Sweden has said no to the euro. By 56% to 42%, my people have chosen to stick to the old, to wait and see. It is most of all an expression of self-expedience and nationalism.
Commentators have interpreted the outcome in David versus Goliath terms, as the weak majoritys revenge on the elite, not least for its tasteless campaign work. There are numbers to support that argument. There is also a lot of debate about how the murder of Anna Lindh four days before the referendum affected the result.
My immediate reaction when I found out about the stabbing attack on Anna was that it had to be someone on the no side: either a nazi or someone from the extreme left, the so-called anti-globalisation people. A 24-year old psychically instable person who is said to be obsessed with celebrities, though himself a loner, is now in custody, strongly tied to the crime on the grounds of DNA evidence.
Who voted yes and no, and why?
I voted yes. That makes me atypical in some ways (young, female) and typical in others (I live in Stockholm, Im well-travelled). The great divides are between countryside (no) and big cities (yes), between women (no) and men (yes). Immigrants, particularly from southern Europe, voted yes. Young people voted no.
What were the yes campaigns mistakes? First, too much talk about short-term benefits. A lot of credibility was lost by Swedish heads of industry, who claimed to know the exact figures of how many new jobs the euro would bring us. The euro was already a strange and rather technical issue to have a referendum on. Who really understands the impact of the fixation of interest rates?
Europe didnt really figure in the debate: the points made were economic, not political, and with middle-aged male exceptions like George Papandreou and Joschka Fischer, no Europeans came to us to make the argument. The campaign was not broad and did not include enough high profile greens and leftists. There was also trouble with the handling of the discussion about campaign financing.
Admittedly, the yes campaigners made a number of serious mistakes. But to vote no in protest was just irresponsible. If you look a little closer, you see that many people on the no side claim to have voted no for democratic reasons Swedish democracy, that is, not the cause of regional, European, or global democracy. The Swedish left and green movement is inward looking and conservative in so many ways. They prefer the krona with a picture of the Swedish king to a euro with Anna Lindhs face, as was suggested the other day. Issues of war and peace are far away for them.
Perfidious Sweden, absent Europe
Sweden is one corner of Europe where it is almost impossible to find EU flags. There is a certain disrespect for authorities (which is usually a good thing) and people have an impression that all rules are rigid when they come from the outside. We have a culture of Swedish exceptionalism: a naive sense that we know what we have, that we should not make our hands dirty. For many, being against the absurdities of the Common Agricultural Policy means voting no to the euro. For me, it means the exact opposite. How can we make a difference otherwise?
The absence of the European agenda in public discourse is striking. Where was the Europe-wide debate about the Convention and a constitution for Europe? Not here in Sweden, as far as I can tell. The only kind of euro experience that the no side seems to have listened to is complaints about higher prices: 51% of the naysayers mentioned it as an important factor when they made their decision.
Ironically it is only now, after our foreign ministers death, that European figures appear as human beings on our television screens. They grieve with us. They talk about Anna as the acceptable face of Europe, as the perfect working mother, as a beautiful unfinished symphony. It is touching, and too late.
It sickens me, especially now, to hear the arguments of my fellow left-wing Swedes about us versus them. As if the only thing that mattered is what is good for people who happen to live in Sweden. Why cant we also talk about what is good for Romania, or Congo, or the world? We should discuss treason not only in terms of betraying the nation state. What about those who betray the European or the global? What about human rights? About building something new and good?
It has tormented me for some time that I dont have the right to vote against George W Bush, or for Joschka Fischer. But it makes me really angry that people in the UK, in France, in Turkey for that matter, will never ever get to vote for Anna Lindh.
