calls of the wild

Two elections ago, a nationalist party made it into our Parliament. They differ a bit from many other nationalist parties, as those often grow out of populist parties resisting taxes and state interference. Ours, however, grew straight out of the old neo-Nazi groups - they have just stopped wearing the uniforms. And 13% voted for them in the latest election. The public debate suffers from a few oddities concerning this party; foremost, the idea that they are democratic.

This is sometimes argued as proven by the fact that they were democratically elected, and that it is therefore somehow either incorrect or bad manners to say that they are not democratic. The precise logic escapes me. Furthermore, it is argued that their party programme is not overtly racist. I beg to differ - any party programme talking of "inborn essence" is overtly racist - but also, one needs to take into account what their elected politicians say and do, and what bills they put before Parliament. Once that is done, one can see that the racist agenda is present and accounted for.

It is also sometimes said that they aim at getting power through elections, and thus are not undemocratic. Surely the text for that is what they expect to do with the power once they have it? Reasonably prominent members, as in MPs, have stated that they will eventually 'deal with the press.' They aim at becoming the only party by having everyone vote for them, and are clearly incapable of seeing that a nation wwith only one party is a nation where politics is dead.

The members and followers of this party are fond of declaring that they will 'deal with' all kinds of people once they are in power. As a left-wing feminist who is active in the union, if I'm not one of the ones 'dealt with' it will be due to my not being particularly important. The latest move is the forming of vigilante teams who want to 'end crime by immigrants' by patrolling the streets - and while they are not explicitly associated with this party, it's clear that the rise of a nationalist party in Parliament has encouraged a lot of even more extreme groups to come out to play.

The solution of a lot of other political parties has been to tack themselves onto the nationalist agenda, by limiting immigration and talking about refugees as a problem, a horde, a great wave - not as people trying to escape a war zone. This is not the time for underhandedly trying to sell xenophobia as a politically viable standpoint. This is a time for resisting the thugs in our streets, the thugs in our Parliament, and the thugs inside ourselves.

Well, this has been a long time. My job ate my life and then I had no time for the longer, more thought-out pieces I used this livejournal for. However, since I am currently on a crusade to take my life back from my employer - not quitting but trying to get down to a 40-hour week - maybe I should write again?

Part of my lack of enthusiasm about this journal was also the sudden and unilateral change of the colours and layout of my page. I will attempt to get it closer to what I like.

Let me start out by saying that I am very, very angry right now. OK? I never had much belief in the media, but really, you'd think they'd occasionally check a source or attempt some kind of investigation into facts. The Assange case is, however, ample proof that a surprising number never do.

The facts of the case are, as I can piece them together from various sources, as follows (in some cases, the dates are those when it reached the media):

• 11 August; Assange comes to Sweden to give a talk.
• somewhere towards the end of August: two women report that he has committed sexual molestation and rape against them: specifically, using violence in an attempt to get sex without a condom, continuing after the condom broke despite protests, initiating sex with a sleeping woman, and rubbing himself against a woman while nude from the waist down.
• 25 August: the first-level prosecutor decides there isn't enough evidence to go to trial on
• last week of August: the women's lawyer appeals this decision on their behalf (this is a right everyone reporting a crime has)
• 1 October: the appeal-level prosecutor has reviewed the evidence and decides that it is sufficient for trial
• 14 October: Assange is due to return to Sweden for questioning.
• Charges have not been made at this point, nor has all the material gained by the investigating police officers been released to Assange's lawyers, because that isn't done until the suspect has been questioned and the charges made (if any). He cannot know the details of what the women said until they also have his side of the story, and the other way around, for obvious reasons.
• Assange declares he doesn't plan to come back to Sweden to be questioned, as he doesn't feel he has to.
• End of October and part of November: taken up with formulating a correct request that Assange be arrested and held without bail in England, awaiting extradition. The reason stated for this is concern that he will not return for questioning, and will attempt to leave the UK efore he can be extradited.

All of this, so far, is completely normal procedure in the Swedish justice system. It isn't the same as the Anglosphere system, which is clearly completely impossible to fathom for a number of journalists - for example, we don't have jury trial. Yes, there are other ways to assure fair trial - if you argue that jury trial is the only way, would you kindly concede that any decision made by the US Supreme Court is unfair?  Our rape laws, however, are neither particularly modern or particularly weird: rape is defined by using force or threat, or someone's lack of ability to consent (asleep, unconscious, drugged, drunk) in order to violate their sexual integrity. Sexual molestation is the lower level, which includes less serious violations which did not necessarily involve extended force. We note that a) having sex with a sleeping women is explicitly rape and b)the popular term 'sex by surprise' does not appear anywhere in Swedish law, nor does it carry a $700 fine, despite this being said repeatedly by people who should know better, and c)a condom breaking is not illegal, having unprotected sex is not illegal, but continuing or intiiating sex without one, when there is a clear agreement that a condom will be used, is.

It's often stated that no one knows what really happened. Actually, three people clearly do: Assange, Ms A, and Ms W. The rest of us don't. We may find out if there's a trial. In the meantime, the smearing of the women, the disinformation, and the straight-out ignorance has been appalling (Keith Olberman, Michael Moore, Naomi Wolf, I'm looking at you). Perhaps the prosecution of Assange is politically motivated - I have trouble envisioning that, not because I don't think the Swedish government is above doing the US a bit of a favour, but because the Swedish government has very little influence over our (non-elected) prosecutors, and every judge and prosecutor I ever met was much too arrogant to be susceptible to pressure. Myself, I think Assange annoyed them by declaring he wasn't coming back for questioning, and they decided that the judiciary system cannot be ignored that way.

Regardless of if there is a trial, it would be common courtesy to assume not just Assange's innocence unless and until he is found guilty, but the two women's innocence of false accusation. Yes, I know these are two different thoughts, but it is, in fact, possible to hold two throughts in your head simultaneously. Anyone stating what has been reported isn't really rape, that te two women are only doing this for attention/money/vengeance/evil feminism/desire for world dominion, or that it might have been rape but what do blonde Swedish feminists expect when they allow a man into their home is simply ignoring facts and established legal procedure in favour of their own ignorance, stupidity, and dirty agenda. Colour me unimpressed.

The elections results are in: the Sweden Democrats gained 20 seats out of 349 in parliament. The post-election analyses have started pouring in, all of them discussing how an explicitly racist party could have done so well, and stating a lot of things I strongly disagree with.

1. Not everyone who voted for them is actually a racist.
Really? If you vote for a racist party, regardless of your own opinion, in what way are you not committing an act of racism? Those who didn't serve black people back in the pre-Civil Rights era may not have been racists themselves, only concerned about keeping their white customers, but in what way did they not participate in and uphold a racist society? Should people be able to claim not to be racist if their praxis is, just because they act against their stated opinion?

2. We need to respect those who voted for SD and not ostracize them.
No, we don't. We need to respect their rights, including that of putting their vote on a racist party, but we don't have to respect them. Respect for any individual person is earned, and being a racist is not something that will earn you my respect. As far as ostracizing goes, I will feel different about anyone I know who voted for SD. This is unavoidable: how could I feel the same for a friend who turned out to support racism? It might not kill the friendship, depending a little on what said friendship looks like, but I am not capable of taking it in my stride. 'Oh, you think all immigrants should be sent home and no more admitted? Huh. Seen any good movies lately?' No.

3. Those voting for SD feel like outsiders, are dissatisfied with their lot, and don't know they voted for a racist party.
This may all be true; there was one candidate for the party who resigned his seat on a municipality board after finding out he'd run for a racist party. The problem with this statement is that it is patronising and belittling - poor little voters, they don't know what they really wanted, we need to educate them. Firstly, perhaps - since we're throwing the 'R' word around, we could treat these voters as if they knew what they were doing? If we tell them they're uninformed and will be taught better, 'm sure that'll do wonders for their feeling included and respected. Secondly, if they are uninformed, they shouldn't be. Democracy comes with duties as well as rights, such as using the plentiful information available in order to make an informed choice. Not doing so doesn't constitute an excuse; it just proves that you're lazy. Most Swedes do have the time and skill to access that information.

I am perfectly wlling to assume that anyone who voted for SD is a racist if not in thought then in deed. I am willing to tell them so, and that I find this unacceptable - and that their opinions are generally based on incorrect data and sloppy statistics, to boot. I will also take for granted that they had a choice in who they voted for, that they had the option of making said choice an informed one, and that if they didn't, it was their own decision not to. They're adults, not children.

Also, protesting against the result is not threatening the rights of those voters. It's a way to remind all the other politicians that the voters will nto stand for co-operation with SD.

As you may have noted, I'm angry. I'm disgusted that we have a racist party in parliament. I am disgusted that 5,7% of the Swedish population voted for them. I look forward to the next four years with no enthusiasm.

The Church of Sweden has made its decision, and will marry same-sex couples essentially as soon as a ceremony has been worked out. We also recently consecrated an openly gay bishop, who lives with her wife. This has led to a whole lot of arguments, accusations, and hard feelings, with some claiming that this is an expression of everyone's value and right to love despite sexual orientation, and others that this is the final step away from true Christianity. There'll be no prizes for guessing what side I'm on... I can empathise with those who feel that the Church of Sweden can no longer be their spiritual home - it's not like I've never felt that way myself - but I am coming round to the idea that a clear message is not all there is to being a church.

I am in many ways a conservative Christian; I believe in most of the dogma handed down from the early church and have no problem interpreting it literally. I do not, however, share the belief common to many that the Bible is clear, needs no interpretation, and must be applied to today's society in the most immediate way possible. I've read it, and there are contradictions a-plenty. What the gospel rarely backs down from, though, is that we are called to love our neighbours radically, abundantly, and with no particular regard for whether we feel they deserve it. For me, that means offering people attracted to their own sex recognition of their marriages the way we offer it to people attracted to the opposite - perhaps even more to the non-straight, as the straight rarely have their relationships questioned by society anyway.

I used to think that the church needed to be clearer in its pointing to Christ as the answer to all of life's difficulties (not to the questions - I've never noticed faith removes our questions), but I am not so sure anymore. Having seen someone come to believe through my church's casual and unfussy acceptance of everyone, I wonder i that acceptance, based on a belief that God accepts everyone, isn't what we need today.

I have spent last week doing nothing much and watching old movies - to be precise, movies made by Swedish writers, actors, and social consciences Hasse Alfredsson and Tage Danielsson. Tage died, alas, in the mid-80s, Hasse is still alive but very old. Their movies and shows, and books, are related to the absurd humour of the Marx brothers, but with a considerable amount of criticism of society. I have also been reading contemporary reviews, and am saddened by one of the constant comments: that their views on society and mankind are dated, naive, too left-wing, childish.

Maybe they are, at that. They speak of a world that contains meaning: meaningful relationships to other human beings and to the natural world, meaningful work, meaningful hobbies. They speak of a world where everyone, including children, criminals, the elderly, and unsuccessful people are seen, heard, taken into account, important, and bountifully forgiven when needed. They speak of a world where we are all needed, and where we can make choices about our future: not caught by distant political power, markets, and decisions made by people we never meet. They speak of a world that acknowledges difference.

Perhaps this is naive; it's a word often applied to anyone who says that peace, co-operation, content, and interaction should be valued above money and power. Perhaps it's childish and dated to think that we can change the course we're on if we're not happy with it. Perhaps it's too left-wing to say that everyone in the world should be needed, wanted, and empowered. However, I don't think so.

To work towards a world where everyone is valued and cherished for their own sake, for their partaking in the infinite diversity of life, may be insanely optimistic, but it's not naive. The cynics, who claim that no one acts out of anything but self-interest, and that everythign is a zero-sum game, are the naive ones - because that is simply not true. Human motivations are not so easily defined and categorised. Acts of charity and grace and generosity are committed every day. Anyone who gives up their seat on the bus to an elderly person just proved the cynics wrong.

In fact, I don't much care if it's naive to believe in empowering everyone. It all comes down to which world I want to live in, and to my duty to be the change I want to see.

 

I'm taking a brief break from painting the house (report will be forthcoming) to note an editorial in Sweden's only religious newspaper: the writer attacks a clothes catalogue for using buddhism as inspiration (in a rather silly and potentially imperialist approriative way). She goes on to state that "I am for market economy. It's when foreign gods become the very argument for buying that I must decline." http://www.dagen.se/dagen/article.aspx?id=173497

I am confused to see that Mammon seems to be an uncontroversial god.

The other day, I was re-reading a biography of C. S. Lewis (A. N. Wilson's, to be precise), and enjoying not so much the biography of Lewis as the description of a time, and a lifestyle, that is now gone. here is much I don't regret from that time (world wars, women's lack of basic rights, no antibiotics, etc) but one thing that ruck me very forcibly, on reading about Lewis's reputation as a scholar, was: "Where has the value of being well read gone?"

English today, as an academic subject, seems to be more and more about being well read in theoretical works, having grasped the latest theory, and ideally making one's own contribution to the proliferation of theoretical works. But does anyone read, well, books? As in fictional or non-fictional texts that are not literary criticism? Have the people who comment on Seneca's or Aristotle's views on literature in fact read Seneca or Aristotle, or are they quoting what someone else said in a work of literary criticism? I will admit I haven't read either of them, but then I don't generally quote them, either. I have, however, read Euripides and Sophocles.

I thought we all became literary scholars because we enjoy reading. I spend many hours of my life travelling, why should I not take that opportunity to read? When bored, unhappy, sleepy, taking a bath, or having tea, I reach for a book. There are many options: a Christie crime novel, a new edition of The Anatomy of Melancholy, Edgeworth's Belinda, McKinley's Deerskin. It's rarely, however, the latest book on postcolonialism - that just doesn't make for relaxing with tea and crumpets reading.

Of course I do read literary theory - it's part of my job, after all. But I don't want to lose track of, firstly, what initially attracted me about a career in English lit - the pleasure of reading - and secondly, of what being a scholar is really about: being a reader.

I have no idea what's happened to my country. Topless swimming gets forbidden at swimming pools, people whine about the damage to children who happen to see a topless woman, and now the media is having a good time with "the chastity trend" - which, much like the "sex and the city trend" it's supposed to have replaced, isn't.

The last drop for me was this particularly appalling column in Aftonbladet (at http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/kolumnister/johannehildebrandt/article5109496.ab for those who read Swedish) with the headline "A McSex to alleviate loneliness." It contains two ideas I find problematic: a)that we have a culture of very casual sex in Sweden and b)that this is now being challenged by a new trend of chastity, which is presented positively.

Under a), I am in general doubtful. The columnist claims that "Something must have gone seriously wrong when fucking became a hamburger joint, a McSex you wolf down to alleviate immediate hunger and/or loneliness despite its containing no real nourishment (my translation)." I am firstly very doubtful that this is how it looks among young people at least - in my experience, very casual one-night-stands is the realm of the horny middle-aged, not among the young. Secondly, this is very contemptuous of lonely people.

Many people are lonely - one of the things you learn eventually is that just about everybody is, at some point in their lives, appallingly, abysmally lonely, so lonely it hurts. If sex helps with that, why the hell not? I belong to the school of "I'm for anything that gets you through the night, be it prayer, tranquillisers, or a bottle of whisky." Connecting with someone else, no matter how momentarily and casually, strikes me as a better option than drugs or alcohol - at least it tends to result in not just pleasure but a real, if fleeting, connection with another human being - which, in that loneliness, is what you need. Of course it would be better if the connection was deeper and more abiding, as that would alleviate the loneliness better, but I notice that it's mostly people who are themselves secure in the close network of friends and lovers who are judgemental of other people's needs and how they fulfil them. It also doesn't seem to have occurred to these judgemental people that maybe the seeker of casual sex knows that it's only a temporary solution and would like to have the more permanent one - but finds it stupid to turn down temporary relief because permanent would be better. And would we apply the same attitude to people with an severe illness, and demand that since there is a cure there will be no pain relief in the meantime?

But naturally, and this leads us to b), it is argued that finding temporary relief will somehow prevent you from finding the permanent solution - you can't have morphia now because then the chemotherapy won't happen. Yeah, right. The column uses, extensively, the kind of language that supports this attitude: "It's simply not worth wasting oneself, and risk getting an STD of some kind, from someone you can hardly remember afterwards"; "Behind the tiring liberation there is often a yearning for something different and genuine"; "Surely it's time we stop using and take care of each other instead." So, if we sleep with someone without what we share with them being 'real' (however that is defined), we waste ourselves? I didn't know I was finite in that sense (also, I wasn't aware that I risk an STD less if this is the real love affair of my life. Silly me, I thought that was a matter of safer sex). Furthermore, I don't accept that sex can be defined as genuine or not, using others or caring for others, simply based on how often it happens and how much we want this to be a permanent relationship.

I have had a lot of sex in my life, as constant readers of this LJ are fully aware. I'm not sure I've ever had a one-night stand - I pride myself on being a good picker of partners worth a second visit - but I have definitely had a number of very short affairs. Most of those are still my friends. I have also rarely had sex to alleviate my loneliness - I have been extensively blessed by not being lonely very often - but sometimes to alleviate someone else's loneliness. And why not? They're nice people, I care for them, why would I not offer them some quick comfort and mutual pleasure? If the columnist think that means they're using me, I'd like to state here that I don't object to being used that way. I am now in a loving and very happy marriage. Huh. Seems like my misspent youth didn't disqualify me for permanent love after all.

We are all lonely and afraid. If the ways in people deal with this troubles you, go offer companionship and help with the pain in other ways.
 

Reported violent crime is on the rise in Sweden: how well that corresponds to actual crime is always a tricky question. It is not anywhere near an 'explosion of violence' and other things that the newspapers are fond of reporting. One thing, though, confuses me about violence.

The vast majority of those tried and sentenced for violent crimes are men - about 90% of violent crime in 2005 was committed by men. Still, whenever anyone suggests that maybe violence is a male problem, angry men rise up everywhere to deny this, saying, generally, that women's violence is underreported, and that not all men are criminals.

However, those are hardly valid arguments. It may be that people don't report violence by women, if we refer to assault - but if women truly committed as much violent crime as men, it should show in reports of armed robbery (no one ignores a bank robbery because it was committed by a woman) and murder (again, no one ignores a murder for that reason). It doesn't.

If you're response to these statistics is an injured 'but all men are not criminals!' think again. Depending on how much violent crime against women goes unreported, it may well be true that men are more often victims of violence. Murder victims are certainly more often male. However, those crimes are still committed by men. If you're not part of the problem, but a nice non-violent gentle man, you are still in danger of becoming a victim of violence - violence exerted by another man.

Since the perpetrators of violent crime are overwhelmingly male, why on earth is violent crime not a male problem? Why is it always treated as the problem of a sub-group, social or ethnic, of men, not of men in general? Yes, men from socially disadvantaged groups are more likely to commit crimes than men from privileged groups (not actually sure if this is true of violent crime - it is true of theft), but no matter how privileged a man is, he's still mare likely to commit violent crime than a woman is. Being male is the major factor.

So what does one do about it? Well, despite what is said about feminists, I'm actually not advocating the selective abortion of 75% of male fetuses. No, really not. I'm mostly straight; figure it out for yourselves. I do think, however, that men, collectively, might start to own this problem, and do something about it.