Stockholm - after the shock lifted

"Men inga vildvittror kunde skrämma bort Ronja från hennes stigar och ställen..." ("But no harpies could scare away Ronja from her pathes and places") 

~ Astrid Lindgren, Ronja rövardotter/Ronja, the robber's daughter

It has been a week and a rather strange and emotional one at that. Last Saturday, I wrote my first thoughts and reactions to what happened in Stockholm a week ago (It can be read here.). I have been into the city a couple of times now and on Wednesday, I sort of made a "reclaim Drottninggatan" action when I walked the whole street from Odenplan via Norrtullsgatan in the northern part of the city down to the parliament in the south. (Here is a map of how I walked for those of you who are not familiar with Stockholm.)

You really sort of notice when you walk into "the zone" so to speak. Everyone slows down, starts talking in lower voices and there is an atmosphere of regardful piety. The rest of the city is just as lively as ever, but that area, even though it is in the middle of the city and just as crowded as usual, it is a place for reflection and mourning. The whole street has turned into an ocean of flowers and candles and teddy bears and people are leaving messages on the big wooden board covering the hole in the facade at the departement store Åhléns where the truc ended up and when there were no space left, people started writing other types of notes and also writing on the concrete tiles that make up the street. It is such a powerful place right now. What I am so very happy about and proud of is that I did not feel any sense of hate. Instead there is so much love and comfort to the messages and the athmosphere which really induce hope.

There has been a trend to cover polices and their cars with
flowers thanking them for their effort. The message on the
stair at Sergels torg bottom right reads "Kärlek" ( Love) and
 the one in the flowers "Sleep tight! We are making love win."

I think I have been in shock ever since it happened, but my reaction Wednesday night was unbelievably physical. I felt chilly and thirsty and I started crying without really being triggered by anything. What is good is that I do feel like everything lifted afterwards. It is easier to breathe again and I am glad I have not started hating or got particularly angry. Or, that is a truth that needs a bit of modification. When some stupid Swedish trolls on the internet are writing comments like "Äntligen!" (Finally!) about the attack on social media thinking this event will get everyone on their side, I have been extremely angry because of their stupidity. And I am not the terrorist who did it's biggest fan either, but I still cannot help wondering what has driven them to hate so much. Who recented them so they had to answer in kind loosing trust in both themselves and others?

The media has got a lot of criticism and to some extent, they deserve it and, especially the tabloids and the columnists, probably should consider a collective course in how to best handle a crisis, what they have done well (even though probably completely unconciously) is that they have focused almost entirely on what is happening in the real world and not so much on what is being said on the internet. I think this has led to the racism being toned down to only a muffled murmur in the background. This has slipped a bit in the past two days, but I believe that I can see a small shift in the way internet comments are being treated by the media. It is more: "How come they would say things like that?" But for like the first time ever, they are also writing article about what is fake about the things that has been said online.

In the middle of all the emotional turmoil that the latest week has been filled with, I find myself still having been able to think rather rationally. This has surprised me since I have rather paniced and acted irrationally. I have rather reflected on the stories I have heard and read from eye witnesses and what it tells me about humans in general and Swedes in particular.

As a student in the humanistic sciences, I am often more inclined to say that humans act according to systems and structures which is true in general. However, I have for quite some time also wondered how our strictly biological nature can be tied into this mix and I think I understood it last week.

Flowers, flags and teddy bears and of course the dog who got
killed has got his own shrine filled with biscuits and toys.
My own contribution (the red rose in the lower left picture)
was to his pile.

I have long believed that humans have a tribal nature. We are meant to live together with each other. We have done so since long before we turned into homo sapiens. This tribe, however is probably to a larger extent socially constructed then biological, which I will get back to later.

What the heroic stories I have read and heard from the Stockholm attack have got me thinking is that one of our most basic instincts is to defend this tribe to all cost when it is under attack. (I do think prejudices are part of this particular instinct and the problem is not that you have it, but how you handle it!) The guards at Åhléns had apparently gone against their company policy to take cover (Seriously, what kind of policy is that for security guards?!) by running towards the danger than away from it.

These lions are the Jersey barriers on Drottninggatan and they
have sort of become symbols for the entire attack. Almost
everyone of them has at least one flower and some of them
are covered almost entirely.

There was also a bus at the crossing street Kungsgatan which was about to colide with the fast moving truck, but the driver managed to push hard on the break and avoid that. When the driver opened the doors letting the passangers out, they reacted by running towards the danger and not away from it. But somehow during the attack there are some indications that our definition of the tribe also expands.

We have had lots of Romani beggers and they have been so hated and inhumanly treated in recent years, that it is a shame for me to say it. One of them, an elderly woman, sat outside one of the shops on Drottninggatan and got hurt by one of the lions Jersey barriers you can see to the left. In an interview, she said that she thought no one would care about her and on contrary to one of the Swedish politicans who seemed appalled by that comment on Twitter, I am not at all surprised. (If you are in a country where you are openly hated and someone has thrown acid on you, you probably do not hope for too much...) But two men had come and carried her to safety. We have also collectively mourned the poor dog that was killed

Messages from people from all around the world.

But not only during the attack, I think the biological tribal instincts I think have been evident. The Swedes have embraced the new reality caused by the terror attack showing each other love, comfort and compassion. We are reaching out for each other and have become more united over the past week than I thought we have been for a long time. Our tribe was hit, but we are boncing back together and I really think that we have become stronger by it.

I talked a little about how it was an attack on the multicultural society and not on an ethnical pure Sweden and the victims are spookily symbolic for this as well. They were one Belgian woman who had worked for the Belgian Migration Board. One British man who worked for Spotify, a multinational company with its roots in Sweden. One Irish rescue dog who had come to a Swedish family and therefore become Swedish. One Swedish woman working for Amnesty and one innocent Swedish 11-year-old girl. Thinking about it, it is a bit creepy.

The sign put up at Åhléns where they need to repair the damage of the truck
hitting them last Friday. It says: "Now we are reparing. Thanks to everyone
who keeps Stockholm city open. Our love to everyone involved.
From us working at Åhléns."

Quote by August Strindberg on Drottning-
gatan, with track marks running over it.
It is from his play Ett drömspel (A Dream
Play) and can be translated as:
"I feel sorry for the humans!"

 I often go on and on about the concept of the Nation State and how it is a social contruction of the 19th century and also how it limits life in the global community we have today, but at the moment I am perfectly fine being part of a community (or a tribe really!) where I still belong without having met all of the members.

A non-Swede I know, who have lived in many countries, once said that the Swedes national identity is different from all other nationalities. Our national identity is not really based on patriotism, but rather on realism. He also said that we might be introverted, serious and careful, but we have a strong sense of solidarity and humanism, that he has never encountered before. Watching my country come together in grief over the past week, I think I finally understand him. It seems like we, as soon as the attack occured really, made an unspoken social contract to each other to get through this using love and compassion. We may be a little beaten down at the moment, but we are not broken and I do have real hope that we will rise again, stronger and better than ever. This is how Swedes mourn and we do it together with love and compassion and with the intent on coming out of it stronger and better than ever.

One thing all antidemocratic movement has in common is a belief that a free, open society is weak. I know better! An open society may have weaknesses, but it is based on a foundation of trust. It is often say that the evil will never understand love, but it does not really understand trust either. The immense love. comfort and compassion I have felt for my countrymen and the authorites this past week have reestablished my trust in my country and I feel safer than ever. The Swedish word for trust is TILLIT. It is a palindrome. Because it goes both ways...

"Nu gungar glädjelampor över havet var man ser. Nu tröstar vi varandra och är aldrig rädda mer." ("Now the lamps of happiness are swinging across the ocean everywhere you see. Now we comfort each other and are never afraid anymore.") 

~ Tove Jansson, Vem ska trösta knyttet?/Who will comfort toffle? 

PS. Stockholm's City Museum and Stockholm's County Museum are looking for stories, conversations on social media and/or pictures from the terror attack. See more here (in Swedish).

A billboard that normally shows adds, now shows love for Stockholm.

Thoughts and Feelings about Stockholm

Stockholm in pictures

Yesterday my country was attacked when a lorry drove into a crowd at Drottninggatan in central Stockholm and this is what I wrote on Tumblr, but I thought I should publish it here as well.

I started off being completely terrified, but everyone has handled it extremely well. I have been worried that if a terror attack (If it really was one. Most things point to it, but we can’t really say for sure yet.) occured here everyone would panic and everyone “would just run around like dizzy hens“ (to use a Swedish expression). And that was pretty much one of the worst places in Stockholm for it to happen. Especially on a Friday afternoon, when people have finished work.

This makes me think we got quite lucky. Do not misunderstand this now! It is horrible that 4 people died and 15 were injured, but based on where it happened and when, it could have ended up as a massive bloodbath. But in the middle of all chaos, I think people have actually handled it very well. The authorities have been great in all of this really. The emergency services seem to have been there straight away and they are giving out what information they can and also make request that people keep calm. The government has also been great and collected in their statements and so has the Swedish Television and the Swedish Radio. This made me feel calm and safe. Like: “It happened, it was shocking and terrifying, but we got this! We are here for you.”

Kristina Gyllenstierna who defended
Stockholm when it was under attack
by the Danes in 1520

And I have to say that I am unbelievably proud of my countrymen. Because everything shot down and there was no way out of Stocholm besides walking really, people and work places took to social media offering shelters for the night, driving them somewhere and/or if they just needed a shoulder to cry on. Preschools and schools were kept open until the children to those stuck in Stockholm could be picked up and some grocery stores and restaurants also said they would provide children being alone at home with dinner for the same reasons. It gives me a hope in humanity, which I thought I lost. I saw a photo of people walking on Västerbron (The Western bridge) in the suset and it was so powerful. It’s not far from thinking about refugees when you see things like that. Also it is worth stressing that this did not happen to an “ethnical pure” Sweden! Hearing eye witnesses giving interviews in broken Swedish makes it clear that it was an attack on the multicultural, open Sweden and this is very much worth pointing out because if we close our minds and hearts, there is really no way out of it and the society will totally collaps because of all the hate and I am proud that we stood unified against all of that yesterday. And it makes me proud to be Swedish today.