I'm sitting and idly watching a football World Cup match at Trädgården. It's a heat wave. The stuffiness cannot be aired out. It feels like people really wanted to dance, but couldn't really fight against the high pressure that keeps them on the wooden benches. When I'm no longer pretending I've heard of a single player on the Canadian national team, I ask my friend what he's going to vote for. It is clear that we both feel slightly paralyzed even in the face of this task.
But not doing it is of course not an option, we quickly agree on that. After all, we are children of Jan Björklund's curriculum. The point is that those who do not vote do not have the right to complain either. A simple principle, especially if you are a Swedish citizen and the most obvious risk of abstaining is losing legitimacy in a political discussion. For others, the election results may have more life-changing consequences.
Another summer morning. The mail dims down through the letter drop. A blue note is wedged between a thick and thin envelope. It is double-folded with text on both sides. I start reading.
Hello!
I want more parents in Malmö to be able to stand with flowers in their hands, pride in their hearts and see their children run out on the student's happy day.
The handwriting is crooked, with a combination of squiggly and bumpy letters. Like when a child tries to learn penmanship. I recognize the grip of letters from Jehovah's Witnesses that have appeared in the mailbox a few times during my life. But this does not exactly apply to eternal salvation. Nor is the note handwritten. When I look closer, I see the small pixel shifts where the letters are tilted.
I continue to read the laser printed message.
My name is Linda Eklund and is Liberalerna Malmö's new first name in the municipal election. (...) With liberals in charge of the school, there are now more students who have passed school and are moving on in life with faith in the future and more open doors. But I'm not satisfied. Too many children still leave primary school without the skills they need.
If one disregards the clumsy language, which contrasts rather harshly with a self-image as a demanding school party, I am inclined to agree with Eklund in substance.
Too many children leave primary school without the skills they need. One of them is called Gabriella, and is eight years old. One Sunday night last spring, she drove with her family between Forsbacka and Arlanda, after receiving her final deportation order to El Salvador. Her father, who had taken a job as a cleaner at the local school, earned SEK 4,000 too little to reach the new income requirement. That her mother reached it didn't matter. And so it was with that thing.
But many parties seem to want to reach women like me. The urban middle class. The man should be allowed to give birth to more children
Why the unknown Eklund was allowed to take over the Liberals in Malmö is not mentioned with a single word. I have my sympathies further to the left than the Liberals. But many parties seem to want to reach women like me. The urban middle class. The man should be allowed to give birth to more children. The same week in Almedalen, the Left Party promises me a check of 15,000 for doing so. The Christian Democrats bid over, with SEK 36,900, right into the premium pension account. Is this really red or for that matter blue politics? It mostly feels like an argument about monthly money.
A few days ago, I received a notice in my digital mailbox. I will receive SEK 25 from the Social Insurance Agency to pay an electricity bill I can easily afford anyway. I buy a coffee with the money, but get a strange feeling. Until very recently, it has been said that we cannot afford to help everyone. What we can afford seems closely tied to the polling institutes' graphs of disaffected voter groups.
I'm looking for a feeling, some kind of primal political fire. The feeling that made my fourteen-year-old self take a picture when someone had sprayed a female sign outside the strip club Wandas in Gothenburg
When summer stands and shivers the most, I sit on the sofa. With the blinds drawn, I pour myself cocktails of rehydration and mate soda. I'm looking for a feeling, some kind of primal political fire. The feeling that made my fourteen-year-old self take a picture when someone had sprayed a female sign outside the strip club Wandas in Gothenburg, even though I would never have dared to do it myself. The feeling that made me rate zero on everything on the muster form. Me and my best friend wrote debate articles about Yemen and Western Sahara. We were absolutely convinced that we could make a difference. I have a hard time reaching that feeling today.
It becomes absurd that - at the same time as the right admits that they are losing in matters of values - the left completely lacks faith that it is possible to win in that way. With the conviction that a better world is possible. I am prepared to go to the polling station, otherwise completely naked, if I can hide my gender with a ballot from a party that does not want to give me a single penny. At least not before we have restored the one percent target in aid policy.
Have the political visions stagnated, in an unimaginative dream of the eternal middle class, reduced to so-called wallet issues? It is belittling, not to say humiliating, that there really doesn't seem to be a single political strategist, communicator, clerk, lobbyist or puppet in SVT who understands that I would never abandon my political ideals for, say, a 25 percent lifetime discount on Arvid Nordquist.
Read previous parts in the series First-timer:
Marx Mukaru and Nasir Sarr: We learned how to vote but rarely got to speak
