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A Love Letter from a Swedish Conservative
This is not a political piece. Not really. It’s more like a whole bunch of memories, strung together, and a plea for change from the change I see sweeping the nation I love.
I am a Swedish neocon, and a Jew, so I guess I am basically a unicorn. I was born and raised in a sleepy west coast town in the early 1980s, in a country an inch from being a full-blown DDR-state. I should be a socialist feminist performance artist, or a hipster filmmaker, passionate about gender-neutral daycare and sourdough bread. But I got lucky, and I broke away from the herd.
I first stepped on U.S. soil in the spring of 1990. My father had spent his high school years in Texas in the early ’60s, and now he wanted his daughter to see what he had seen and love what he loved. And boy, did I ever. I was 9.
I’m not sure if I can fully convey the cultural shock of going from 1990s Sweden to Dallas, Texas, or if it is even wise to try. Because how can I describe what it is to taste your very first doughnut or go to Toys R Us and see row after row of wonderfully girly Barbie-dolls? I came from the country of meh to the nation of yeah. And it was nothing short of magnificent.
I was lucky enough to spend my summers there, in the heart of Texas, and with every visit I gained a growing awareness of the differences between your country and mine. America was loud. It was uncomfortable and alive. People were different, not only from Swedes, but from each other.
It was the small stuff. There were flags flown publicly, showing national pride while maintaining a strong sense of individuality. People prayed at the dinner table, and even in schools! Women were allowed to choose to be home with their kids without guilt or government penalty, and people still got married and protected the institution of the traditional family.
In America I saw all these astounding, giant, little things; and an amazing mix of rallying behind your country, while at the same time demanding its leaders to be accountable, for your rights to be respected and your voices to be heard.
I lived with my dad’s childhood friend, Jay, an old-school republican with a passion for history and politics. On my first visit he gave me a copy of the declaration of independence, patiently explaining it, word for word. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; those words jumped out at me. Not only did this document say that I should be free to chart my own course, but that happiness was a right, and a goal? That changed everything. That changed me.
Jay and I talked politics all the time, and every visit was a living lesson. He took me to the Alamo, we followed the Clinton impeachment, debated the Gulf War and stood side by side on Dealey Plaza. And I fell in love, slowly but surely. I got to know and fall in love with a nation based on certain intrinsic values, carrying a responsibility for the world, seeing freedom as a right worth living and dying for.
I went back and forth between Sweden and the U.S., between socialism and freedom, and it was like growing up not only on two sides of the world, but on two sides of history. I saw America helping change the world and saving lives while Europe engaged in knee-jerk liberal analysis and Monday-morning quarterbacking, And every time the U.S. unapologetically went its own way I smiled with pride, sleeping soundly at night knowing that just like in my bedtime stories, there was a hero out there who would always show up just in time to save the day.
But things have changed, haven’t they? In the past years I have seen the country I love so much change, moving toward the country I grew up in. I saw a President get elected on change, and apparently things had changed enough by 2012 to hand him a re-election. Well, guess what? I know the change that your president speaks of. I have lived it, and I live it still.
I know what happens when government trumps the individual, I know what it is when you apologize for the values that built your land and I have seen the horrific results of a nation equating exceptionalism with brutality and deeming values moronic and obsolete. I know one thing for sure: If you grow up in a country that doesn’t ask anything of you, you end up living an entire life without asking anything of yourself. Expecting nothing, excelling at nothing, with no repercussions for failure and no incentive for growth. And it kills your very soul.
I know, however, that there is a way back and a road forward, partially thanks to Ricochet, actually. I joined this community just a few weeks ago, after listening to the podcasts and following the posts for quite some time. Here, I see the America I fell in love with. As I sit in my kitchen here in Stockholm I giggle with delight at the living, breathing conservatism and riveting debate you all let me take part of from afar (also, I do so enjoy the occasional joke about Swedish socialists and depressing Bergman-movies).
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; I hope every single one of you get how amazing that is, in word and in meaning. To me, it captures what it is to be human, by highlighting not only our need for freedom and our right to life, but the massive capability every single person is born with. This is something no government entity can ever replace, and no well-spoken leader should ever be given the power or pulpit to question.
You are exceptional, and coming to America taught me that I could be exceptional, too. Thank you for that. Thank you.
Published in General
Thank you Doug for those kind words! Yes, I am an American at heart and I hang on to my Texas drawl as a security blanket :)
Thank you, it’s just a lovely thing waking up in Sweden to so many welcoming and supportive comments. Ricochet, what a community!
Thank you!
Toda Raba, warms my heart!
I think that when you, as an immigrant, are forced to start your life over and rely on your own capability you become conservative. You see what you yourself can do and you learn the meaning of freedom. When you stay and grow up in a state that does everything for you then you become a socialist, trying to preserve the system you see as key to your survival.
Thank you, and I will proudly represent the West Coast division :)
Lovely piece, thank you – and I can see that the Venn diagram intersection between “Swedish conservative” and “Swedish zionist” is a small one, but aren’t things improving in Sweden – on the free market/conservative front at least? Certainly here in the UK, Frederick Reinfeldts is frequently held up as an example for the Conservative Party to emulate…
Thank you, I’m really happy to be a part of it!
Well, we have only had 8 years of conservative rule, and that will be replaced when the Socialists win the election this September. According to the latest polling, it will be a landslide of the Social democrats and the Communist party. They also did very well in the elections for the European Union.
Sorry to hear that – although that explains why nearly all the politically conservative Swedes seem to be working in London… (well, I’ve met 2 – I’d assumed, before your post,
that that was a majority…)
Yes, we are a small but intense crowd :)
Indeed, and you’ve got Saga Norén on your side: she must be a conservative, surely?
(I appreciate she’s a fictional character, but beggars can’t be choosers, as my grandmother used to say.)
Indeed. And I would rather have a small pack of wolves than a big herd of sheep.
Indeed. Keep up the good fight.
I’m pleased to see that the (small but growing) Ricochet: European Union Division, now has an outpost in Sweden…
It just shows that there are more of us out there than we think…
What a great post to read this morning, you have helped me get over all the depressing foreign policy and political news I torture myself with! THANK YOU Annika and welcome to Ricochet. :-)
Thank you so much, and I know how you feel- Sometimes I read Haaretz or watch Maddow and I have to come in here just to keep myself from jumping off a bridge :)
Tack sa hemskt mycket! (Sorry, I can never seem to access Swedish letters when most needed!)
Great post and nice to have you here. I have deep roots in Sweden and have visited my relatives there several times. These cousins tend to be conservative but they’re quiet about it. It’s nice to know they have some company though much farther north from where they live.
Glad midsommar!
Wow, that’s amazing! Glad midsommar to you as well!
Annika, you might enjoy: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/today.php
for a more honest reporting of the Mid East news. Israel Hayom is a newspaper that is left free to report what is actually happening on the ground and not from a political view. They do have political op-ed columns but they are conservative. I find Haaretz at times very anti-Israel and progressively slanted.
Another good site is: http://www.israelisoldiersmother.blogspot.com/ a blog by Paula R. Stern, who lives in Israel. It’s a more personnel site, but she speaks from the heart.
Yes I love that site, a few of my friends write for them. I write for Jerusalem Post myself, but sometimes I read Haaretz just to see the madness…
I will check out the blog, thank you!
This is such an interesting perspective to hear, particularly since our own American progressives routinely cite Sweden as the model socialist paradise that can be achieved if only we relinquish our property and personal freedoms. Thank you for sharing!
Absolutely lovely post, thank you. And thanks for the pep talk. I needed it.
I’ve been watching a Swedish ‘police’ series: “Maria Wern”. It follows the same formula as all the others: white, middle-class perpetrators, with never a hint of the class and ethnic issues underlying the crime stats of the Scandinavian countries, especially Sweden, so deep are the writers sunk into PC and ‘multicultural’ denial. Malmö, indeed.
My pleasure! And yes, even President Obama called Sweden a model for the future in his message to us on our “independence day”. Gd help us all..
Thank you, and all of Ricochet, for being so welcoming!
Annika,
you’ve made my day also!
First, I am again thankful that all of my grandparents chose to come to the USA from Sweden. Second, if you ever get to Minnesota, I have a number of documents written in Swedish that need translating. :-)
Thank you Ron, that’s awesome- Minnesota is Swede-country from what I’ve heard. I’d be happy to serve as translator, if you serve the herring :)
Annika,
Sorry, but herring is out. My wife hates fish.
Quite Understandable :) And herring is an acquired taste