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We need more authority now, here in the nation, where preferably no individual should take over, but everyone should feel involved in the decision, but still without having to take responsibility themselves, but rather be able to put that burden on someone else. Someone else, like a leader who still shouldn’t be overly determined in their leadership and determination. It is almost as if Löfven between the lines asks the Swedish people: How do you feel? How are we really going to care right now?
The strategy of the Swedish crown so far has been the subject of lively debate around the world. Is our lax attitude to isolation and unwillingness to shut down large sections of society a long-term winning concept, or have Tegnell and the government sent thousands of people to their deaths? Regardless, at the time of writing this report we are in a second wave of rapid escalation and the lack of authority lies in great confusion over the country’s consensus.
I was in Norway at the end of August and at the airport I was stopped and picked up by a tough Norwegian border police behind a glass window. That was good! She clearly told me what I should think about and how I should relate to the rules of the Norwegian crown.
Here in Sweden, people ask each other in confusion and try to help interpret new advice, guidelines and rules. Can you go down to the local pizzeria and buy pizza? Can you have coffee with a friend in a cafe, if it is otherwise quite empty? Is it okay to go to Ikea just before closing to buy a set of shelves? And why doesn’t everyone who is crammed into buses and trains wear mouth guards? Will there be a compulsion about it soon? Probably not, since the consensus of the country in general does not seem to like to work by force.
It is as if the mere idea of someone else ordering what we are allowed and are not allowed to do violates all of our freedom as human beings, even in a pandemic. And what are a few thousand old dead people compared to freedom violated?
Sweden has had 593 deaths per million inhabitants since the Corona pandemic struck, Norway has had 52 per million. His government and state epidemiologist have followed a much more authoritarian line from the beginning, and if there is anything people need in times of crisis and chaos, it is clarity.
Believing in your own reason and your own sense of responsibility is like a religion in Sweden, but then we become lay with each other and go to parties and hug each other as if everything was business as usual. Obviously, we can’t handle being released on liability, when, after all, there’s a sale in town and it starts to feel depressing at home on the couch. I’m not better, as long as no one grabs my ear and all the cafes and restaurants, malls and gyms close for a while and get state artificial respiration.
Rarely have I felt so much like a lost child desperately in need of a harsh and all too clear adult world that dictates what applies; completely without room for free interpretation.
In this situation, Löfven and Tegnell must embrace their slightly dictatorial sides and ignore confused citizens until the vaccine is here. Because, obviously, we cannot take on this responsibility ourselves.
