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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
Annika,
If you’re ever get in the mood to go birding or kill some bad@55 snakes in Costa Rica – give me a jingle por favor.
Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Dakota are all Swede country – my grandmother’s family, for instance, emigrated from Jakobstad, Finland, and settled in Duluth. (Jakobstad was an ethnically Swedish city in Finland) My father swears the weather in Stockholm reminds him closely of the weather in Duluth.
As is lutfisk. Lots of family jokes about lutfisk.
Herring is the quick-save for us kosher girls in a country where kosher meat is outlawed. Lutfisk is just awful.. and slightly scary-looking.
The favorite jokes are:
1. My grandmother’s parents served lutfisk to all wooers of their daughters, only the most determined (or inebriated) survived (my grandfather was Irish, thus immune).
2. The best way to prepare lutfisk is to soak the “fish” in lye for several days, put it on an oak plank to bake it, scrape off the fish and eat the oak plank.
Awesome
Haha, totally using those
Girlfriend, you have no idea.
Heh. Send her the links to your other posts (and good luck finding those since the Rico 2.0 reboot).
Annika, beware Simon, he he is a shameless (and thus unusually successful) flirt.
Haha, thanks for looking out, and there will be no snake wrangling for me, I promise. I’m a conservative. In every way. Also, really, really scared of snakes.
I hear that Sweden and Minnesota are very similar, and that the weather (albeit slightly better in the US) is similar as well.
Takk sa myket foer laesvoerslag! I’ll have a look at Neo in detail later. Ha det bra!
Yes, both full of socialists, but Minnesota is much flatter. There is still a Swedish-American chamber of commerce, there was once a Swedish American telephone company, lots of links.
No, thank YOU for that wonderful letter. Consider yourself an American. Whatever the legal criteria is meaningless. Your soul is American!
Wow! And thanks. That was simply amazing! You’ve expressed what even we conservatives occasionally take for granted or don’t pause to remember and cherish which is easy to do when one is in the throes of intense debate. Welcome, welcome, a thousand times welcome. Look forward to hearing more fron you, dear lady. All the best!
Beautiful–just beautiful.
And this? “I came from the country of meh to the nation of yeah. And it was nothing short of magnificent.” Those about the two loveliest sentences I’ve read in a month.
Welcome to Ricochet!
Annika, that was lovely. One of the joys of being a host dad of an exchange student is to see the stereotypes of these kids melt away before the reality that is this great country. Through them, and through your post, I am reminded of how truly blessed I am to live here.
Dr. Johnson said that people don’t need to learn new things nearly as much as we need to be reminded of what we already know. You have provided that gift to me. Thanks ever so much, and welcome to Ricochet!
Thank you Brian! It is a great service you do by taking in exchange-students, because they get to have that experience that I had and that ultimately changed the way I see the world.
Peter, thank you so much for the kind words and for Ricochet, my daily breath of fresh air in an increasingly suffocating media-climate.
Thank you Brian, and yes- please take this as a small reminder of the fact that for many of us around the world America is and will always be the beacon of hope in an otherwise dark world.
It is, and I will. Thank you!
Wonderful post. Great reminder for us fortunate enough to be born in this country.
Needs to go on main feed!…Thought it was, until I linked it.
This absolutely must go to the main feed!!!
Is halal meat outlawed as well? If not, I would create a stink or start a “hash tag” movement, about halal being legal but kosher is not. What is fair is fair. Gefilte fish isn’t much better if you haven’t been raised eating it as part of your diet. Lox and cream cheese on a bagel is good.
Now that is the sort of off-hand remark that makes me realize just how much I take American notions of freedom for granted. Kosher meat is outlawed?!? That is so foreign to my notion of fundamental religious liberty that I confess I’m shocked that even Sweden would go so far. Why on Earth would they do such a thing?
P.S. Welcome to Ricochet!
An interesting article here:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/02/war_on_humans_d082331.html
Animal rights come before humans, even in CA, the ex-bread basket of the world, no longer gets enough water because of some little fish in the delta.
No it isn’t, and you are absolutely right. That’s why I went as far as apply for asylum in my own country:http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/11/20/swedish-jewish-activist-files-for-asylum-in-her-own-country-over-proposed-laws-she-says-are-anti-jewish/
True story..