Re: Dark, cold night: trust

[Guest guest]

Well, both yes and no, one man was prosecuted and convicted in 1989, but he was aquitted in the Court of Appeal later that same year. Mrs. Palme identified him in a lineup, and is still certain that he was the one. And perhaps he was, even if the evidence is conflicting. I am kind of leaning in that direction, even if I am thinking there are other possibilities as well, and I think I am quite representative of Swedes in that respect. Legally, however, the case will have to be considered unsolved.

That loss of trust is a great loss, indeed. It used to be possible to just walk in to the government departments, or the Parliament for that matter, directly from the street, to ask a question or to state an opinion directly to the people responsible. Or to walk up to a leading politician, even a prime minister, on the street, to do the same thing. Today, of course you could still get in touch with the politicians, but it requires a lot of security checks etc, you can't just walk in and ask or talk to the members of the government, or the members of the Parliament. I think those kinds of security barriers, necessary as they are, create a very real barrier between politicians and people too. When those in office can no longer trust the "man on the street", the "man on the street" will start to trust the politicians less, and so on and so forth.

That trust is so much easier to bring down than to build is a sad truth.

I think the terrorist event last year may have delivered another blow to trust in Sweden, but this time on another level. It used to be a given that if you needed to leave your bags behind for a short while when in a railway or subway station, or the likes, you'd just do that. Not if the place was empty (but then, when are those places ever empty...), but if there were other people around. That those other people would look after your bag was taken for granted, and that you should look after a bag when the owner was temporarily away was just as obvious. The first time I learned that this was a peculiar Swedish custom, and not a universal way of dealing with things, was when I read a short travelogue about a travel to Sweden (to "ABBA-land"), written by an American ABBA fan. He had managed to see all the ABBA things he had intended to, and also learned a few other things about Sweden in the process. And this custom to leave your bags unattended and fully expect them to still be there when you return was one of the two things he found most strange and unintelligible of all the things he had observed in Sweden. I commented that he had, as is so easy to do when you travel in foreign countries and foreign cultures, missed one crucial detail: The bags were never unattended (not in a Swede's view of the situation), there were people around, and they were expected to attend to the bags, even if no words had ever been spoken. But that was the first time I learned that that way of doing and seeing things was not universal.

And I then remembered (and suddenly understood), an incident that occurred in the railway station in my home town many years before: I had been reading while waiting for a train, when an American girl interrupted my reading and asked if I would look after her bags while she was doing something (buying a ticket maybe, I don't remember), and she assured me that she'd be back shortly. I said I would, but her question confused me a bit. I understood that the reason she picked me to ask was the fact that the book I was reading was in English (so she could be certain I understood English), but I just did not understand why she'd ask at all. The bags would be looked after, for sure, whether she asked or not. But reading that travelogue I understood, in retrospect, that she did not view walk away from her bags the same way I would have.

I don't think that custom has disappeared completely, not yet, but I do notice that people react in another way to bags left behind now, after all they could contain bombs. It's understandable, but I'd hate to see that kind of trust disappear too.

love

/Reb>> How very tragic, Reb. Sweden was so innocent then...How horrific. It took just > one turn of events to change a country forever. So sad. Did they catch the > person and prosecute? It is eerie that that is the site of the terrorist event > not so long ago. Eerie.> You and are in my thoughts,> love,> Kate> > > > > ________________________________> To: MSersLife MSersLife > Sent: Mon, February 28, 2011 9:02:31 AM> Subject: Dark, cold night> > > 25 years ago tonight, Swedes went to bed for the last time in Sweden as we knew > it, and woke up the next morning (25 years ago tomorrow) to a whole new > reality. > > The Swedish prime minister Olof Palme was shot down and killed on a Stockholm > street as he was walking home with his wife. They had watched a late night movie > together with their son and his fiancée. > > They had walked only about 350-400 yards when a man approached them from behind > (some witnesses say he had been waiting outside the theatre and followed them > from there, but it's uncertain; The man following and the man approaching them > may have been different persons), he said something to Mr. Palme that his wife > either could not make out, or was too traumatized to remember afterward, she > only knew he had said something. And in about the same instant, he shot Mr. > Palme in the back. Then, as Mrs. Palme kneeled down beside her husband, the > perpetrator fired a second shot, directed at her. But because she was in motion, > the bullet only scorched her coat. The unknown man took off running in about the > same second he had fired at Mrs. Palme, and it's possible he never knew (then) > that she was not hit. Either that or he just couldn't risk staying around to > take a second shot at her, especially as he had already shot the man who was > obviously his real/main target. > > Why no security? Well, because that was the way it was back then. It was a much > more trusting and open society than what we have now (than what that > assassination partly created). No one could have imagined something like that > happening. In Sweden, at least. It was just not our reality. Not until then. > > In november 1985, not even half a year before he was killed, Olof Palme appeared > as a surprise guest on a concert held in support of Mr. Mandela (later > president of South Africa, but back then still in prison), and of the efforts to > bring down the racial segregation there. This short clip shows his > appearance:

He is introduced without > being named ("please welcome one of the greatest artists in Sweden today"), and > as he walks on to the stage, you can hear exactly when/where the audience > recognizes him. > > The reaction of the crowd speaks volumes, in my opinion. When did you last hear > a pop and rock crowd on a concert, thinking they are about to listen to some > tunes, react that way when they understand that instead they are about to listen > to a politician giving a speech...> > That night 25 years ago changed Sweden for ever, and I guess that's why so many > poetic depictions (in songs, poems etc) and political commentaries on the event > have focused on the image of a cold, dark night. It fits. And hence my choice of > subject line for this post too. > > It was almost uncanny, and more than a little fitting, that the terrorist > bombing in Stockholm a couple a few months ago, an event that also changed a lot > about Sweden (even if not as deeply as the Palme-assassination, the first cut is > the deepest, as they say) took place along the same small street as the one > where Palme was shot, the street that was 25 years ago called Tunnelgatan > (Tunnel Street), but is now named after Palme and known as Olof Palme's Street.> > love> /Reb>