( 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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