Occupy Stockholm

Our home in Stockholm sometimes feels a bit remote.   Tucked just 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) south of the Arctic Circle, we are at the start of the winter darkness season.  A month from now, the sun will set by 3:00 pm.  We anticipate that this early darkness will only add to the sense of global detachment.

Detachment is not new here.  Despite the eruption of European wars of the previous century, Sweden remained on a neutral sideline. Even the current financial roiling in the nearby Euro zone is distant from the consciousness of our Swedish kroner-based society. What could ever penetrate this forever even-keeled society?

Enter Occupy Wall Street.

Swedish Rally Participants

It is not that the nation as a whole has been swept forth in a surge of anger and angst.  Despite the dizzying height of taxes… our VAT/sales tax is 25% on some items… Swedes generally embrace their socialist society.   Unemployment that peaked in April 2010 at 9.1% has seen a downward trend with last reported figures in August 2011 showing 7.4% of the population was unemployed.

The system is the problem!

It is hard to discern the underlying social context for the Occupy Stockholm movement.   We clearly understand the emotional context for occupy movements in New York, Chicago, Boston and other US cities.  Even movements in Rome, Tokyo, London and other countries with economies fraught with uncertainties make sense.

People Gathered In Sergels Torg

Why occupy Stockholm?  The Swedish psyche, from what we have observed in our very short time here, welcomes the rational ordering of social interactions.  In shops, banks and public offices, one takes a number from a dispenser and waits in orderly fashion to be served.  Both cars and bicycles stop for pedestrians crossing the street.  It is unfathomable to think of a Swedish mob chanting, “Hell no, we won’t go!” marching down a main thoroughfare.  Then again, an insular nation has little inclination to dispatch its citizens to undesirable locales.

So why the gathering at Sergels Torg; the march and encampment in the grassy park in front of Sweden’s central bank?

Not 1 Penny More!

Clearly, Occupy Wall Street has become a global phenomenon with a sufficiently broad sweep of discontent to offer an appeal to an ever-widening audience.  The global financial system that allows us to slide our Visa card across shop counters around the world has also intertwined us into a far more uncertain world of credit default swap options.  Shared concern is not difficult to find.

The Times They are A-Changin'

There was time when banks were local and at the core of our financial certainty.  We of an earlier generation all clutched our savings passbook - seeing nickels and dimes grow to dollars.   Yet, as one handmade poster noted at the Occupy Stockholm rally, “The times they are a changin’.”    

It appears that some Swedes are more attuned than others to the changing times.