I Sverige er det stadig 1975, ingen af katastroferne er i virkeligheden sket

Da Palme blev myrdet i 1986, kunne det “bare ikke ske i Sverige.” Ligeledes da Corona debuterede, mente Anders Tegnell, at det ikke ville brede sig i Sverige, at det ikke smittede mellem mennesker, og at det blot var en variant af influenza, og at flokimmunitet var målet. Det mente han i flere måneder.

Hans Holmer og Anders Tegnell minder om hinanden. Hele deres attitude vidner om, at det der skete, i virkeligheden ikke er sket. De ville selv forme virkeligheden på en halvsovjetisk facon, der passede sossemagten. En psykologisk tilstand Tage Danielsson spiddede i sin sketch om Harrisburg Om Sannolikhet.I Sverige er det stadig 1975, ingen af katastroferne er i virkeligheden sket, og de har været en perlerække siden Palme. Hvem taler om Anna Lindh i dag, noget så sjældent som en begavet svensk politiker?

Onsdag runder Sverige 5000 corona-døde. Andrew Brown har modtaget Orwell-prisen og skrevet den meget roste Sverigesbog “Fishing in Utopia.” Han var ligesom jeg i Sverige den februardag i 1986.

A curious kind of unconscious nationalism

The assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986 was a tremendous shock to Sweden. It didn’t seem improbable; it seemed impossible, as if Donald Trump were to announce he had converted to Islam. If Palme had been struck down by a meteorite, it would have seemed more credible than that he was killed by a fellow Swede.

What was hard to believe was that he could have been killed on an impulse, for no comprehensible reason. Such an enormous death seemed to demand an equally portentous explanation. That is at least the most charitable explanation for the ludicrous incompetence of the immediate official response.

When the Swedish police were driven to conclude that Palme’s killer had been a lone Swede, they picked someone as far outside respectable Swedish society as you could get while still being white: an alcoholic loser with a record who had already killed one stranger in a row over Christmas presents. Christer Pettersson was the sort of drunk who hung around on park benches.

This deep, strong, misplaced faith in the specialness of Sweden has reappeared in the coronavirus crisis. When all other European countries locked down in the face of the virus, the Swedes banned some large gatherings, urged people to be careful, but otherwise allowed life to continue more or less as normal.

This is a curious kind of unconscious nationalism, almost devoid of the symbols with which other nationalisms distinguish themselves. Foreign Policy – online.