.
From having the smallest Ikea store in the
country, the Ottawa store will become the
largest and one of the five largest stores in
North America.
Swedish Press March 2009
N
WINNIPEG
O
T
E
S
At our meeting in January, Sonja
Lundström did a presentation on Jokkmokk.
She was there for the 400th Anniversary
last year, and by the sound of it, she found
a "soul-mate" kind of town. Armed with a
map, brochures and a film, she told her
story about the town, the people, the events
and the winter.
She also demonstrated how to make ice
lanterns with balloons. Save this idea for
next year. It has to be really cold. Fill a balloon with water, blow a little bit of air into
it, and tie it shut. Place the balloon in a
snow drift, knot up, and pile a bit of snow
part ways up the side. The next morning,
pop the ballon and drain any water. Turn it
knot side down. That is now a flat bottom of
thick ice, and you should have an ice bowl.
Place a candle, tea light or cresset light in
your ice bowl, and you have your lantern.
When not in Jokkmokk, Sonja is a district
nurse, and as such, she meets all kinds of
people through her job and the university
nursing program. At the University of
Manitoba, there are maybe a half dozen
Swedes right now, and Sonja invited them
to come and hear her presentation.
Some Winnipeg Swedes went down to
Hallock, MN, to attend the funeral of
Phyllis Johnson, who passed away after an
accident on the ice. Phyllis was the mother
of Lyndon Johnson, who is our mandolin
playing, singing American who comes to
Winnipeg for so many of our events. He
plays at most of our midsommar fests, and
often attends our Christmas parties. Phyllis
had many friends in Winnipeg, and was an
active senior in Hallock, involved in the
Swedish community and a singing group.
She taught Lyndon and his sisters how to
sing, which he in turn brought to us, so we
have been positively affected by Phyllis.
Ellen Boryen
Swedish university students visited the
Scandinavian Center to listen to the Sonja
Lundström lecture. (Above) Lukas
Mustagarui from Uppsala) with the
Centre’s President Selma Parsons and
Carl Kjell from Halmstad and Elin
Andersson from Storvik near Gävle.
N
CANADA
O
T
E
S
“More than 500 manuscript pages of the
book Swedes in Canada have now been
written” reports researcher & writer Elinor
Barr. The Swedes in Canada project is her
baby and a recent newsletter is full of
enthusiasm. “There are only one-and-a-half
more chapters to go! The completed manuscript will be ready for the pre-publication
readers by March. I am grateful that five
people have agreed to share their expertise
by commenting on what has been written
and suggesting changes. My summer will
be spent fine tuning the manuscript in
accordance with their comments.
The book promises to be very interesting
and well worth waiting for, but don’t expect
to hold it in your hands until 2010 at the
earliest. There are many hoops to jump
through before a book finally goes to press.
A hearty thank you to all those who have
commemorated immigrants through our
Honour the Pioneers program. All entries
are now online. Please check our website at
www.swedesincanada.ca and report any
errors to Beth Boegh at boegh@tbaytel.net
so that they can be corrected. Beth, codirector of Lakehead Social History
Institute, is handling Honour the Pioneers.
Some of you may have received a letter
from Lakehead University asking for a
donation. These letters were sent in error,
please disregard them. All correspondence
from the Swedes in Canada project is written on our letterhead except for income tax
receipts which are sent out by Lakehead
University.”
15
LentBun Traditions
16
Swedish Press March 2009
Swe de n
in India
India is one of the most interesting
countries to watch during the next
decade. The ties between Sweden and
India have been strong since the independence of the country but also historically. Compared to the other BRIC
countries, Brazil and China, there is not
a huge presence of Swedes, with only
about 300-400 permanent residents in
India having Swedish citizenship.
However many times more Swedes
come every year as tourists, the majority
during winter to enjoy the wonderful climate and beaches of Goa and Kerala.
In the opposite direction Indians are
one of the biggest groups to have applied
for work permits in Sweden after the
introduction of new Swedish legislation
making it easier for non-EU citizens to
come and work in the country.
New Dehli
The capital of
India is going through a major make-over
in preparation for the Commonwealth
Games to be held there in 2010. There is a
new efficient Metro and even the old centre
at Connaught Place is slowly being spruced
up. New residential areas, complete with
amenities like hyper-modern shopping
malls reminiscent of Singapore, are springing up on what used to be the outskirts.
The biggest construction project is for a
new airport where Gita Ray has been hired
as General Manager of Terminal Operations.
She used to work for Sweden's Scandic
Hotels before getting interested in the airlines and eventually ending up running
operations at Arlanda Airport in Stockholm.
Gita feels that an airport should work much
the same as a hotel when it comes to
atmosphere, service and "community".
Her challenge now is to
make the Indira Gandhi
Airport into one of the
world's ten best airports.
This is one of the most
exciting jobs Gita (right) can
imagine, especially since her father
is from India. It has not been all smooth
going since the family - husband and
two children - have moved to Delhi but
Gita holds on to the Indian saying "what
doesn’t kill you only make you stronger”.
Swedish Press Match 2009
Writers
The Embassy
Alva Myrdal and Jawaharlal Nehru
In the newly
translated biography Alva Myrdal: The
Passionate Mind (Indiana University Press
ISBN 978-0-253--35132-6), Yvonne Hirdman
tells the "remarkable and dramatic story" of
the Nobel Peace Prize winner and welfare
state architect who was also Sweden's
Ambassador to India 1956 to 1961. "India
had been Alva's dreamland when she was a
girl, the country of her idol Tagore, the
place that had occupied so much space in
her thoughts". It was also the country
where she was to meet one of the special
people in her life, India's first Prime
Minister, since independence in 1947,
Jawaharlal Nehru about whom she later
drafted a document titled "A Love Affair
That Never Became A Love Affair".
It has been widely speculated that Nehru
had an affair with Edwina Mountbatten, the
wife of the last Viceroy of India, but there
is no evidence of anything more than a very
strong friendship with Alva Myrdal. Many
are the foreign ambassadors to India who
have with envy eyed the enormous plot of
land Sweden was able to acquire during
Myrdal's reign to build one of the country’s most beautiful embassies anywhere.
The Embassy, residence and staff quarters, set in a wonderful 40 000 square
meter park, were designed by the architects Sune Lindström and Jöran Curman.
The compound was inaugurated in the
presence of Jawaharlal Nehru in 1959
and the present Ambassador to India,
Lars-Olof Lindgren, is busy preparing for
the 50th anniversary later this year. The
Embassy also includes a trade office and
offices of the Swedish Development CoOperation Agency Sida.
Swedes have always
been fascinated by India. Authors like
Arthur Lundkvist (Indiabrand 1950) and
Jan Myrdal (Indien väntar 1980) have written very analytical books about the subcontinent. Swedish author Zac O'Yeah, who
lives in Bangalore has written a biography
of Gandhi (Mahatma! 2008), but also the
science fiction tale Tandooriälgen (The Tandoori Moose
2006) that plays out in a
Göteborg that has become
Indian and changed its name
to Gautampuri.
The premise for this rather
funny story is that environmental change has made Europe tropical
and, as a demonstration against the U.S.A.,
in a plebiscite, chosen to be a part of the
peaceful Indian outlook, rather than the
destructive western view of
the world. The novel begins
with detective Barsk, on night
patrol in Gautampuri's Masthugget blocks where the
Swedish native people live
with their old street signs,
deciding to go to restaurant
Tandoori Moose for a well-tasting bribe.
"The detective trail is solid, the satire
intelligent and the style sure-footed
throughout" writes one critic about this fun
➢➢➢
and readable book.
One of Sweden's foremost photographers
Rune Hassner (1928-2003) took the picture
of the girl in Mukmelpur in 1961.
17
Pune
Crown Princess Victoria donned a turban for
her trip, although no Indian woman wear it.
Bollywood
When Crown
Princess Victoria visited Mumbai ① last fall,
she not only met with India's most powerful CEO, Alan Rosling, who steers India's
biggest industrial empire, the Tata Group
(that had just presented its Nano car costing
less than $1 000), but also Bollywood star
Amir Khan (left). The
actor, director and producer who was born
into one of India's most
prolific film-making families, began as a
child actor. He had the leading role and was
the producer of Lagaan, that was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign
Film in 2001. The Crown Princess, who
had seen his film Tare Zameen Par, is a fan.
There were Bollywood-like dramatics
when Victoria was leaving New Delhi ➁ on
Jet Airways. A series of protocol slip-ups
led to a delay in boarding while passengers
on the waiting plane were becoming increasingly impatient. Just as the Crown Princess
and her entourage boarded the plane, the
flight crew announced that the flight had
been delayed to accommodate a Swedish
VIP whereupon the plane erupted in a chorus of boos. The airline later apologized.
The replica ship Götheborg visited Chennai
18
A lot of Swedish-Indian cooperation was started during Alva Myrdal's
time as Sweden's powerful ambassador to
India 1956-1961. In 1960 Lars de Jounge
traveled to Pune ③ in the Maharashtra province and started up Sandvik Asia Ltd.
Many other Swedish companies were to
follow, and when there was the annual
inter-Swedish group of companies sports
meet (that included games of cricket,
carom, chess, badminton, swimming and
table tennis), major conglomerates like
Sandvik, SKF, Atlas Copco, Tetra Pak, Alfa
Laval and Höganäs were represented.
There was strength in numbers and enough
Swedes to even start an all-Swedish boarding school at the "Princess of Hill stations"
④ Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu. The Swedish
School is no longer, but students still
remember it as a wonderful place that even
attracted "Farbror Sven" Jerring to conduct
one of his beloved children's radio programs "Barnens Brevlåda" at the school.
Bombay Works
An IT
consultant costs SEK 38 315 a month in
Sweden, but only SEK 6 394 in India. The price
difference is the driving force behind the IT
company Bombay Works, started by 30-year
old Gabriel Mannheimer. His and other
Swedish companies in Mumbai ① and
Bangalore ⑤ carry out IT projects at about
half of what they would cost to do in Sweden.
Expl;orers
Chennai is located
on the south eastern Coromandel Coast of
India, that was long a favorite of the
Europeans, with Portuguese, British, French,
Dutch and Danish settlements. Last year
the Swedish ship Götheborg visited Chennai
➅ on its trip around Asia. The ship is a replica of one of the Swedish East India Company ships that made some 132 very profitable expeditions with 38 different ships to
Asia, but never to the Coromandel Coast.
The Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus
helped to arrange passage for many of his
"apostles" on board East India Company
ships, but the only one that ever made it to
India was Olof Torén (1718-1753) who
stopped briefly in Surat ➆ in Gujarat on the
west coast of India in 1750 en route to
Canton in China.
Another Linnaeus connection comes in
the way of the British photographer
Linnaeus Tripe (1822-1902), who documented India and Burma in his pictures.
❷
❼
❶
❸
➎
❻
❹
Hand In Hand
Percy
Barnevik visited India for the first time in
1968 as CEO of the Swedish Sandvik company. After merging ABB, he raised the
company's employment in India from the
hundreds to 11 000. Later as Chairman of
Wallenberg's Investor company, the Astra
Zeneca pharmaceutical company and the
construction company Skanska, not to speak
of as a board member of Du Pont and GM,
Barnevik followed India's development closely. Today the legendary industrialist is spending part of the 148 million swiss francs he
got from ABB on the Hand In Hand charity (see CompanyFile page 23) that he leads.
Percy Barnevik champions India’s women
Swedish Press March 2009
Climate Change
The massive brownish cloud over India is
primarily caused by fires lit with fresh fuel
like wood and cow dung, according to
Swedish research. Until now what exactly
is causing the cloud has not been identified.
But according to Swedish researchers,
only a third of the cloud is caused by fossil
fuels like coal, oil and gasoline. Hundreds
of thousands of people in India die prematurely from lung and heart diseases that are
directly connected to the pollution. Furthermore the cloud contributes to climate change
and to the melting of the glaciers of the
Himalayas. This in turn leads to flooding
and in the long run a shortage of water in
large parts of Asia. Hence Swedish researchers
argue that it is important to provide alternatives to wood and cow dung and suggest
solar power as a good alternative.
Fluent In Swedish
Pink India
Lena Falk started Pink India in Bangalore
Lena Falk was a
buyer for the Swedish fashion retailer
H&M in India when she, in 2004, decided
to start her own line called Pink India. The
main reason for quitting her job was her
new Indian boyfriend and an imminent transfer to Indonesia. Lena set up her own factory in Bangalore ⑤, where she produces annual collections of women's fashions and interior decoration. She pays better than average wages and sells her brightly coloured
collection, famous for its embroidery, to ten
countries. Her main frustration, she says, is
that her producers are not very punctual
and that they, instead of being frank, tell
her what they think she wants to hear.
Swedish
There are two Swedish words used in
India - Ombudsman
and Bofors - but try to avoid the latter, as it
stands for scandal and bribery.
Swedish Press March 2009
Narayan Datt Tiwari (right)
is the Governor of Andra
Pradesh and one of India's
most experienced politicians.
The 83-year-old has been
India's Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Minister of Finance,
Minister of Planning, Minister of Industry
and Minister of Works, just to mention a
few of his important posts. And what is special about him is that he speaks Swedish.
While Alva Myrdal was the Ambassador
of Sweden in India, her husband Gunnar
celebrated his 60th birthday. It was no easy
task to come up with a birthday gift for this
professor in economics, minister of trade,
UN expert and the hailed author of An
American Dilemma and An Asian Drama
who had already received the ultimate gift
- the Nobel Prize in Economics. The reigning Social Democratic Party in Sweden
decided to give a promising young Indian
politician a six month stipend to study in
Sweden "in honour of Gunnar Myrdal". He
was delighted and after consultations with
India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru,
the man chosen for this visit was Narayan
Datt Tiwari who, at the age of 17, had spent
16 months in prison for working for India's
independence. The time in Sweden was a
time of great revelation for Tiwari. He travelled all over the country visiting Jokkmokk,
Gällivare and Kiruna in the north and
Lund, Malmö and Göteborg in the south.
And he became a good friend of Tage
Erlander and Olof Palme.
Namaste means welcome in Hindi and that is
how Mina Neumüller, Sumit Malhotra and
Cecilia Blomqvist feel in Delhi ➁ where they
work for the Swedish companies Oriflame,
Sony Ericsson and H&M respectively. Sumit,
who was born in Delhi, moved to Stockholm
with his parents at the age of 6.
Indiska
In Sweden Indiska, the
fashion and interior decoration retailer, is
as recognized a name as H&M and Ikea. It
started off as Indiska Utställningen in 1901,
with a certain Countess Hamilton setting up
shop with the spoils of her Asian shopping
spree. Half a century later the opera singer
Åke Thambert bought the store and modernized it. When the Beatles visited India
and flower power fashion became all the
rage, Indiska went through a rapid expansion and opened stores all over Sweden.
Pizza King
Swedish Iranian
Vahid Berenjian was a pioneer in the pizza
business in India and his US Pizza now has
65 franchised pizzerias on the subcontinent.
Tandoori pizza is one of the bestsellers.
Originally Vahid, who came to Sweden as a
22-year-old refugee, wanted to become a
dentist. He got bored with his studies and
bought a pizzeria in Enköping. His idea was
to franchise, but there were not enough takers in Sweden so in 1995 the family moved
to Bangalore ⑤ and opened its first pizzeria
there. Now Vahid Berenjian has sold 49
percent of US Pizza to the Indian Kotecha
Capital Group and is moving back to Sweden to introduce pizza baking in grocery
stores and open a "Pizza Training Academy"
in Enköping, where the saga began.
Vahid Berenjian plans to return to Sweden
19
Government Expert Gunilla Ekberg:
“Sweden is an exception to other countries
because we really have very few women in street prostitution.”
Gunilla Ekberg has been the Swedish
government’s Special Adviser on issues
of prostitution and trafficking in women
since 2001. She is also a member of the
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
(CATW)-Canada. She has a degree in
sociology from the University of Lund
and a degree in law from the University
of British Columbia. (Gunilla Ekberg
refuses to have her photograph taken).
How is prostitution defined in Sweden?
In Sweden, prostitution is officially acknowledged as a form of male sexual violence
against women and children. One of the
cornerstones of Swedish policies against
prostitution and trafficking in human beings
is the focus on the root cause, that without
men’s demand for women and girls for sexual exploitation, the prostitution industry
would not be able to exist. Prostitution is a
serious problem that is harmful to society at
large. Prostituted women and children are
seen as victims of male violence and so
they should not risk legal penalties. Instead,
they should have a right to get help to
escape prostitution.
How did the legislation come into place?
It started with the Swedish women’s movement in the beginning to mid-70s. I was
very young but I was in a consciousnessraising group in 1976 where there were
women who had been in prostitution and
there were other groups here and there around
Sweden. Then what the National Association
of Battered Women’s Shelters at that time
did every year when parliament, riksdagen
opened, was to give a list of demands to all
of the female parliamentarians. From 1986
among their demands they put that they wanted to see prostitution as a form of violence
and that purchasing it should be criminalized. There were three commissions, one in
1977, one in the 80s and one in 1995 that
were looking at how we could deal with prostitution and they came away with different
proposals. It is interesting how they progressed.
The third proposed to criminalize both the
men and the women. There was an outcry
not because of the criminalizing of the men
but the fact that this commission proposed
that the women were to be criminalized. In
Sweden there is generally speaking an understanding that those who are in prostitution
20
Interview:
have had a difficult life. That helped with the
understanding. There was not a large lobby
that was assuming that prostitution was work
like any other work. That made it easier. In
the 1994 election the Swedish women’s
movement had declared that either half of
all the electoral lists had to be women or we
were going to create a women’s party. So
that’s when all the parties decided to do the
every other woman thing and that shifted
from 27 percent women to 45 percent in
parliament. So issues that were concerning
women were much more talked about and
that’s what opened the discussion. We started looking at all forms of male violence and
prostitution came into that group. The law
that came into force on January 1 1999 was
a cross-party issue and that is important to
say. The decision was also a cross-party one
and the only ones who voted against were
the Liberals - Folkpartiet.
How is the situation in Sweden today?
There has been quite a sizeable decrease in
the number of young women and men who
are in prostitution. The latest research was
released on October 16 2008 by a reputable
researcher who has done other research on
this and this research says there are 600 women,
all in all, in prostitution and that includes the
women that are trafficked. The majority of
prostitutes in most countries these days in
the western world are women from other
countries. Perhaps there are more prostitutes
than the research has found but it is still a
very low number compared to our neighbouring countries. Sweden is an exception
to other countries because we really have
very few women in street prostitution, The
city where there are most women in street
prostitution is in Gothenburg. Stockholm
almost no-one. It of course depends on how
much the anti-prostitution forces and the
police will arrest buyers but in Stockholm
there might be one or two per night.
How did the enforcement work practically?
What the police did when the law came into
place was to first target street prostitution.
After three months there were almost no
men buying on the streets. 80 percent of the
men disappeared like this because they did
not want to be arrested. But now after those
three months the police are targeting indoor
prostitution. Prostitution can never go underground. That is one of the myths that those
who are for prostitution always want to
spread. Because if the pimps want to make
money they need to get in contact with the
buyers and the contact point is always open.
If I was a pimp I can put up little cards or I
can make a website. In Stockholm sometimes
they put posters on traffic lights with a cell
number and the police, of course, investigates these constantly, and they will follow
the trail of the buyer. Stockholm police say
it is very simple. And the simplest is on the
internet because it is so easy to trace any of
those transactions. Just two years ago we had
a huge case where all the prostitution, the
selling of the women and the purchasing of
the women went through three websites and
the police managed to take them down but
also find the pimp and find the brothels
where the women were sold and there were
1500 men who were identified in that case
alone. They were not all apprehended because
it was not possible to do that. We knew who
they were, we had their names, we had their
phone numbers. The problem in Sweden is not
at all the implementation or the enforcement
of the law because the police is very well trained now. So they are pretty much on the ball.
How has the prosecution side worked?
Until the end of October 2008 there were
1785 men who had been apprehended. Of
those men two-thirds have pleaded guilty. A
lot of men plead guilty because they want to
get out of there so they pay the fine and they
don’t have to go to court. If they are convicted
they get a criminal record and the judgements are public so you can go in and read
the procuring and trafficking judgements.
You see the pimps but you will also have
the men who buy identified, what they did,
who they purchased, how many times, how
much did they pay, their address, their social
insurance number etc. So men try everything
they can not to get on the register. The fines
are day fines - dagsböter so it is a percentage
of their salary. So if men don’t make a lot of
money they don’t pay a lot. We have had judges
who have paid quite a lot of money and corporate people who have paid up to 25 000
euros. We haven’t had any jail sentences.
Swedish Press March 2009
What other changes are necessary to
bring about a more gender equal society?
We need a better rape legislation. The problem with the one that is in place is that very
few rapists are convicted. In the UK legislation on rape they have what they call reversed
onus and that means that if a suspected
rapist says that she consented he has to
prove that she consented and so that relieves
the burden on her. There is a commission in
Sweden in place right now that is looking at
the rape law. I think we don’t need many
more laws. What I find is the difference
between Sweden and Canada when it comes
to judges is that here they have obligatory
education for judges because there is an
understanding that if you are a white middle
class middle-aged man you cannot understand the situation of an aboriginal young
woman from up north and so you need to learn.
A Swedish Police poster against prostitution
How did you get involved?
I have always worked on violence against
women. When I was about nine or ten my
parents and I went to Holland because there
was some exchange programme so we could
stay with a family and they wanted us to see
Amsterdam and they took us to the red light
district. I was too young so I could not put
words to it but I remember looking at the
women and thinking it was not right. It was
something that really stayed in my head and
I know that I was very unhappy and my
mother told me later that I cried a lot after
that. It had an impact. Violence against women
has always engaged me because I am privileged not to have been a victim myself. I
became a social worker. This is what I concentrated on in my political work. And I am
not talking party politics because I am not a
member of any party and I have never been
and I will not be. I am a feminist.
Which countries presently have similar
prostitution laws to Sweden?
On November 20 2008 the Norwegian parliament voted to have a similar law and it is
better. They have made a couple of changes
to the Swedish law. They have instead of
saying purchase of a sexual service they talk
about the purchase of a sexual act because
that takes it out of the business context.
They have expanded the law. Normally if we
want to prosecute somebody for a crime that’s
committed outside of Sweden that country
has to have exactly the same legislation.
Norway decided to remove this requirement
so now they are opening it up so they can
get at sex tourism. They have learnt from us
and they have decided to make it better.
Any changes in the rest of the world?
I travel a lot and yes there are small changes
here and there and there is more awareness.
I am the co-executive of a large international organization so I am mostly called upon
by many governments to come and talk about
and function as an expert, not only on work
we have done in Sweden but generally on
prostitution. I wish I could take the whole
Swedish population to some of the places I
have travelled to so that they could come
home and say how lucky they are. But you
can also travel and not see things. Think of
Thailand where so many Swedes go. People
don’t see the absolute abject situation women
are in. We have a country that has not been
involved in wars for so long, we have a
society where we have been able to develop
certain benefits for people even if they are
not independently rich and it is a society
that tries to find solutions. We are very pragmatic in Sweden. If we have a problem, we
don’t worry about the ideology. We fix it.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
I grew up in Skåne. I was born in Lund. I
have lived in Canada, in the United States,
Nepal. I now live in Brussels. I have a degree
from Sweden and then I did my law degree
in Canada. I never really wanted to practise
law. I wanted to write legislation, do legal
and policy work. My parents were not politically involved. This is my journey. My parents were regular workers. It was at the time
I was born that we had started having a
social welfare system, health care, access to
education without cost that I would not
have had had I grown up in Canada. We
could not have paid for the tuition. I am
extremely lucky that I grew up there. In
Canada higher education is very expensive
and it is not possible for everybody and that
it is really dividing class-wise society.
Swedish Press March 2009
21
Business News
ERICSSON CUTS JOBS
Telecom giant Ericsson is cutting 5 000
jobs, including 1 000 in Sweden, despite an
unexpectedly strong net profit of 3.9 billion
kronor for the fourth quarter of 2008.
Overall in 2008 Ericsson’s net earnings
fell 47 percent to 11.67 billion kronor from
sales that increased by 11 percent over 2007
to 208.93 billion. The company plans to
continue with the current round of cost
reductions, including cutting the number of
consultants and other temporary staff, consolidation of research and development activities, and layoffs, initially announced in
February 2008. The restructuring is estimated to cost between 6 and 7 billion kronor in
2009. When they have reached their full
effect in the second half of 2010, the costcutting measures are expected to save
Ericsson 10 billion kronor per year.
"We are the ones that have managed to stay
on a lead. I think we have a huge responsibility to take every measure to defend our position and make sure Ericsson stays a grand
company," said CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg
referring to Nortel, Motorola and Siemens.
PAWN BROKERS ON A ROLL
The economic downturn has created a
windfall for one of Sweden's main pawn
broker chains. Pantbanken Sverige has reported a 20 percent increase in loans given out
last year compared to 2007. The company
had 250 000 clients who borrowed some 1.4
billion kronor, a 40 percent increase from
the previous year. Around 90 percent of all
the loans, which on average were for 3 500
kronor last year, were repaid, with the borrowers getting their valuables back.
"I haven't seen this kind of increase ever
before," says Peter Sundström, head of Pantbanken Sverige, pointing out that the hike
was even steeper than during Sweden's dire
economic crisis in the 1990s. An increasing
number of women, most of them in their
forties, are coming in to pawn their jewelry,
paintings and other valuables in an effort to
"take care of their household finances."
Jewelry makes up about 80 percent of the
items left in Pantbanken's shops.
KRONA SLIDES
The Swedish krona has lost 43 percent of
its value against the US dollar over the past
six months. The krona has also lost around
15 percent of its value against the euro.
“Mother Svea” on an old Swedish bank note
A SHRINKING ECONOMY
The economy of Sweden is expected to
shrink 0.8 percent this year, according to
government forecasts, marking the country’s worst recession in 30 years. The economy is expected to bounce back some time
in 2010, according to the government,
which predicts that gross domestic product
will grow 1.5 percent next year
The unemployment rate jumped almost a
full percentage point in January, to 7.3 percent from 6.4 percent a year earlier while
inflation edged higher to 1.3 percent from
December's 0.9 percent, mainly due to
higher prices on food.
CompanyFile
The enterprise drive is part of what Hand
In Hand calls a five-pillar programme that
includes adult literacy courses, schooling
for children, and elimination of child labour;
medical camps and health campaigns; citizens' centres where low-caste villagers can
get information about their rights, register
to vote and use a library or IT kiosk, of
which there are now 1 381.
Other areas are environmental protection,
promoting water management, forestation,
and waste and recycling management. The
organization now covers 80 000 households with waste collection and women
have started 54 vermi-compost enterprises
that recycle waste into sellable compost.
There are now 29 856 children enrolled in
regular schooling through Hand In Hand
and another 31 000 in Hand In Hand-run
schools and centres. Here, too, there is a
strong emphasis on self-help. Villagers
must themselves pay the wages for the
teachers in their new schools.
Apart from his own donations, Barnevik
(page 19) has been able to inspire industrialists like Hans Rausing and Oriflame's af
Jochknick brothers to become major Hand
In Hand contributors. Barnevik made a
The world is a very unequal place to live
in and for the “haves” it is easy to forget
about the dire poverty that exists in many
places around the world.
As an example, one third of India’s population, of over a billion (1 000 000 000),
lives on less than one dollar per day. Malnutrition affects nearly half of all children
under the age of five and many continue to
die from vaccine-preventible diseases such
as measles and polio. Yet four billionaires
from India have made it into the list of the
ten richest people in the world.
There are thousands of agencies and charities that are trying to make the world more
equal. One of them gets more attention
than others - at least in Sweden - not only
because of its achievements but because
its greatest contributor is management
strategist and industrialist Percy Barnevik.
Hand In Hand was started by a Swedish
couple, both teachers, in 1988 to curb the
incredible poverty in the Kancheepuram
District of Tamil Nadu. Percy Barnevik,
started donating to the charity in 2000.
When the founders retired he took over as
chairperson for the public charitable trust
and he now spends twelve weeks each year
in India. The rest of the year he takes care
of the business of the organization from his
home in London. The CEO and managing
trustee is Kalpana Sankar who joined the
organization after many years as a micro loan
pioneer. Hand In Hand has today 2 278
employees, 2 964 part-time teachers, and Chairman Percy Barnevik and CEO Kalpana
18 661 volunteers engaged in the project, Sankar. (Below) Girls touched by the program
The organization works towards eliminating extreme poverty in the world, through
micro-finance and self help groups that
train economically marginalized women in
entrepreneurship and livelihood creation.
There are now 26 605 self help groups
with 386 943 weekly participants.
The job creation is based on arranging
loans of start-up capital to groups of 15 or
20 women (who are generally illiterate) to
enable them to open small enterprises such
as bakeries, garment factories and brickworks. 885 medium-sized businesses and
215 464 family-based enterprises have
been started and the repayment rate of the
loans has been an incredible 99.74%.
Percy Barnevik is strict about loans not
being used for consumption. They have to
be repaid on time, and are made exclusively to women. “Men cannot be trusted not
to drink and gamble the money away.”
Swedish Press March 2009
deal with Bill Gates to place 4 000 IT stations in poor villages and with his insider
knowledge from Astra Zeneca, he is purchasing drugs at a fair price for the 104
777 who have attended medical camps.
Word about the success of Hand In Hand
is getting around and Barnevik is already
engaged in similar initiatives in Afghanistan, Brazil and South Africa.
“Fluffy, unfocused and inefficient NGOs
won't solve world poverty" says Percy
Barnevik. But his business model can. Hand
In Hand is creating 400 new jobs each day
at an average cost of $150. If this figure is
doubled, to be on the conservative side, the
United Nations' millennium goal of eliminating extreme poverty across the globe by
creating 500 million news jobs in twenty
years could be reached at a cost of only
$150 billion. That is equal to only 7% of
the whole world's annual aid budget.
"I don't want Hand in Hand to be the best
NGO. I want it to be the best company,"
says Percy Barnevik, who became famous
for his "purpose, process and people" mantra.
By hiring staff only from India, administrative costs have been kept at a low 3%,
compared to other NGOs that can run as
high as 20%. When you donate e. g. $15 for
Adult Literacy, $50 to get a child into school
or $45,000 to start a residential school,
100% of the donation goes straight to the
project. (Hand In Hand donors in the US
and Canada can make tax-deductible donations by cheque through give2asia.org).
23
Swedish
Press
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Swedish Press
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T
R
O
P
S
(Left) Ingemar Johansson after the knock-out
victory in 1959 and (below) in the 1990s.
I
ngemar Johansson has passed away at the
age of 76. The death of the former world
heavy weight boxing champion made big
news in Sweden, the evening papers even
printed special editions. Ingo was after all a
Swedish sports hero, according to some the
greatest of them all.
"During his time he was regarded as one of
Sweden's greatest athletes, and he still is,"
said Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt.
In 2000, the Swedish Sports Academy
selected Ingo as Sweden's third best athlete
in the 20th century behind tennis star Björn
Borg and alpine ski legend Ingemar Stenmark.
Ingemar Johansson stunned the boxing
world by knocking out Floyd Patterson to
win the heavyweight title in 1959, becoming the first European to win the crown in
25 years.
By the time Johansson had arrived at
Yankee Stadium in New York in June 1959
to challenge Patterson for the title, he had
accounted for Britain's Joe Bygraves, Henry
Cooper and Joe Erskine and the American
Eddie Machen. Patterson, though, was a
considerable step up in class. The reigning
champion had avoided the legitimate challenge of the awesome, mob-connected Sonny
Liston for several years, and Johansson was
seen as a softer option. The colourful Swede
turned out to be anything but.
In the third, Ingo silenced Yankee Stadium
with the most dramatic single round of
Swedish Press March 2009
heavyweight boxing since that between
Jack Dempsey and the Argentine Luis
Angel Firpo in 1923. Johansson sent
Patterson to the floor seven times before the
referee Ruby Goldstein stopped it. It was a
stunning victory that interrupted the
American hegemony in the sport's premier
division stretching back to the days of John
L Sullivan.
Back home, hundreds of thousands of
Swedes listened to the live radio broadcast
at 3 a.m. (This is the backdrop to the closing sequence of the 1985 Oscar-nominated
Swedish movie, My Life As A Dog).
Swedish newspapers printed extra editions
with Ingo on the cover. The victory earned
him The Associated Press' Male Athlete of
the Year honors in 1959, only the second
Swede to win the award.
The rematch a year later, lasted into the
fifth, when Patterson dropped the new
champion twice to become the first heavyweight to regain the title. When they went
at it one more time, in Miami Beach in
1961, Johansson put his man down twice at
the start of the fight, and was knocked over
himself before the bell. By the sixth round,
Patterson had reasserted his dominance and
put Johansson out for the count.
Ingo had four more fights, - all wins, one
of them a knockout of England's Dick
Richardson for the European title in 1962 before retiring the following year after beating Brian London in Stockholm to retain his
European title. Ingo finished his career with
a 26-2 record, including 17 knockouts.
The charismatic Swede, who partied
heartily, was a well-schooled upright boxer,
with a good jab that helped set up a tremendous knockout right hand dubbed "Ingo's
Bingo" and the "Hammer of Thor."
Ingemar Johansson’s biggest disappointment came at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki where he was disqualified in the
heavyweight final for not giving his best.
The Swede always claimed that he backed
away in that fight in an attempt to lure his
American opponent Ed Sanders into his
right-hand counter. Ingo eventually received
his silver medal from the International
Olympic Committee 30 years later .
After finishing his boxing career, Ingemar
Johansson became a businessman. He
owned a fishing boat named "Ingo" and a
bar called "Ingo's" in Göteborg. He later
moved to Florida, where he operated a hotel
at Pompano Beach and started playing golf.
A colourful character, who acted in
movies, Ingo completed the Stockholm
Marathon before hundreds of thousands of
spectators in 1985. His best friend after
retirement was his old adversary, Floyd
Patterson and they spent a lot of time
together. During the 1990s, the pair attended many boxing conventions around the
world where they also used to sign boxing
memorabilia. Patterson died in 2006. Until
cut down by Alzheimer's 10 years ago, Ingo
was an entertaining presence at big fights as
a TV commentator.
Ingemar Johansson spent the last years of
his life in Kungsbacka, only a few miles
from the house where he grew up. He died
at a nursing home there after being admitted
with pneumonia.
He was married and divorced twice, and is
survived by six children.
More than 1 000 people attended his funeral at Vasakyrkan in Göteborg. Raymond
Patterson, Floyd Patterson's brother, honored Ingemar Johansson by donating a gift
to the Swedish fighter's memorial fund.
25
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Treats
A la Liz and Anders Treiberg
There comes a time in everybody's life,
when they start mulling over what their
true passion is. Liz and Anders Treiberg
began to ponder over the question after
they had sold their successful realty business in Victoria, B.C and it did not take
long before the answer was staring them in
the face. It was food and wine and all that
wonderful time spent preparing memorable meals at their Cortes Island escape.
This passion has now evolved into a
cooking blog and website.
Anders and Liz became hooked on the
internet very early on and as much as 45
percent of their real estate business emanated from their real estate site and blog.
Now Anders is taking courses to become a
certified web site developer and Liz, who
is a talented photographer, is perfecting
her Photoshop skills. You can see the
results on the KookingWithKarl.com website that provides great recipes with do-ityourself illustrations, and also sells specialty kitchen utensils and cookery books.
Karl is Anders' middle name and made
for a better sounding name for the site.
However the name Anders has a long history in his family. Six generations ago
Anders' forefather, Anders Andersson emigrated from Sweden to the Swedish-speaking part of Estonia. Eventually the family
name was changed to Treiberg (or three
mountains in German). Anders Treiberg's
father, like so many Estonian-Swedes, fled
to Sweden in 1939. A few years ago his
property was given back to the family and
some of it was donated to the adjacent
Ryckholts Church, that was renovated
with a donation from the Swedish king.
Anders grew up in the many places
around Sweden where his father's job as a
mission church minister took him. Many
summers and a few Easters were spent
helping at the farm of church member
Eskil Noge who, after years as a trapper,
cowboy and gold digger in Canada, was
raising beef cattle near Norrtelje. Anders
was so taken by Eskil, who still wore cowboy gear and hunted moose and told many
wonderful stories from the wild west, that
he was sure he also wanted to become a
cowboy. When he was 19 he got a job at a
dairy farm in New York and made contact
with the McRae Quarter Horse Ranch,
near Edmonton in Alberta, thereby getting
Swedish Press March 2009
The Treiberg got married in December.
a job offer and a possibility of emigrating
to Canada, which he did in 1976.
The cowboy romantics eventually wore
off and Anders instead spent eight years in
the Alberta oil patch, quickly advancing to
the position of drilling foreman. The pay
was good and Anders was soon able to buy
his own farm in Saskatchewan where his
sister Rose had emigrated a year after him.
In 1989 Anders moved with his wife and
daughters to Victoria, where his parents
had moved and settled in 1980. A year after
the move Anders and his wife parted ways
and he became a full-time dad raising his
two daughters Jenny, 4 years old, and
Linda, 3, plus embarking on a new career.
Anders met Liz Grambart through his
new career in real estate. She grew up near
Bern, Switzerland, where her family still
has an orchard, and came to Canada in
1967 to learn English. Anders and Liz built
their business during a time when more and
more people wanted to move to beautiful
Victoria, the capital of British Columbia.
The partnership evolved into something
deeper and Liz and Anders officially tied
the knot in December last year. They now
have a blended family with son Mark and
daughter in-law Lisa, daughters Jenny and
Linda, two grand children Sarah and Ryan.
Jenny (now 23) just this year on Valentines
got engaged to her fiance Joshua.
Here is one of their favorite recipes:
❦ SMOKEY CORN CHOWDER
2-4 tbs (30-60 ml) of butter (use more or
less depending on how fatty your bacon is)
6 slices of thick bacon; chopped. I like Naturally smoked Harvest Bacon from Saskatchewan. If you want to go meat less, well,
leave it out. But that would be a shame.
1/2 cup (120 ml) of chopped onions
1 cup (240 ml) of chopped celery
1/2 tsp of liquid smoke (like Woodland
Natural Hickory Liquid, if you can’t get
your hands on any you can go without, but
it would also be a shame)
3 Cups / 710 ml of corn, including the broth
( I like Green Giant Kniblets Corn. Two
341 ml or 12oz cans are close enough)
2 Cups (480 ml) of cubed raw potatoes (I
like using baby potatoes and cut them half
with the skin on)
2 1/2 cup (540 ml) of water
5 tsp (25 ml) of sugar
3-4 tsp (15-20 ml) of salt (the amount of
salt depends on how salty your bacon is,
start with 3 tsp)
1/2 tsp of fresh ground pepper
4 Cups (960 ml) of Half & Half (10% Milk
Fat)
3 tbs of flour
In a large (5 plus liters/quarts) sauce pan
over medium heat, melt the butter, add the
chopped up bacon, onions and cellery. Sauté
for approximately 3-6 minutes, till celery
is tender. Add the cubed potatoes, corn and
liquid smoke, saute for another minute while
tossing at all times. This is to coat the corn
and potatoes with the liquid smoke. Now
add the water, sugar, salt and pepper. Bring
to boil and turn down to simmer on low for
10-20 min. The potatoes should not be
cooked all the way, just starting to get soft.
Take one cup of the half and half in a
mixing bowl and whisk in slowly the 3 tbs
of flour. Whisk this one cup half and half
and flour mixture in to the soup. Mix and
stir for one minute, then add the remaining
3 cups of half and half and mix well. Bring
to boil again and quickly turn down to simmer for another 10-20 minuets. Keep after
the bottom of the pan with a whisk so it
does not burn. The soup should be creamy,
if you like it thick, then just simmer a bit
longer. (4-6 people, or 4 as a main meal). ◆
27
LANDSKAPS
STOCKHOLM
Flera ekonomer har varnat för att kulturen inte är någon fredad zon när konjunkturen störtdyker. Nu meddelar konstmässan
“Art Sthlm”, som skulle ha hållits i mars på
Kistamässan, att det inte blir någon mässa i
år. Orsaken är det ekonomiska läget. Höstens
konjunkturfall har gjort det svårt för mässan
att hålla kvaliteten uppe. Efter 28 år i
Sollentuna beslutade konstmässan i fjol att
flytta till den rymligare Kistamässan. Där
erbjöds dubbelt så stora lokaler och högre i
tak. Meningen var att flytten skulle innebära en nystart och en möjlighet att locka de
unga generationerna av konstnärer och konstintresserade. Årets mässa skulle ha inriktning mot samtida nordisk konst. Det är inte
säker att konstmässan blir av ens 2010. Det
beror på hur den ekonomiska situationen
ser ut senare i år.
Sthig Jonasson
GÖTEBORG
Miljödomstolen i Vänersborg säger nej till
förslaget att bygga en ny gång- och cykel-
bro över Göta älv i centrala Göteborg. Bron
stör enligt domstolen bland annat fartygstrafiken på Göta älv. Miljödomstolen säger
att Vänertrafiken är ett riksintresse, till skillnad från Göteborgs önskan att binda ihop
och utveckla centrum norr och söder om
älven. Förslaget har debatterats i flera år
och är mycket kontroversiellt. Framförallt
anses kostnaden på 450 miljoner av många
som orimligt hög för en förbindelse som
kan skötas av ett par färjor för bråkdelen av
kostnaden. De flesta remissinstanserna har
varit negativa till förslaget, men åsikterna
bland göteborgarna är delade.
DALARNA
Isbjörnen Knut på Berlins Zoo, kan bli
svensk. Orsa björnpark bekräftar att man i
cirka ett års tid har fört samtal med Berlins
Zoo, Europeiska djurparksföreningen och
isbjörnskoordinatorn i Amsterdam om att få
kändisnallen. som affischnamn för parkens
nya isbjörnsanläggning på fyra hektar som
väntas slå upp portarna i maj. I isbjörnssats-
ningen ingår också en informationskampanj
för tio miljoner kronor om den utrotningshotade arten. Berlins Zoo kan tänka sig att
flytta sin stora publikmagnet bland annat
för att Knut ska få möjlighet att träffa en
hona. Men trots att den lille vita pälsbollen
vuxit upp till en grådaskig bortskämd jättebjörn har tankarna på att flytta Knut utlöst
en proteststorm bland Berlinborna. De tog
Knut till sitt hjärta när han avvisades av
mamman Tosca och föddes upp av människor för två år sedan.
HALLAND
Byn Dansbygget utanför Hishult kommer
i framtiden att ligga inklämd mellan två
vindkraftsparker. Kraftbolaget vill lösa in
fastigheter för att bygga ihop parkerna. Några
bybor har nappat på erbjudandet, andra
kämpar emot med näbbar och klor. För att
bevaka utvecklingen å invånarnas vägnar
bildades Hishults vindkraftskommitté förra
året. Kommittén har protesterat mot byggnationen. Byborna är rädda för ljudet,
NYHETERNA
vibrationerna och för att landskapsbilden
ska förändras. De är också rädda för att
bygden ska utarmas. Det har gjorts JOanmälningar och anmälningar till miljödomstolen. Men erfarenheten från andra
håll i Sverige visar att få överklaganden får
gehör i högre instans.
JÄMTLAND
Strömsunds kommun gjorde inget fel och
slipper betala skadestånd till den lärare som
nekades jobbet som textillärare 1999 för att
kommunen i stället anställde en obehörig.
Det har Högsta domstolen beslutat. Tidigare
hade hovrätten beslutat att kvinnan hade
rätt till skadestånd. Eftersom hon i princip
varit utan jobb sedan hon nekades tjänsten
krävde hon minst en halv miljon kronor av
kommunen. Högsta domstolen gav emellertid kommunen rätt. Skollagen syftar till att
tillgodose elevernas intresse av god undervisning. Det ger inte en behörig lärare
automatisk rätt till en tjänst, inte ens om det
inte finns någon annan sökande, anser domstolen.
MEDELPAD
Läkarna på rättspsykiatriska regionkliniken i Sundsvall arbetar två dagar i
veckan men får betalt för heltid. Om psykiatrerna vistas i den här miljön alltför länge
utan rekreation riskerar man att bli psykiskt
deformerad, säger verksamhetschefen Erik
Söderberg. Till skillnad från läkarna arbetar
övrig vårdpersonal på kliniken - sjuksköterskor och vårdare - fulltid. Läkarna
kan tack vare sina tvådagarsveckor få dubbla löner. Även om de förväntas vara tillgängliga på telefon den tid de inte befinner
sig på kliniken, finns det inget som hindrar
dem från att arbeta någon annanstans. I
Sverige finns det sex rättspsykiatriska
regionkliniker. Utöver RPK i Sundsvall
finns det kliniker i Växjö, Vadstena, Karsudden, Säter och Umeå. Men det är bara på
kliniken i Sundsvall som läkarna jobbar två
dagar i veckan och får betalt för fulltid.
NORRBOTTEN
Den 1 mars träder en ny lag i kraft som
tvingar de mackägare som säljer minst 1
000 kubikmeter motordrivmedel att erbjuda
kunderna ett förnybart alternativ. För små
mackar är det en tung nyinvestering på
minst 250 000 för att skaffa en pump för
E85 (etanol). Norrländska Socialdemo-
Swedish Press March 2009
kraten rapporterar om ett kreativt försök att
runda kravet på etanolpump. Mackägaren
Roger Bergdahl i Korpilombolo erbjuder
kunderna helt enkelt en vedsäck som förnybart bränslealternativ. Han konstaterar att
det inte står något i lagen om vilken
typ av bränsle det måste vara så han
satsar på ved till gengasdrivna
fordon. Kundunderlaget för både
etanol- och gengasdrivna fordon
är minimalt på orten med 500
invånare och 1 000 personer i närområdet. Frågan är om
byråkraterna accepterar
Bergdahls okonventionella lösning på bränsleproblemet, eller om
de hotar med ett
vitesföreläggande
för att förhindra att
flera börjar med
vedsäckar. Många
ägare till små
mackar
väntar
med spänning på
statens svar.
Sthig Jonasson
SKÅNE
Duktiga
elever lika
med högre
lön till lärarna. Det blir ett
nytt koncept i
Trelleborgs
gymnasieskolor
om den lokala
styrande borgerliga alliansen får
som den vill. Man föreslår en koppling mellan resultaten i de nationella proven och
lärarnas löner. Det handlar om att belöna
dem som utför uppdraget bäst. Förslaget
går ut på att man jämför hur eleverna har
klarat de nationella proven i nian och hur
det går i motsvarande prov på gymnasiet för
att se om det finns någon trend åt något hall.
SMÅLAND
Allt färre tyskar vill ha fritidshus i Sverige.
Merparten, cirka 90 procent, av de tyskar
som en gång köpte hus i Småland är nu
borta. I stället har danskar, och till viss del
holländare, tagit över de småländska stugorna.
SÖDERMANLAND
Mängder av döda råttor och möss. Två
burar fulla med krälande kackerlackor. Och ett hundratal ormar –
levande och döda. Inspektionen
som polis, veterinär och kommun gjorde i en fastighet i
Gnesta
häromdagen
får
betecknas som minst sagt
udda. Gnagarna tycks ha dött
av vatten- och matbrist eller
eventuellt frusit ihjäl. Ormarna,
majoriteten kungspytonormar, hade
lämnats i plastbackar och terrarier,
även de utan mat och vatten. De
flesta levde, men flera var i mycket
dåligt skick. Omkring 20 stycken hade
inte klarat påfrestningarna och dött. Hyresgästerna ska ha lämnat fastigheten redan i
december. Det var när ägaren av fastigheten
skulle försäkra sig om att de verkligen var
borta som hon upptäckte djuren och slog
larm till kommunen. Paret eftersöks nu av
polisen.
VÄSTMANLAND
Församlingen i Fläckebo i Sala kommun
har i fyra års tid försökt att få sätta upp solceller på kyrktaket. Solenergin skulle göra
kyrkan självförsörjande. Efter många turer
togs frågan till slut upp i Regeringsrätten,
där resultatet blev negativt. Motståndet
har legat hos Riksantikvarieämbetet, som
anser att anläggningen inte passar in i den
historiska miljön.
VÄSTERBOTTEN
Två polismän i Umeå hörde häromkvällen
upprepade kvinnoskrik från ett rum på
Hotell Gamla Fängelset. Raskt beslutade de
att göra husrannsakan och bröt upp dörren.
Bakom den mötte de Norrlandsoperans gästande kör från Sydafrika. Medlemmarna
lagade mat och umgicks och en av operasångerskorna gjorde en kortare övning inför
kollegerna. Enligt Västerbottens-Kuriren
turades de uppskrämda afrikanska gästerna
under natten om att hålla vakt vid den av
ordningsmakten uppbrutna dörren.
Translation?!
Email anders@nordicway.com for a Free
monthly SweMail translation of the
Swedish parts of Swedish Press.
29
SwedenNow
JustNu
CdMåste
MustSki
The world's best ski resort is not Aspen,
Verbier or Whistler, according to the authoritative Condé Nast travel magazine. It is
Åre (above) in Sweden. The charming town
started off as a copper mining village but
is, today, Sweden's most popular ski resort
with world-class slopes for all levels. For
the ultimate accomodation you can’t beat
the brand new 5 star 112-room ski-in/skiout Copperhill Mountain Lodge (design
hotels.com) with magnificent views and its
own Copperhill Express lift to the slopes.
There is also the luxurious Sami-themed
Spa where you can order everything from
a classic massage to the Samezen.
A bit further south, Sweden's oldest
mountain hotel Fjällnäs (fjallnasreserve.
com), that received its first guests in 1881,
now also has a brand new Sami Spa called
Mii Gullo (which means How Do You
Feel?). Here you can try everything from
the Tjåkkå classic full body massage to
the Jávvras foot massage,that gets you
prepared for a new full day of skiing.
New York Times fell so much in love
with Fjällnäs that it listed it as the
6th best travel destination 2009,
beating Doha, Chicago and Venice.
MustSee
Throughout this year you
can see an exhibit about Sweden's
first superstar Jenny Lind
(1820-1887) at Musikmuseet
(Sibyllegatan 2 in Stockholm,
musikmuseet.se). There are
no recordings but you can
see Jenny Lind’s first stage
costume when she was
only ten (and read the
glowing review) as well as
other belongings, plus the
merchandise (like the cut out
doll right) that she inspired.
30
Alice Babs genombrott blev ett av
1900-talets mest sensationella i
Sverige och det följdes av en karriär
som världsartist. Alice Babs föddes
1924 som Alice Hildur Nilsson i
Kalmar, Babs är hennes artistnamn.
När Alice Babs firade sin 85 årsdag
den 26 januari kunde hon se tillbaka på en
enastående karriär där hon samarbetat med
de flesta namnkunniga musiker och artister
som verkat under 1900-talet, bl.a. Duke
Ellington som hon hade ett mångårigt
samarbete. Förhistorien till samarbetet BabsEllington är också den rätt märklig: Frank
Sinatra var en stor beundrare av Alice Babs
och när han blev artistchef för skivbolaget
Reprise erbjöd
han Duke Ellington att spela in 10
LP-album med
olika solister.
Den första Ellington valde var
Alice Babs och
1963 spelade de
in albumet Serenade to Sweden,
därefter samarbetade de många år där
Ellington bl.a. skrev två kyrkokonserter som var anpassade till
Alice Babs stora röstomfång.
Lagom till 85-årsdagen kom en
ny cd (ovan, och i ett speciellt
Swedish Press erbjudande på
sidan 36) med tidigare outgivna inspelningar från 1960–69.
På den sjunger Alice Babs
med Bengt Hallberg Trio
och Arne Domnérus Big
Band där Svend Asmussen
medverkar med en tidens
nymodighet: el-fiol med
wah wah-pedal. Skivan
har 14 spår med låtar
som How deep is the
Ocean, Flamingo och As
time goes by. Musiken
lyser och skimrar av
Alice Babs alldeles
rena och klara sång
parad med lekfullhet
och musikalisk intelligens. En cd för musikälskare. Sthig Jonasson
The Åre Ski resort,
Alice Babs Jubilee Edition
&
Jenny Lind Superstar
Must
Art
Prince Eugen's
Waldemarsudde
(waldemarsudde.se) is a wonderful home, museum, art gallery and park
on the island of Djurgården that should be
a must-see for every visitor to Stockholm.
This is especially true between
February 28 and May 31 when
the Gallery is showing some 100
works by the painter Carl
Larsson as well as part of the correspondence between him and his
friend, the painting Prince. This is
a unique opportunity for all fans
of Carl Larsson to see not only
some of his best works but also
many of his less known works.
MåsteLäsa
Jan-Ewert Strömbäck (som skrivit
SistaOrdet på sidan 34) har kommit ut
med en både poetisk och praktisk bok
kallad Min farbror blev svenskamerikan
(till höger, LLförlaget, ISBN
9789170532153)
om hur han gav
sig av till USA
för att söka sanningen om släkten på andra
sidan Atlanten.
Den lättlästa och
rikt illustrerade
boken ger också
tips om hur man
kommer igång
med släktforskning och hittar sina rötter.
MustExchange
Approximate
Exchange Rates
SEK 1 = USD 0.13
SEK 1 = CAD 0.16
Swedish Press March 2009
Calendar
GUIDE TO INTERESTING AND FUN EVENTS IN SWEDISH NORTH AMERICA - AT A GLANCE
ATLANTA
Mar 22 6pm - Landscape Dinner, featuring
Gotland at St. Luke Lutheran Church, 3264
Northside Pkwy. $10/person or $20/family.
Info 770-949-6667.
Apr 25 5pm - Valborgsmässoafton with
bonfire and lots of food at Lutherwood
Campground on Lake Allatona, Sandtown
Rd, Acworth. Vasa Drängar will perform the
traditional Swedish spring songs. $5/person or $10/family. Info 770-422-9120.
Jun 6 7pm - Swedish National Day
Celebration at Math. & Science Center at
Emory University, 400 Dowman Dr. Vasa
Drängar will perform. Info 404-695-5212.
CALGARY
Apr 25 - Anna Runesson, Swedish Church,
Toronto at Scandinavian Centre. Workshop
and church service. Info 403-931-0370.
May 23 - Swedish Society Spring Dinner.
403-931-0370.
CHICAGO
-Mar 15 - Exhibit “Colors of Nature: Oils &
Watercolors” by Siv Lindgren at Swedish
American Museum, 5211 N Clark St. Info
773-728-8111.
DELAWARE
Apr 4 6pm - Kalmar Nyckel Foundation's
3rd King Neptune Gala honoring U.S.
Senator Thomas R. Carper at Greenville
Country Club. $150, $125 members. Info
302-429-7447.
GEORGIA
Apr 20-22 - Swedish American Chamber of
Commerce Entrepreneurial Days at
Savannah Marriott Riverfront, 100 General
McIntosh Blvd., Savannah. Info 1 703 836
6560.
HALIFAX
Apr 5 2pm - Palm Sunday/Easter Service
with readings and hymns in the five Nordic
languages at Grace Lutheran Church, 40
Caldwell Rd, Dartmouth. Info 902-4653069.
Apr 26 1.30-5.30pm - Scandinavian Society
of Nova Scotia Annual General Meeting at
Christ Church Hall, 64 Dundas St.
Dartmouth. 456-5611.
MICHIGAN
Mar 21 3pm - Semmelfest at Work Play
Space in the Atomic Object Building, 941
Wealthy St SE. Grand Rapids. Info
www.sahswm.org.
MINNEAPOLIS
-Mar 29 - Exhibit “Radian Knits: The Bohus
Tradition” at American Swedish Institute.
612-871-4907.
Swedish Press March 2009
BOHUS
KNITS
The exhibit Radiant Knits: The Bohus
Tradition, on display at the American Swedish
Institute, Minneapolis focuses on the history of
the Swedish Bohus knitting style and the Bohus
Stickning industry (1939–1969), and features
original garments knitted in the Bohus style.
This is the first time that Bohus couture garments have been on exclusive exhibit in the
U.S. since the 1964 World’s Fair in New York.
The Bohus Stickning organization came into existence in the
province of Bohuslän during the
Depression era of the 1930s. The
Bohuslän quarries had been particularly hard hit resulting in high
unemployment and hardship. A
group of women from the north of
Bohuslän sent a deputation to the
governor´s wife, Emma Jacobsson
in Gothenburg, asking her to to take the initiative for a home-based industry. This was how
Bohus Stickning was started in 1939.
-May 31 - Exhibit “Reflected Splendor:
Nordic Art Glass and its Regional Influence”
at ASI. 612-871-4907.
-Jun 14 - Exhibit “Expressions of Stability
and Change: Ethnic Dress and Folk
Costumes” featuring costumes from
Scandinavia at Goldstein Museum of
Design, University of Minnesota, 241
McNeal Hall, 1985 Buford Ave, St Paul.
612-624-6434.
Mar 4 6-9pm - Intensive workshop focusing
on Swedish in social settings for all levels at
ASI. $35, $30 members. 612-871-4907.
Mar 12 6pm - Lecture “The Re-Invention of
Scandinavian Folk Dress in the 19th century” at Goldstein Museum of Design, St Paul.
612-624-7434.
Apr 22 7pm - Lecture “The Works of
Swedish Artist Gustaf Fjaetad (1868-1948)”
at American Swedish Institute, 2600 Park
Knitting courses were organized all over the
countryside. Patterns were developed - at first
by Emma Jacobsson herself - and later by professional designers. The earliest products were
plain gloves and socks in strong wool yarn.
Gradually fine wools and angora-blends of the
highest quality were incorporated in the knitwear and eventually "Bohus Knitting" expanded into the production of exclusive handicraft.
In the fifties Bohus Knitting was at the height
of its production and was in the forefront whenever Swedish handicrafts were to be shown
internationally. Export to the US and other
countries was extensive. In Sweden a Bohus
jumper or twin-set was a must for the welldressed woman´s wardrobe.
The number of knitters employed diminished
in the sixties in step with the economic climate
in Bohuslän improving. Also the knitting patterns had become so intricate and the wool so
delicate that many of the knitters found the
work too difficult. Production
ceased in 1969.
Bohus has enjoyed a resurgence
in popularity in recent years.
Contributing to this have been the
publication of the book Poems of
Color (left) by Wendy Keel and
the recreation of Bohus patterns
and yarn by Solveig Gustafsson.
Radiant Knits: The Bohus Tradition is on at the American Swedish Institute
until March 29. The address is 2600 Park Avenue.
For further information call 612-871-4907.
Ave. Info 612-871-4907.
Apr 23 6pm - Lecture “Somali Immigrants
in Minnesota and Sweden: Cultural
Authenticity and Economic Dynamism” at
Goldstein Museum of Design, St Paul. Info
612-624-6434.
May 27 7pm - Lecture “Sweden, Peace and
Conflict Resolution” at ASI. 612-871-4907.
MINNESOTA
Mar 13 7.30pm - Film “The Falun Røros
Expedition” depicting a historic journey
with horse and sled from Sweden to
Norway. Nordic Heritage Club, Victoria.
Info: nordicheritageclub.googlepages.com.
Jun12, 13 - Nisswa-stämman, folk music
festival 10th anniversary.
NEW YORK
-Mar 29 - Henrik Ibsen's classic Hedda
Gabler with a cast featuring Peter Stormare,
one of Sweden's most accomplished actors,
at American Airlines Theatre, 227 West 42
St. 212.719.1300
-Apr 4 - Exhibit “Beyond the Words”, a retrospective of author portraits by Swedish
artist Carl Köhler (1919-2006) at Foyer
Gallery Cases, Central Library 10, Grand
Army Plaza, Brooklyn. www. brooklynpubliclibrary.org.
Mar 9 - The John Ericsson Society Monitor
Day celebration. www.johnericsson.org.
Mar 12 7.30pm - Concert in honor of Victor
Borge: With Per Tengstrand & Magnus
Mårtensson at Scandinavia House. $25
($17 ASF members). (212) 879-9779.
Apr 20 7.30pm - The Scandinavian Chamber Orchestra - Stenhammar & His Time at
Scandinavia House. $25, $17 members.
(212) 879-9779.
➢➢➢
31
Ads&Info
SWEDISH PRESS CLASSIFIEDS - THE FAST AND INEXPENSIVE WAY TO BUY, SELL OR TELL
➢➢➢ Apr 23 7.30pm - Scandinavian
Chamber Orchestra Piano Performance at
Scandinavia House. (212) 879-9779.
Apr 30 7pm - Northern Transmissions 2 program of music videos from across the
Nordic region at Scandinavia House. $9 ($6
ASF members). (212) 879-9779
May 16 - Scandinavian East Coast Museum
Viking Fest. 718-748-5950
PHILADELPHIA
-May 10 - New Art Installation Explores the
Sights and Sounds of a Small Swedish
Farm at The American Swedish Historical
Museum, 1900 Pattison Ave. 215-3891776.
PORTLAND
Mar 1 2pm - New Sweden Cultural Heritage
Society annual meeting at Fogelbo. (503)
454-0135.
SAN FRANCISCO
-Apr 12 - Exhibit “Irreverent; Contemporary
Nordic Craft Art” at Yerba Buena Center for
the Arts. Info (415) 978-2700.
SEATTLE
-Apr 5 - Exhibit “Knitting Along the Viking
Trail” - Viking designs by Elsebeth Lavold,
Sweden’s premier knitwear designer, artist
and instructor. Through meticulous study of
patterns of ornamentation of Scandinavian
craftsmen of the Iron Age, including the
Viking era, Elsebeth Lavold has adapted
them to exquisite hand-knitted garments
that will be displayed in the exhibit. Where
the inspiration comes from can also be seen
in the many Viking age objects that are
shown in the form of photos, drawings and
replicas, ranging in size from minute pieces
of jewelry to huge rock carvings. Nordic
Heritage Museum, 3104 NW 67th St. Info
206-789-5707.
Mar 1 8am-1.30pm - Swedish Pancake
breakfast at Swedish Cultural Center, 1920
Dexter Ave N. Music by Speldosan, NW
Pelimannit and Katrilli. Info (206) 2831090.
Mar 1 1pm - Swedish Genealogy 101 at
Swedish Cultural Center. Free. 206-2831090.
Mar 4, 11, 18 7.30-9pm - Scandinavian
Basics Dance Classes at Room 2, Upper
Building, Phinney Neighborhood Center,
6532 Phinney Ave N. 206-784-7470.
Mar 5 1.30pm - Lecture “Katharsis for TwoYear Olds: From Aristotle to the Puppet
Theatre Tittut” by Anne-Charlotte Harvey at
University of Washington. 206-543-0645.
Mar 5, 12, 19 7.30-9pm - Scandinavian
Beyond Basics Dance Classes at Room 2,
Upper Building, Phinney Neighborhood
32
Center, 6532 Phinney Ave N. $8, $6 members. 206-784-7470.
Mar 13-15 - Nordic Knitting Conference led
by internationally-acclaimed knitting
experts from the US and Scandinavia at
Nordic Heritage Museum. Festive banquet
on March 14. Conference registration is
$35 for members and $40 for non-members. Classes are $110 for full day (6 hours)
or $60 for half day (3 hours). Banquet: $35.
Info 206-789-5707.
Mar 28 - A Swedish Day for Kids at Nordic
Heritage Museum. Breakfast at Pippi’s from
10-11:30am. $6 for adults, $4 for children
(age 4-12), free for children 3 and under.
Family viewing of one of the original Pippi
Longstocking movies (dubbed in English!)
starring Inger Nilsson 12-1:30pm. 206789-5707.
Apr 1 10-11am - Nordic springtime celebration for children at Nordic Heritage
Museum. Free. 206-789-5707.
May 3 5pm - Romance of Strings:
Odeonquartet will present two fragrant bouquets from the Swedish landscape. The program includes Oscar Byström’s String
Quartet in C minor & Intermezzo and Johan
Lindegren’s String Quintet in F major for
String Quartet and Viola at Nordic Heritage
Museum. $25 concert, $45 concert and
smörgåsbord. (206) 789-5707.
THOUSAND OAKS
Apr 18-19 10am-5pm - Scandinavian
Festival at CLU. 805-241-0391.
TORONTO
Mar 6 6:30pm - Soup Night
at
Scandinavian Canadian Club, 91 Stormont
Ave. Info 416-782-4604.
Mar 23 7pm - Scandinavian Canadian Club
Annual General Meeting at 91 Stormont
Ave. 416-782-4604.
Mar 28 - Påskbasar i Agricolakyrkan. 416496-7907.
VANCOUVER
Feb 28 & Mar 1 11am-4pm - Nordic Art &
Photography Show & Sale at Scandinavian
Centre. Info 604-294-2777.
Mar 3 4-5pm - Lecture “Fiction for All Ages:
Cross-Writing and Cross-Reading in
Scandinavian Literature” in the Social
Lounge, St. John’s College, 2111 Lower
Mall, UBC. Free. www.cenes.ubc.ca
Mar 11 - Scandinavian Business Club
Dinner Meeting 6:30pm cocktail hour; 7pm
dinner at Scandinavian Centre. Info 604
528 9290.
Mar 13 noon -Scandinavian Seniors 55+
Luncheon at Scandinavian Centre. Bring a
plate of sandwiches or cakes/slices to share
& pay $2 towards coffee and expenses.
604-294-2777.
Mar 21 1pm - Genealogy Advice specifically on the Nordic countries at Scandinavian
Centre. $2 drop-in fee includes coffee. Info
604 439 9202.
Mar 22 - Viking Ship Annual Fundraising
Pork Dinner at Scandinavian Centre. 4pm
cocktails; 5pm dinner. $25. Info 604 939
9521.
Apr 16 7pm - Annual General Meeting of the
Scandinavian Community Centre Society at
6540 Thomas St, Burnaby. Info 604-2942777.
Apr 18 1pm - Genealogy session at
Scandinavian Centre. Info 604-526-1233.
Apr 26 4 pm - Anna Runesson, Swedish
Church, Toronto holds a church service at
the Danish Church, 6010 Kincaid Avenue in
Burnaby. Info 416-486-0466.
May 23 - Swedish Society Spring Dinner.
403-931-0370. May 1 8pm - The Thing Scandinavian threesome featuring Swedish
sax player Mats Gustafsson, Norwegian
drummer Paal Nilssen-Love and bassist
Ingebrigt Håker Flaten perform at The
Ironworks. Info 604-872-5200.
May 9 - Swedish Presss Celebrates 80
Years with a banquet and entertainment at
Scandinavian Centre (See ad on page 8).
May 16 1pm - Genealogy session at
Scandinavian Centre. Info 604-526-1233.
May 30 - European Festival at Scandinavian
Centre. Info 604-294-2777.
Jun 20-21 - Midsummer Festival at
Scandinavian Centre. Info 604-294-2777.
Sep 19 1pm - Genealogy session at
Scandinavian Centre. 604-526-1233.
Oct 24 1pm - Genealogy session at
Scandinavian Cente. 604-526-1233.
Nov 28 1pm - Genealogy session at
Scandinavian Centre. 604-526-1233.
VICTORIA
-May 11 - Exhibit “The Vikings: Master
Mariners, Traders, Colonists and Artisans”
at Maritime Museum, 28 Bastion Square.
Info 250-385-4222.
WASHINGTON
Mar 6 - Lecture "Värmlänningarna [The
People of Värmland]: Performing Swedishness-But for Whom?" by Anne-Charlotte
Harvey in Gig Harbor. Nordic Study Circle
lecture series. Info nordicstudycircle.org.
Sweden at Scandinavian Centre. Info 7748047.
Mar 7 - Scandinavian Centre 25th anniversary celebration at 764 Erin St. Info 7748047.
SCA COFFEE NIGHTS - Third Thursday of
every month. Programs TBA. March 19th,
April 16th, May 21st.
WISCONSIN
Mar 14 1.30pm - Swedish American
Historical Society of Wisconsin welcomes
you to a presentation of "Swedish Music in
My Life" at Redemption Lutheran Church,
4057 N. Mayfair Rd., Wauwatosa. Info 414352-7890.
CALGARY ORG.
SVENSKA SKOLAN i Calgary bedriver
undervisning för barn 3-15 år gamla på
lördagar kl 9.30-12. Alla barn är välkomna.
Undervisningen sker på svenska. Kontakta
Svenska Skolan genom Scandinavian
Center 403-284-2610 eller skicka epost till
contact@swedishschool.com. Läs mer om
vår skola på www.swedishschool.com
B.C. ORGANIZATIONS
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33
www.nordicway.com or call Toll Free 1-866-882-0088
Jan-Ewert Strömbäck
KARL OSKAR
VAR INGEN
TYPISK
UTVANDRARE
TILL AMERIKA.
Ibland blir romanoch film-gestalter så
starka bilder att sanningen skyms.
Än idag dominerar uppfattningen att
Vilhelm Mobergs Karl Oskar och Kristina
var typiska svenska utvandrare som sökte
en bit jord. I själva verket kom de flesta
utvandrarna från staden.
När massemigrationen från Sverige till
Amerika kommer på tal – i medier, på
seminarier, i debatter och även i samtal
svenskar och svenskamerikaner emellan –
vilar Vilhelm Mobergs ande tung över historieskrivningen. Bilden av emigrationen
som huvudsakligen en angelägenhet för
jordens döttrar och söner lever kvar. Detta
trots att det faktiskt var andra grupper som
dominerade emigrationsströmmarna, åtminstone från år 1870: tjänstefolk, entreprenörer och arbetare.
Karl Oskar och Kristina var inga typiska
utvandrare. Ändå gör till och med dagens
debattörer, om papperslösa och asylsökande,
gärna kopplingar till Vilhelm Mobergs båda
gestalter: Karl Oskar och Kristina var ju
välkomna, då bör också vi välkomna dem
som vill komma hit, lyder argumentationen.
Parallellen haltar i flera avseenden.
Amerikafararna var inte papperslösa, utan
värvade och med nödiga handlingar försedda. Och varför jämföra med två jord
arbetets emigranter istället för med
urbaniserade arbetare, vilka var vanligare
på båtarna över Atlanten?
Svenska historiker och ekonomhistoriker
har sedan 1960-talet försökt slå hål på den
missvisande Moberg-bilden. Utan framgång. Möjligen kan den senaste insatsen i
den vägen ändra på förhållandet - historikern Jimmy Engrens doktorsavhandling
Railroading and Labor Migration: Class
and Ethnicity in Expanding Capitalism in
34
SistaOrdet/LastWord
Northern Minnesota – The 1880s to the
Mid 1920s (Växjö University Press, 440 s).
Jimmy Engren har en helt annan
utgångspunkt än att den typiske utvandraren från Sverige till Amerika var en
torpare eller dräng som drömde om en bit
egen jord. Han utgår från utvandrade
arbetare, och dokumenterar hur svenskar
som var med och byggde järnväg i USA
sakta men säkert amerikaniserades; i
järnvägssamhället Two Harbors tog
svenska socialister makten år 1911. I
detta samhälle i norra Minnesota uppstod en folkrörelsepräglad motkultur.
Enligt Engrens studie av järnvägsföretaget Duluth & Iron Range Railroad och
den svenska gruppen (29 procent svenskfödda personer av 5000 invånare) blev
arbetsplatsen det viktigaste mötet för
europeiska immigranter, inte minst svenskar, och en motor i amerikaniseringen.
Engren har analyserat officiella folkräkningar och företagets tillvägagångssätt för att
amerikanisera arbetarna, något som bland
annat skedde med hjälp av en KFUM-avdelning. Anläggningsarbetarna lyckades skapa
en arbetaroffentlighet med svenska förtecken. Det fanns till och med en Verdandiloge.
I Minnesota levde redan på 1870-talet en
stor grupp svenskar som gick mellan olika
arbeten. Under 1880-talet var det vanligt
med korta, mobila jobb som lantarbete, järnvägsarbete och skogshuggning. År 1910
blev en förändring tydlig. Några svenska
lokförare tillhörde arbetararistokratin på
järnvägarna, men i stort var arbetarna förpassade till järnmalmsdockorna.
Enligt Engren var det vanligt att utvandrare från Tyskland uppgav farmare som
yrke utan att vara det. Det var det de ville
bli, men på plats i det nya landet fick de
andra jobb och måste ibland, liksom flyktingar och utvandrare i vår tid, försörja sig
på flera olika jobb.
År 1920 hade den svenska gruppen blivit
ytterligare diversifierad. Första generationen invandrare hade liten social rörlighet.
Invandrarnas barn, däremot, som kom att
gå i amerikansk skola och tillägna sig
andra kunskaper än generationen innan,
fick lättare jobb på kontor.
Själv har jag funderat mycket över den
svenskamerikanske arbetarens brist på
eftermäle på den här sidan Atlanten. Det
måste finnas fler förklaringar än att
Vilhelm Mobergs grandiosa epos har fått
överskugga alla försök till mer urbana
analyser. En studie med psykologins redskap återstår att göra. I väntan på en sådan
kan en hypotes vara att också svenska emigranter gjorde som tyska, titulerade sig
som farmare utan att vara det.
När jag reste i norra delen av staten New
York och södra Michigan för ett par år
sedan, och umgicks dag och natt med svensk-ättlingar, såg jag efter en tid mycket
tydligt hur människor led av brist på självförtroende och en stukad självkänsla. De
var barn och barnbarn till emigranter från
Sverige som hade hoppats på att i bästa fall
nå framgång, i annat fall uppleva välgång.
När immigranterna blev arbetslösa i stället
för arbetare, eller arbetare istället för företagare, uteblev de stolta hälsningarna hem
till Sverige. Detsamma tycktes gälla de barn
och barnbarn som inte heller hade lyckats
förverkliga konstitutionens rätt till individuell lycka, utan fortsatte tillverka möbler i
Jamestown eller montera bildelar i Detroit.
I det perspektivet skulle alltså en för klaring till den eviga bondebilden vara att
varken utvandrarna, när de väl var på plats,
eller deras barn och barnbarn fann någon
anledning att förmedla en annan bild.
Varför skryta med att vara arbetare när det
bara är andra arbetare som imponeras?
Och varför skryta med att vara från
Sverige när också alla andra kommer från
något annat land än USA?
För att förstå den svenskamerikanska kulturen och livsstilen är det befogat att påminna om den tidiga bakgrunden till uppkomsten av detta land med dess lapptäcke
av minoriteter. För Sveriges del startade
massemigrationen år 1869, men det fanns
svenskar over there långt tidigare. Redan
på 1600-talet grundades den svenska
kolonin Nya Sverige vid Delaware-floden
nära den plats där staden Philadelphia ligger i dag. För att stormakten Sverige skulle
kunna exportera svenska produkter till
Amerika såg rikskanslern Axel Oxenstierna till att Nya Sverige blev verklighet.
Kolonisatörerna var i viss mening jordens
och markens nybyggare, men det vore
ändå att göra våld på sanningen att beskriva dem som tidiga föregångare till Karl
Oskar och Kristina. Det är lika relevant att
se dem som den tidens handlare och
affärsmän. I kolonin handlade människor
från Sverige med tobak, som de odlade på
plats, och skinn av bäver, utter och björn
som de bytte till sig från indianerna. De
svenskar som färdades med båt till kolonin
Swedish Press March 2009
i den nya världen led svårt. Båtar sjönk till
botten, människor blev strandsatta och dog
av törst och förgiftning. De som lyckades
bosätta sig där hjälpte till att bygga kyrkor
och delta i handel och jordbruksarbete. De
flesta människor som hamnade i Nya
Sverige kom inte dit frivilligt, utan tvingades dit av den svenska regeringen som
ett straff för att de hade deserterat från
krigsmakten eller gjort något annat brott.
De mångfasetterade och flerdimensionella inslagen i de senare vågorna av utvandring är påfallande för den som tar del av
Uppsalahistorikern Fred Nilssons doktorsavhandling Emigrationen från Stockholm
till Nordamerika 1880–1893. En studie i
urban utvandring (1970). Den kom för
snart 40 år sedan, men eftersom den aldrig
lyckades göra något avtryck i det offentliga samtalet, finns det all anledning att
påminna om den. Nilssons ambition var att
göra upp med den förhärskande föreställningen om emigrationen som en företeelse
för bönder och andra jordbrukare.
Industriarbetare och handelsanställda
emigrerade i störst utsträckning, konstaterade också Fred Nilsson. “Den populära
föreställningen om de svenska emigranterna som en relativt homogen mängd jordbrukare ter sig förvånande.” Han förklarade den dominerande föreställningen med
skillnaden i miljö mellan landsbygd och
stad. På landet har minnet av bortdragande
släktingar bättre bevarats i form av
Amerikabrev och annat. När någon person
lämnade byn och landet var detta en händelse som förevigades av fotografer, men
stadens “många anonyma arbetaremigranter lämnade inga spår efter sig, och
deras plats intogs snart av andra”.
Det torde låta tveksamt i mångas öron.
Låt vara att invånarna i städer och industriorter levde och lever mer anonymt än
bybor. Men att tro att individen var utbytbar är nog en obefogad förminskning av
proletären. Om inte annat hade också de
urbana industriarbetarna anhöriga. En
troligare förklaring till tystnaden kan vara
att många utvandrare inte tyckte att det
fanns någon anledning att framhålla att
han eller hon kom att slita i en fabrik, och
hade ett jobb som inte var mer glamoröst
än det han eller hon kanske ändå förr eller
senare hade fått i Sverige.
Fred Nilssons nästa förklaring till mytbildningen är lättare att instämma i. Redan
år 1910 utgjorde städernas andel något mer
Swedish Press March 2009
än 60 procent av det totala antalet svenskfödda immigranter i USA (665 000).
Svenskarna i USA:s industristäder förlorade sin identitet och amerikaniserades
sannolikt snabbare än jordbruksinvandrarna, medan invandrarna höll samman i till
exempel föreningsliv i farmarområden
som Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa,
Nebraska, Kansas och South Dakota,
något som för övrigt löper som en undertext också i Jimmy Engrens avhandling.
Övriga förklaringar som Nilsson förde
fram är dels Vilhelm Mobergs epos, dels
1907 års statliga emigrationsutrednings
utgångspunkter. Denna utredning utgick
från att stockholmares utvandring var en
så kallad etappemigration, det vill säga en
emigration av människor som kom från
svensk landsbygd och som i en första etapp
valde att bosätta sig i storstaden. Nilsson
kunde emellertid slå hål på detta resonemang: visserligen var cirka hälften av de
utvandrande stockholmarna födda i landsorten, främst Småland och Östergötland,
men de flesta kom antingen från andra
industritätorter eller hade bott så länge i
Stockholm att de blivit urbaniserade.
Jimmy Engren går åtskilliga steg längre
än Nilsson, genom att låta frågan om interaktionen löpa som en röd tråd i sin avhandling. Medan Nilsson intresserade sig för
individernas bakgrund, koncentrerar sig
Engren på vad som händer i det nya landet.
Även i kunskapsrika sidospår får läsaren ta
del av hur amerikanisering blir ett (avsiktligt) resultat av företag och organisationer. Hit hör det arbetarskydd som USA blev
föregångare med genom den tidiga rörelse
– Safety First – som inspirerade till skyddsombud i Sverige. På järnvägsföretaget ledde
The emigrants in Moberg’s books have given
a false picture of the typical Swedish emigrant, according to Jan-Evert Strömbäck
satsningen till att arbetsolyckorna minskade
från 291 år 1917 till 25 år 1926. Men den
som tror att företagens syfte enbart var att
öka omsorgen om sin arbetskraft får en tankeställare av de avsnitt som handlar om hur
också Safety First syftade till att dels öka
sammanhållningen bland arbetare, dels stärka de anställdas lojalitet mot arbetsgivarna.
Det hela var, om man så vill, en klasssamarbetets väg på landets uppbyggnad,
men med andra uttryck än den svenska
Saltsjöbadsmodellen av senare datum.
När Jimmy Engren berättar hur KFUM
utgjorde fundament i det civila samhället i
Two Harbors, och stod för rallarnas kyrkliga,
kulturella och sociala trygghet, påminns jag
om min farbror. År 1927 emigrerade han
och förblev en trä- och möbel industrins
arbetare i Amerika. Den identiteten förde
han aldrig till torgs vare sig i breven hem
eller i något annat sammanhang. Varje morgon begav han sig till jobbet i kostym och
slips, för att byta till arbetskläder på plats.
När en strejk hindrade honom från att
arbeta behöll han motvilligt kostymen på.
Annat än yrket var viktigare, kanske inte
KFUM, men hans kyrka. Vid de tillfällen
han blev uppmanad, av fabrikörer och sina
egna barn, att acceptera erbjudandena att
bli förman kom det självklara svaret:
“Enda gången jag kommer att stiga uppåt,
blir när jag går hem till Jesus.”
Jan-Ewert Strömbäck är arbetsmiljöreporter
och författare bl a till Min farbror blev svenskamerikan. Att söka sina rötter (LL-förlaget,
2008, se sidan 30)
35
The
ALICE
BABS
JUBILEE EDITION
‘
In celebration of the 85th birthday
of Sweden’s most beloved and revered singer,
Swedish Press presents a treasure of 28 newly
discovered and previously unreleased tracks
by Alice Babs, dating back to the 1960s.
“The music here has Babs at her most modern working with backings from pianist Jan Johansson
and the larger band of Georg Riedels - all in a
style that takes off nicely from some of Alice's
earlier vocal experiments with Duke Ellington!
Babs' vocals are nicely cool at times, a bit
warmer at others - and often she sings wordlessly with a haunting, other-worldy feel that's
especially great -- and which points the way
towards other European vocal jazz experiments
in the decade to come” notes one critic.
The 14 titles on the Red “Illusion” CD include
Song For The Dreamer, Om Du Så Vill and Je
Vous Aime. The mostly English titles on the
Green “As Time Goes By” CD, with Bengt
Hallberg Trio and Arne Domnerus Big Band,
include 14 classics like Cottage For Sale and
Love Is Here To Stay.
“Alice has a wonderful sound here - deep,
dark, and cool” ... the material is “every bit as
great as any of her classics from the 60s!”
The Jubilee Edition simply gives you the
very best of Alice Babs’ unique voice,
playfulness and musical genius.
Very
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