I have been watching two documentaries tonight. The first one was a short report about why Germans love Sweden and Swedish culture (or what they imagine Swedish culture to be) and the second one was about the racist party Sverige Demokraterna who are striving for a monocultural society built on Swedish values and Swedish traditions. Both these films made me think about what’s Swedish and what makes a culture unique or special. We in Europe often talk in negative terms about the American melting pot. But what is it that we have that they don’t have, and does culture and history have a timeline? When does a building get a historical value – after one year, after ten or after a hundred? Obviously you cannot answer the question in this way. When the Opera house in Sidney was build it was far more expensive then anyone could dream of and many people criticised the politicians for spending so much money on a building. I don’t know if the number of admirers for the art of opera has increased in Sidney but the building is a landmark for Australia. It is probably one of the most well known images of Australia. The building has become a part of Australian culture and history. The architect was Danish and the building has no connection to any previous Australian architecture. Still it an Australian piece of art, isn’t it?
We celebrate Lucia in Sweden the 13th of December and it is a very popular tradition. The party Sverige Demokraterna are worried that typical Swedish traditions such as Lucia will die out if immigration into Sweden continues. What they seem to have forgotten is that Lucia is a fairly new tradition introduced in Stockholm in 1923 by a group of shop owners who wanted a “miss” contest in order to increase sales. The Lucia tradition comes from Italy but we interpreted it into becoming something very Swedish. There is nothing wrong in being proud over our traditions or enjoying taking part in them but it becomes a bit strange when we start marking them as national traditions aimed for a specific group of people. We talk about culture as if it is static phenomena but it is obviously something that is constantly evolving. It never stops and it never ends.
Look at music for example. Sweden is the 3rd largest music exporter in the world with over 800 million dollars in revenue last year –superceded only by the US and the UK. Per capita we are the most profitable music country in the world. When you turn on the radio in Sweden or anywhere else in the world you are probably listening to some Swedish music without even knowing it as we especially good at writing and producing music for many big American artists such as Justin Timberlake or Britney Spears. Does the music sound typically Swedish? Is it even possible to put nationalistic labels on music? I think we can talk about trends or influences in music but it is very difficult to say that this is typically Swedish music while that is typically German music. With internationalisation going on as I sit here writing we will see even more blending and mixing of different music traditions and the same goes for fashion, interior design, film and all kinds of artistic and cultural expressions. Does this not sound exciting?
When people talk about culture and especially used in connection to nations we forget that the experience of culture is personal and unique. When I talk about Swedish values I might think about emancipation while this is not even on the agenda of Sverige Demokraterna.
With this I remark I go to bed. The kids are at my parents for a oneweek holiday and I will work tomorrow (on a Sunday again – bad habit!) and take Thursday and Friday off as Jochem is heading home. It has been a long month as a single mum!
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