I’m staying in an old military base on one of the thirty thousand islands that lie outside Stockholm. From where I am sitting I can see massive cruise ships pass by, en route to the capital city, making their way through the forested islands.
“A submarine was spotted over there recently” says my host, a retired policeman who now runs a kayaking centre on the island, “it was spotted by a retired naval officer. The submarine surfaced for a bit and then went down below.”
Sweden is one of the many countries that is being intimidated by Russia’s sabre rattling — bomber planes recently violated their airspace — but the people I met don’t seem too worried. They know it’s just Putin acting tough as a diversion from Russia’s failing economy. My host tells me that neighbouring Finland “is tougher than us. They recently dropped a depth charge on a Russian submarine that had crossed the line.”
Before coming to Sweden I had thought this was virtually the only country in the world that had everything sorted out: they’re neutral and I assumed they had no enemies; their political and social welfare system is the envy of the world (at least the left-leaning part of it); they had addiction and alcohol abuse under control; and everyone gets paid lots of money. No wonder every immigrant from Afghanistan to Zaire wants to come here.
But after getting to Stockholm I soon realised that the reality wasn’t quite what I had imagined. It strikes me as a land of paradoxes.
Sweden is neutral but it learned a hard lesson during WW2 when they had virtually no army and were humiliated by Germany. The Nazis agreed not to seize Sweden if they were allowed free passage to invade Norway and exclusive access to their massive iron and steel factories. During the cold war Sweden built up an army of more than 500,000 troops — a massive force for a country of just 9 million souls. Today their army has been cut down to about 10,000 troops and hundreds of bases, including the one I am staying on, were sold off to property developers. Now that Russia is on the march again the Swedes, who are not in NATO, are talking about re-arming.
Sweden is a leading global peace-keeper but it also has a huge arms industry. Apparently they produce more weapons per capita than any other nation on earth. There are over half a million registered hunters and over two million guns in the hands of Swedish citizens, a fact that should ensure Vladimir Putin skips over Sweden as he plots his next move.
Stockholm is also a paradox. If you look at a map of Sweden’s capital you’ll see that it doesn’t sit on a nice piece of land or a coastline as normal, well-behaved capital cities do. Stockholm is located on an archipelago of islands and getting around town involves crossing bridges and waterways constantly. It reminds me of Venice and Istanbul in terms of waterways but Vienna when it comes to architecture.
If you look again at your map, you can see a vast freshwater lake stretching inland from Stockholm, full of little islands. In other words the city is surrounded by islands both inland and into the sea. I don’t understand how everyone doesn’t get lost. Perhaps Thor, the Norse God of War, smashed his hammer on what is now Stockholm — fragmenting the land into thirty thousand pieces.
What really puzzles me about Sweden is their approach to alcoholism and addiction. On the one hand their policy towards alcohol is the best I have ever heard about, anywhere in the world: all sales of alcohol (apart from in pubs and restaurants) must go through the state monopoly, a network of shops that open at 10am and close at 6pm. Ordinary shops cannot sell any alcohol, certainly not the low-cost-high-volume poison peddled by Britain’s supermarkets. According to Anna Sjostrom, Castle Craig’s representative in Sweden, studies show that this approach has reduced the rate of alcohol abuse considerably.
Scandinavians are known to be heavy boozers and prone to alcoholism so their alcohol-sales policy, which keeps prices artificially high, has to be commended. What I don’t understand is why the government allows thousands of Swedes to board massive cruise ships, sail over to the Baltic states and drink themselves silly. Passengers can access booze at duty free prices on-board these tubs and when they get to Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia can buy drink at cost price. The tickets for these cruises are 90% cheaper than they would normally pay, making it clear that the whole operation is just a way to sell masses amount of booze to vulnerable people. Surely these “binge-cruises” undo all the good work done by the government controlled shops?
My final observation concerns sex. When I was growing up in Scotland our neighbour over the North Sea was a beacon of sexual liberation and I assumed they were miles more advanced than us primitive Presbyterians. But when I spoke to Roger Nilson, a former surgeon who now works as a sex addict therapist I was shocked to learn that until very recently Sweden didn’t recognise the ailment of sex addiction.
Until Nilson managed to set up the first sex addicts’ therapy group in a state-run hospital in Stockholm the Swedish health service didn’t offer any treatment for this debilitating addiction. Roger Nilson told me that his sex addiction therapy group “is probably the first in a state-run hospital anywhere in Scandinavia.”
Sweden is a big country with a lot of lakes, forest and wilderness. The part I’ve seen around Stockholm is beautiful and in order to get to the bottom of all these paradoxes I will need to come back here and study the place a bit more closely.
Photo: The D-Day Landings in 1944 by Robert F. Sargent. Photo sourced from Wikipedia.org
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This comment by Jenka looks absurd in retrospect. First of all, Sweden isn’t small. Secondly, if Russia invaded the Swedes would humiliate them in a matter of days. Their Saab fighter jets would trounce the rsty old MIGS and their BOFORS guns would decimate any ground troops. If the current Ukraine war has proven anything it’s that a modern nation state with a half decent army could make mincemeat out of Russia’s military rabble.
What’s so good about Sweden? Sweden are small and weak. No one would survive more than a week if Russia decides to attack.
It’s in top 5 of the countrys with most rapes. And filled with immigrants who ruins everything..
Sweden sucks, some things are good and sweden is beautiful but mostly it sucks..
This comment by Jenka looks absurd in retrospect. First of all, Sweden isn’t small. Secondly, if Russia invaded the Swedes would humiliate them in a matter of days. Their Saab fighter jets would trounce the rsty old MIGS and their BOFORS guns would decimate any ground troops. If the current Ukraine war has proven anything it’s that a modern nation state with a half decent army could make mincemeat out of Russia’s military rabble.
Some facts I didn’t know; but inspite of paradox, I would like to imigrate there also!
I remember you from Bosnia and am sure that they would welcome your charm and skills.