Battleangel

Swedes sceptical towards National Day

Pär Nuder, finance minister, was hoping that June 6th, National Day, would be an opportunity to create a greater sense of community in Sweden and strengthen the Swedish identity. But according to a Temo research done for SAS, seven out of ten Swedes like the idea of being off on national day, but only one out of ten will wave the Swedish flag.

This year is the first time that National Day will be marked with a public holiday, replacing the holiday for the second day of pentecost. The 6th June is the anniversary of the day Gustav Vasa was crowned king in 1523.

Peter Aronsson, who is professor for cultural inheritance and history usage at the University of Linköping, thinks that the only thing that would make Swedes gather around a day to celebrate the nation is a war or other national drama.

Source: The Local

Then they go on to elusively describe extreme nationalistic groups, who ironically are the only ones taking the National Day serious. Which in itself is a telling tale about what patriotism is about and where it can, and often will lead you.

I’ll say the pretty much the same thing as I said over at The Local …

Not surprising that people don’t care. Nothing strange or weird about it. Sweden is in a position where the National Day is largely superfluous. I’d be alarmed and worried if people actually made a big thing out of it. Nothing good comes out of nationalism and most of the time its just a way for the elites to coerce a response from the masses. Nothing true, genuine or grassroots about it.

As for immigrants, I don’t see it as a problem either. They’re more assimilated than they think. And in a generation, what little foreign identity they have will be melded with Sweden’s or in fact erased. Given also that there are in fact so many nationalities immigrating, with so many cultures, I’d say that the notion of “them” subverting “us” is ludicrous.

That extreme elements have taken over the flag-waving is entirely predictable too. Ironically they are ahead of us by leaps and bounds. That is what such festivities are about in essence. Superpatriotism from the long lost times when the nation state was the ultimate idea. As such, much of it is archaic. And it would only really be effective, needed or manifested as Aronsson points out, when Sweden “needed” to consolidate over a threat, real or perceived. Or if the government geared up towards making the populace accept something really unpopular and extreme. Pre-emptive war or whatever.
Sweden probably has a relatively week sense of nationality (guessing here and comparing to end of the scale examples like the US). And that is what makes it so great and such a great safety measure against abuse.

Many still rush to defend the phenomena however … often for less than concrete reasons.