I will be replying to this opinion in extended time:
http://www.thelocal.se/23068/20091104/
From within where it all begins:
Part one : to tickle your funny bone.
The idea that Sweden at any time could ever be considered a racist or xenophobic country, is patently absurd. Comedy.
”You can take niggers out of the country, but
you can’t take the country out of niggers” ( The Last Poets)
It’s interesting that Martin Ådahl says “‘I won’t let my country be taken over by xenophobes”. The emphasis being on “my country” – and that’s where the ruckus usually begins. “My” country! A very emphatic possessive there. Not a very generous “our” country, but MY country. Country in his heart or his pocket., with the old Skinheads misunderstood status symbol King Karl X11 pointing overseas.
You spit on or in the street in Stockholm and someone says “i det här landet” ( in this country) you don’t / should not do that. It’s uncivilised. You score a goal for Sweden and you are a “ land’s man!”
Integration / assimilation apparently goes beyond being merely law-abiding.
It’s pluralism versus relativism, but will get to all that in part two.
In Apartheid South Africa the Liberation melody was, “Black is black I want my country back:” So what’s wrong with Jimmie Åkesson and his band of Gypsies singing, “White power is the only real power over here & we want our country back – we are not going to be any part of the new Muslim Caliphate of Eurabia – for that they can all go to California!”?
I’m only asking a balanced question, substituting black with white to balance the equation.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=Eurabia
It was only two weeks ago that dear mentor Harvey Cropper dispelled a myth that I had held for a few decades now: when in the early 70s, Andrew Young reportedly said that Sweden was “the most racist country in the world “, I had jumped to the conclusion that this was because USA’s ambassador to Sweden had been diplomatically ostracized due to a general Swedish malaise about the war in Vietnam, a malaise that was led by the then Prime Minister Olof Palme. I myself had kept my hands in my pocket when I was introduced to black Brother Jerome Holland at the grand hotel in 1972 and did not shake hands with him for that very reason on that occasion – although Mr. Palme himself had invited Mr. Ambassador home, with the home visit event vastly displayed by Aftonbladet photographs in which Mr. Palme ushers him through the front door with the caption, “ Welcome Mr. Ambassador: guests go in first”
No. Apparently the reason for Mr. Young making that infamous statement was that on his arrival at Arlanda airport Mr. Holland had been greeted by a pack of demonstrators and an unforgettable placard which read “ WHITE HOUSE NIGGER; GO HOME!”
Jerome Holland was taken aback- and that’s putting it mildly – and thought the White sea of demonstrators must have been a bunch of racist Swedish savages. He must have phoned and told Andy about the reception committee that welcomed him at the airport – and Andy – the same Andy who said about Brother Obama a few months before November 4th, that Brother Obama had better come back in another eight to sixteen years to take a shot at being elected president, because he wasn’t ripe enough yet) the same Andrew Young who NEVER got it right, must have said what he said about our Sweden.
Little did he then know that it was soul brother SHERMAN ADAMS who was the bearer of the placard “ WHITE HOUSE NIGGER GO HOME!” – as Brother Cropper told me so recently, this, which I had not known all these years.
And it was indeed the same Sherman who had instructed me not to shake hands with Mr. Holland.
Before we get to part 2 and the real Sweden proper let’s clear the air a little further:
As far as Apartheid and all that is concerned, the first place that Madiba Nelson Mandela flew to after he was released from Robben Island was Sweden, because his number two man in the ANC, Oliver Tambo was seriously ill and hospitalised at Ersta Hospital in Stockholm at that time.
http://www.liberationafrica.se/
We could talk about it all day long…..
In one of his last TV interviews F.W. de Klerk was asked how he felt about being the last Whitey that would ever be head of state of South Africa and his reply was that since Apartheid was now under arrest and the colour or colours of a man’s skin was no longer of any consequence, it was a little too early to say that he was “ the last white man” to ever be South African head of State. I must confess that when I heard him say this , I thought, “ The Muzungu must be dreaming.”….and now we all wonder what kinds of thoughts and dreams were rolling down Jesse Jackson’s cheeks as he beheld Brother Obama thunder, “ CHANGE has come to America!”
When I wrote the comments above, I had not read beyond Martin Ådahl’s headlines. I have now just read what the young man has to say. He has said it so very well that I am very happy about what I read and wholly approve of his views. And now that I have read beyond his headlines, and before I settle down more seriously to Part Two of what I have to say on the whole issue of racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, multiculturalism, ethnic diversity, relativism and pluralism, immigration, being Swedish, being a foreigner, being somebody, being nobody , assimilation, integration , marginality, “Where black is the colour and none is the number” etc (all to be said as a responsible fellow Swedish Citizen ) I thought that I’d better edit the letter that I sent to the head of the Stockholm Museum, as some added background and black-ground to what I think that I will be saying.
( I haven’t really sorted out in my head yet, what I will be saying, but for clarity’s sake, here’s a slightly edited version of the letter that I sent to his highness a few days ago, on the 5th of November to be precise, sometime in the afternoon – as a slight indication as to where I’m coming from, since we cannot be too impersonal about these issues, as impersonality can lead to mis-understandings. ( In the Apartheid days, when racists asked me “ Where do you come from?” ( trying to put me in some kind of little black box) I used to tell them unequivocally: SOUTH AFRICA!. That was a kind of drawing the line, so that he or she or they knew in their hearts – instantaneously – which side of the line I’m on, and I would say SOUTH AFRICA as one black man representing all black men all over the world ( Steel Pulse) and in an emphatic tone of voice that would not create any doubt whatsoever.
The letter:
“Good afternoon Sir,
Just a little personal note .
The greeting is from Cornelius Hamelberg, one of the delegates from the Blatteformedlingen that visited you yesterday…..
The tea was good… tack för teet….
I would like to express some appreciation for the Museum which you run; I think that though small it’s a very good one, and the few hours I spent there last week, transformed my understanding and appreciation of the city in which I have lived on and off, but mostly in, for almost forty years now and now call home.
What struck me most – going through the SvD roomful of historical pictures, is how rapidly and dramatically Stockholm has changed within the past sixty years or so after the war! True too, the whole world has also changed.
At the back of my mind is your sense of humour about me preferring tea to coffee because – as I said ” I was colonised by the English” … and you jokingly wondered whether it was something that I should be proud of . …Well, apart from my Scottish step-father who never missed an opportunity to assert that he was Scottish and not English, tea-drinking is still a national pastime over there in London, where I spent my childhood, and I have still failed to acquire the taste for Brazilian coffee after all these years here in Sweden.
Which leads me to the acculturation factor: going back to Robinson Crusoe which J.M. Coetzee quotes in his Nobel lecture ( and language is such an essential part of it – and I hope that you have forgiven me for occasionally slipping into English when talking to you, face to face):
“But to return to my new companion. I was greatly delighted with him, and made it my business to teach him everything that was proper to make him useful, handy, and helpful; but especially to make him speak, and understand me when I spoke; and he was the aptest scholar there ever was.”
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2003/coetzee-lecture-e.html
… to continue with the dominant global language which is making greater inroads even unto China in this age of globalisation. This morning’s Svenska Dagbladet features a news item :
“ Invandrare ska lära sig Svenska värderingar.”:
http://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/artikel_3753535.svd
This could begin with a guided tour of the Stads Museum ( Stockholm Museum)…….and the immigrant’s experience can also be regarded as a kind of inverse colonialism through which the immigrant can be (with or without resistance) mentally, emotionally and spiritually colonised by a welcoming habitat ( Sweden) which has nourished me in so many ways all these years…and what else am I, if not Swedish? As I told you I’m also interested in the graves – the places of final interment of our great Swedish writers (all non-literary events of course). I was already familiar with the main Swedish poets in English translation before I arrived here from Ghana to take up what turned out to be a more permanent residence. And here love for Sweden is co-extensive and co-terminous with love for my Swedish wife & life partner for over 40 years now…..
When African-American Keith B. Richburg saw the dead bodies floating down river in Rwanda, he said ” But for slavery there ´goes I”… and for me that personal preference for English tea can also be traceable to slavery ( not mine) and colonisation: the story is this : that a concrete effect of the Abolitionist Movement resulted in the abolition of slavery and the purchase of land that the Movement finally negotiated with the local Themne King Naimbana ( called King Tom by the that power) – this land was the site on which FREETOWN was founded. in 1787 as a homeland for the liberated Africans from Britain,” the Black poor” as they were called – and from Nova Scotia – ( another story there ) and Jamaica, plus the many shiploads of human cargo that were liberated in Freetown from slave ships that the British navy had captured whilst patrolling the West African coast in search of slave traders whose last cargoes were destined for Cuba and Brazil the last / most recent places of the African Diaspora created by that infamous trade. The Yoruba culture retentions in these places in particular, are still very strong.
— still thinking of Richburg who thanked the Almighty for slavery and said , ” But for slavery there goes I”, I do not thank colonialism per se but….
I’d just like to add that when Great Britain handed over self- government to indigenous Sierra Leoneans in 1961, they left behind them very strong institutions: the educational system was second to none in West, Central and East Africa…… the Judiciary system was functioning well with an appeals court , ultimately to the Privy Council, there were still good roads, a free press etc and as late as 1965 Sierra Leone was on the same level of development as Singapore….
Perhaps if Sweden had added Sierra Leone to the St. Bethelomey acquisition we would have fared better? Difficult to say.
Have a good day
och MVH
Cornelius Hamelberg. “
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