Click the pic to read. By moi!
Wednesday, 7 March 2012
Tuesday, 28 February 2012
HEN IS A HEN
The word for sexless people/people who don't want to be associated with their gender roles are referred to as "hen" in Swedish.
My "transsexual" Santa in not transsexual.
Hen is a hen.
My "transsexual" Santa in not transsexual.
Hen is a hen.
Monday, 27 February 2012
Sunday, 26 February 2012
THE J-ERROR
On my way home from Café Mix on Friday I picked up the latest issue of Nöjesguiden and was like,
"Damn! they spelled my name wrong..." See it on page 11.
Thursday, 19 January 2012
WHY RIGHT-WING SWEDEN IS WRONG
On November 20 last year, my French boyfriend and I found ourselves on a plane to Sweden. Behind us was a great but pretty unstable life in London. When I, four years earlier, had left Stockholm for adventures in London, I left a country too safe and sorted for the good of my 20 year-old curiosity.
At some point in your crazy twenty-something life you get cravings after something nice and sorted. Somewhere where you don't have to worry about getting kicked out from your home and where you can build up a healthy lifestyle. We thought that Stockholm was the city in which we could find all these things.
But the Sweden we moved to is completely different from the Sweden I thought I knew.
Sweden changed government from a social democratic, pretty caring state to "Sweden's only labour party," i.e. the conservative party Moderaterna in 2006. When a country, who previously been funded by tax-payers so that pretty much all essentials such as education and health services being nearly free, change government into a pro-capitalist government, you get a big problem. Education and health services are no longer in the hands of the tax-payers, instead they are being sold off to a few rich, private investors. This means that what the previous generations Swedes worked hard to keep available for everyone, is now only available for a few rich ones. So, when a hospital or a school which has been built up by tax money, paid by the people, is being sold off to a private company or person, what the previous Swedish labourers essentially have done, is to give their hard-earned money to privatised companies.
Since the Social Democratic Party has been in control pretty much always since the 1930s, everything that has been built up by their left-wing, tax-funded politics is being raped and demolished by a few years of the right-wing, hierarchy politics Moderaterna has imposed on Swedish society. This change happened because the Swedes were tired and needed something new (Moderaterna came up with a marketing plan, calling themselves "Nya Moderaterna," meaning the New Moderaterna). Towards 2006, the Swedish labourers did no longer see where their tax money went and were promised more money for their labour and bigger freedom of choice. However, no one was told that the "freedom" offered by Nya Moderaterna can only be bought with money. And yes, people earned a bit more with the new government, but not enough to pay for the essentials.
Apart from private-owned education and health services, what is just as frightening, is the privatisation of housing. In the UK, it is pretty average these days to rent an ex-council flat that you share with a group of friends. In Sweden, such sharing is illegal. Also, before Nya Moderaterna formed the government pretty much anyone with a job could afford to buy a property. It was allowed to take a mortgage to cover all costs of your purchase. This allowed even the youngest twenty-something Swedes to get on the property ladder. But with Nya Moderaterna, the so-called "top loan" was abolished. Everyone who now wants to buy a property needs to pay 15% of the total sum in cash from their own pocket - but the banks refuse to give you a mortgage including these 15%.
To rent is not even an option since most previously government-owned rental flats are being sold off to the private market. And if you are lucky enough to have a first-hand contract on a rental flat with a private landlord, that is something you won't give up. A friend of mine have lived in a flat for five years with a second-hand contract, paying 150% more in rent each month to the girl with the first-hand contract. The first-hand girl doesn't even live in Sweden anymore and will probably never come back. This is obviously illegal, but the shortage of properties being available for everyone forces the second-hand tenant to pay what is asked of her to be able to have somewhere to stay.
And what happens if you, like me, don't have a job and can barely afford to eat? Well, since I've been abroad for the past four years, I haven't paid any taxes since 2007. And even though I've been paying taxes every summer and more between 2002-2007, my parents and grandparents have been paying taxes all their lives, and during my four years abroad, three years were funded by a Swedish student loan, I'm not eligible for job seekers allowance in Sweden. This, because my first year in the UK, I was working and paying taxes there, and not in Sweden. The job seekers allowance in Sweden only tracks your work history back 365 days. Bummer.
Luckily for me, I didn't move back to Sweden alone. I brought a work willing EU-citizen with me. However, the fact that Sweden is a part of the EU essentially only benefits Swedish people who want to go abroad. Being part of the EU and coming into Sweden is a completely different story.
There is a "slightly" racist party in Sweden called The Swedish Democrats (who basically are the equivalent of the British National Party and are a bunch of morons) who managed to get pretty much to say about immigration politics in Sweden lately. They have a few of their air heads hanging out in the parliament. Propaganda such as these days the most common name in Malmö for new-borns is Mohammed (a pretty non-"Swedish" name) is widespread. The irony is that Sweden is a country built up by immigrants. I mean, the royal family of Sweden is a bit German and a bit French (but oh so "Swedish"). As a result of the Swedish Democrats' "Sweden friendly" politics, coming from another EU-country to Sweden to stay is very difficult.
First off, you need to register at the migration board (you have a three-month deadline to sort yourself out before Sweden will ask you to leave), then you need to get yourself a personal identification number to be able to pay taxes. Unfortunately, in most cases, you need this number when applying for a job. And you can't get the number before either already having a job, starting up your own business or having that much money that you can take care of yourself for like a year. I wonder who has these kind of savings? Well, obviously not the average twenty-something dude from France. Also, most jobs in Sweden, even the jobs where you aren't in contact with customers (such as kitchen porter jobs etc.), demand that you are pretty fluent in the Swedish language. And here's the joke; you can't learn Swedish until you get your personal identification number. Confusing? It's a Catch 22. And it is basically just as difficult to get into Sweden being a EU-citizen as it is for those who are seeking asylum.
As for me, to be able to get any kind of help and support from the Swedish job centre I need to get my Bachelor degree from University of the Arts London acknowledged by the Swedish higher education agency first. This process takes four months.
What is essentially asked of me is that I find any job in any working field as quick as possible. However, the lack of jobs is making the competition massive. One advert for a job that suits my profile is on average viewed between 400 and 5000 times. You don't have to come from a mathematical background to understand that the chances are very small to get that job. I don't need to add that my education and age makes me slightly too old and too educated to work at the biggest provider of jobs for young people in Sweden, McDonald's. And to become a cleaner, I need (in most cases) a driver's license which I don't have.
Where lies the future for Sweden if the middle-class has become working class and the working class - the majority, has become poor? Are the rest of Sweden's 9 million citizens going to end up with unpaid vast debts just as half a million Swedes already do? The solution for most Swedes would probably be to move abroad. After all, that is something that we historically have been very good at.
At some point in your crazy twenty-something life you get cravings after something nice and sorted. Somewhere where you don't have to worry about getting kicked out from your home and where you can build up a healthy lifestyle. We thought that Stockholm was the city in which we could find all these things.
But the Sweden we moved to is completely different from the Sweden I thought I knew.
Sweden changed government from a social democratic, pretty caring state to "Sweden's only labour party," i.e. the conservative party Moderaterna in 2006. When a country, who previously been funded by tax-payers so that pretty much all essentials such as education and health services being nearly free, change government into a pro-capitalist government, you get a big problem. Education and health services are no longer in the hands of the tax-payers, instead they are being sold off to a few rich, private investors. This means that what the previous generations Swedes worked hard to keep available for everyone, is now only available for a few rich ones. So, when a hospital or a school which has been built up by tax money, paid by the people, is being sold off to a private company or person, what the previous Swedish labourers essentially have done, is to give their hard-earned money to privatised companies.
Since the Social Democratic Party has been in control pretty much always since the 1930s, everything that has been built up by their left-wing, tax-funded politics is being raped and demolished by a few years of the right-wing, hierarchy politics Moderaterna has imposed on Swedish society. This change happened because the Swedes were tired and needed something new (Moderaterna came up with a marketing plan, calling themselves "Nya Moderaterna," meaning the New Moderaterna). Towards 2006, the Swedish labourers did no longer see where their tax money went and were promised more money for their labour and bigger freedom of choice. However, no one was told that the "freedom" offered by Nya Moderaterna can only be bought with money. And yes, people earned a bit more with the new government, but not enough to pay for the essentials.
Apart from private-owned education and health services, what is just as frightening, is the privatisation of housing. In the UK, it is pretty average these days to rent an ex-council flat that you share with a group of friends. In Sweden, such sharing is illegal. Also, before Nya Moderaterna formed the government pretty much anyone with a job could afford to buy a property. It was allowed to take a mortgage to cover all costs of your purchase. This allowed even the youngest twenty-something Swedes to get on the property ladder. But with Nya Moderaterna, the so-called "top loan" was abolished. Everyone who now wants to buy a property needs to pay 15% of the total sum in cash from their own pocket - but the banks refuse to give you a mortgage including these 15%.
To rent is not even an option since most previously government-owned rental flats are being sold off to the private market. And if you are lucky enough to have a first-hand contract on a rental flat with a private landlord, that is something you won't give up. A friend of mine have lived in a flat for five years with a second-hand contract, paying 150% more in rent each month to the girl with the first-hand contract. The first-hand girl doesn't even live in Sweden anymore and will probably never come back. This is obviously illegal, but the shortage of properties being available for everyone forces the second-hand tenant to pay what is asked of her to be able to have somewhere to stay.
And what happens if you, like me, don't have a job and can barely afford to eat? Well, since I've been abroad for the past four years, I haven't paid any taxes since 2007. And even though I've been paying taxes every summer and more between 2002-2007, my parents and grandparents have been paying taxes all their lives, and during my four years abroad, three years were funded by a Swedish student loan, I'm not eligible for job seekers allowance in Sweden. This, because my first year in the UK, I was working and paying taxes there, and not in Sweden. The job seekers allowance in Sweden only tracks your work history back 365 days. Bummer.
Luckily for me, I didn't move back to Sweden alone. I brought a work willing EU-citizen with me. However, the fact that Sweden is a part of the EU essentially only benefits Swedish people who want to go abroad. Being part of the EU and coming into Sweden is a completely different story.
There is a "slightly" racist party in Sweden called The Swedish Democrats (who basically are the equivalent of the British National Party and are a bunch of morons) who managed to get pretty much to say about immigration politics in Sweden lately. They have a few of their air heads hanging out in the parliament. Propaganda such as these days the most common name in Malmö for new-borns is Mohammed (a pretty non-"Swedish" name) is widespread. The irony is that Sweden is a country built up by immigrants. I mean, the royal family of Sweden is a bit German and a bit French (but oh so "Swedish"). As a result of the Swedish Democrats' "Sweden friendly" politics, coming from another EU-country to Sweden to stay is very difficult.
First off, you need to register at the migration board (you have a three-month deadline to sort yourself out before Sweden will ask you to leave), then you need to get yourself a personal identification number to be able to pay taxes. Unfortunately, in most cases, you need this number when applying for a job. And you can't get the number before either already having a job, starting up your own business or having that much money that you can take care of yourself for like a year. I wonder who has these kind of savings? Well, obviously not the average twenty-something dude from France. Also, most jobs in Sweden, even the jobs where you aren't in contact with customers (such as kitchen porter jobs etc.), demand that you are pretty fluent in the Swedish language. And here's the joke; you can't learn Swedish until you get your personal identification number. Confusing? It's a Catch 22. And it is basically just as difficult to get into Sweden being a EU-citizen as it is for those who are seeking asylum.
As for me, to be able to get any kind of help and support from the Swedish job centre I need to get my Bachelor degree from University of the Arts London acknowledged by the Swedish higher education agency first. This process takes four months.
What is essentially asked of me is that I find any job in any working field as quick as possible. However, the lack of jobs is making the competition massive. One advert for a job that suits my profile is on average viewed between 400 and 5000 times. You don't have to come from a mathematical background to understand that the chances are very small to get that job. I don't need to add that my education and age makes me slightly too old and too educated to work at the biggest provider of jobs for young people in Sweden, McDonald's. And to become a cleaner, I need (in most cases) a driver's license which I don't have.
Where lies the future for Sweden if the middle-class has become working class and the working class - the majority, has become poor? Are the rest of Sweden's 9 million citizens going to end up with unpaid vast debts just as half a million Swedes already do? The solution for most Swedes would probably be to move abroad. After all, that is something that we historically have been very good at.
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