Here Sits Sweden

     Blog star James Altena has forwarded me this article on the collapse of Sweden, under the regime of its intellectual elites (forwarded to him by our contribuing editor, William Tighe).  It really is a breathtaking rush to cultural suicide, though it is hard to call it that when the literati and politiques in charge are actually denying that Sweden has ever had a culture to kill, or a history to remember.  Sweden, they say, is by its non-nature "multicultural," which means a-cultural, and therefore capable of receiving any and all other cultures, including Islamic culture.  A third of the population of Malmo is now Muslim.  That apparently is all right, as the great Swedish Lutheran Church is just an arm of the state now, and a withered arm at that.

     Nobody in my family is Swedish, but some years ago my daughter took to learning about the country -- its regional folk customs, its music, its history, and its language.  We have examples of rosemaling all over our house; she bakes saffron buns on Saint Lucy's Day; we even found in an antique shop a hand-signed print by the amiable watercolorist Carl Larson (the dealer didn't know what he had, but we knew).  My daughter taught herself Swedish, and has been singing in a Swedish choir here in Rhode Island.  That choir goes back over a hundred years; Swedes love to sing, or loved to sing, and formed male and female choirs wherever they settled in the United States.  Now her choir, and the male choir that preceded it, are on hard times, as it's almost impossible to recruit young people to sing.  Still they try, and still they cherish the Swedish folk songs, which they sing in Swedish, though they are interspersed in their recitals with old-fashioned American folk tunes and newer American show tunes.  I've hung around these good people for a long time, and I'm impressed by their love of the old country, and their (for the most part) having persisted in the Christian faith.  They are acutely aware that the Swedish heritage they cherish is not exactly cherished by the leaders of Sweden itself.  I feel sorry for them.  Meanwhile, the family in Sweden is collapsing, and instead of asking whether the virulent feminism and sexual antinomianism they have adopted has something to do with it, they seem to be mounting a small crusade to cause boys and men to sit down at the potty.  I kid you not.  Tell it to Abdullah.

     So in that spirit of fellowship for my Lutheran brothers in the faith, for Swedes who love their history, for the spirit of Gustav Vasa and King Erik and Gustav Adolph, and also for those poor Larses and Nilses who have to be pestered politically even at the potty, I offer this hymn.

Leftist hearts need no more bleeding:
We at last have found our Eden
On the empty slopes of Sweden.

Call us not a land of wafflers!
We that bred the great Adolphus
Now build Saabs, and lady golfers.

We can boast our share of honors:
Volvos haul in lots of kroners,
And Bjorn Borg beat Yimmy Connors.

Neither Orthodox nor Arian,
Our church-state is prelapsarian,
Tenderly totalitarian.

But we're kind: when someone sneezes,
You may mention "God" or "Jesus".
That's a gospel that will please us.

Our blest land let none disparage,
Where first comes the baby carriage --
If at all -- without a marriage.

Let the praise be hyperbolic!
Here no babies wake with colic;
Men are free, and alcoholic.

Still some serpent hates our being
Happy in our glogg and skiing:
Tempts small boys to stand while p--ing!

Should some Swedish Rip Van Winkle
Wake in Stockholm, all a wrinkle,
Still he'd have to sit to tinkle.

So he sits, obeys our rule or he
Finds how fast we punish foolery --
Confiscate his family jewlery!

We'll reward him when he waxes
Pliant, and at last relaxes:
Down he goes, and up his taxes.

Let none think our ways are dotty.
Man, we find, learns to be naughty
Once he stands to use the potty.

Soon as he has doffed the diaper
For his pants and paper wiper,
He inclines to play the viper.

Little Lars must be a Viking,
Bred for slashing, slaying, striking --
Standing up is to his liking.

Lest his stabbing be a menace,
Slaying gals at golf and tennis,
Let him not know where his pen is.

Fascists sure will sneer and snicker --
Prudence leaves no room to dicker,
Turning pojkar into flickor.

When the Danish despot martyred
Swedes upon his crowning, slaughtered
As their slavish nation tottered,

Standing, Vasa came attacking,
Sent the king and princes packing!
"God's my shepherd, I'm not lacking!"

Said that bold lad Martin Luther,
Caught unbuttoned by his mother,
"Here I stand, I can no other!"

Standing, as a Christian oughter,
He dispensed his holy water,
Simul justus et peccator.

Upright, he affirmed with brio
What tremendous payment we owe
Unto God, and not Pope Leo.

He sought freedom, reformation --
Urged his land in indignation,
"You're no ruin!  You're a nation!"

When the birds of war were landing
On the Polish plains, commanding
Came the brave Gustavus, standing.

There he fell, there he was sainted.
Heroes often are but painted,
But not he -- he never fainted.

See the danger of such power!
We've cut short the manly shower.
This is Sweden's finest hour.

Now all's peace and -- what the -- dammit,
Who's set fire to -- door's locked, ram it!
Oh, it's only you, Mohammed.

What -- you say you've mugged a parson?
Burnt his chapel, act of arson?
Round up all the men named Larsen.

Never mind our thoughtless kidding.
Pretty please to do our bidding;
If you don't we'll take it -- sitting.

Comments

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>The whole Old Testament is about the Israelits in search of their ethnic homeland ... coming into their promiseland and then keeping it.<<<

The problem with your premise is that we are NOT Jews (well, I am, or was, but most of you ain't), and we do not have an earthly homeland. Paul tells us that we are always strangers in a strange land. Christ himself tells us that the birds have nests and the foxes have their den, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.

Since we, as members of the Church, are citizens of the Kingdom of God, we are essentially squatters in whatever country we call our home. As such, it is our obligation to preach the Gospel to all nations, and to make our own nation as much as possible an image of the heavenly Kingdom.

The question of immigration, then, is one of prudential judgment, concerning how best to balance a range of objectives and interests, including the Christian desire to help others in need, but also how to ensure good order and the social cohesion necessary maintain the kind og homeland that can indeed offer to help others. One of the key considerations must therefore be the rate at which immigrants can be assimilated, and how best to maintain the kind of Christian values that ought to undergird our society. That in turn might dictate limits on the number of people allowed in at any time, and also the terms under which people are admitted.

But you cannot recourse to Scripture in order to justify what is essentially a nativist argument of the same type that was once used against the Irish in the 19th century.

[GL]

As to immigration, I am not at all opposed to high levels of immigration. There is, however, limits to how much a society can properly assimilate (and, yes, assimilation is important).

I just saw last week where the UN is projecting that over the next half century, the annual level of migration world wide will be 2.3 million. Of that, 1.1 million per year will migrate to the U.S.

Even one who thinks that immigrants are a good thing must pause at the notion that nearly half of all migrants in the world over the next 50 years are projected to arrive on our shores. Can any nation properly assimilate that many immigrants?

[Joe Long]

"Good fences make good neighbors."

I agree that we can't read ethnic rights to any particular chunk of land - other than Palestine -into Scripture; it is just elementary good sense that tells a nation to control its borders.

The American Indians didn't, and look what happened to them...

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>The American Indians didn't, and look what happened to them...<<<

Two things did for the Indians: the White Eyes outgunned them, and they White Eyes out-bred them. The best fence in the world couldn't stop that steamroller. So far, we've still got firepower superiority--if we want to use it. We're not winning the breeding war, though.

[Gene Godbold]

I mostly agree with Stuart--the Earth isn't our home because it's still subject to manipulation by evil, foreign (spiritual) powers...but it will be.

I'd also like to qualify GL's statement: assimilation is important only if what you're assimilating into is better than what you left. In the US, I'd argue, this is mostly the case. I'm not sure I'd want to assimilate if I were forced to move to Sweden.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>In the US, I'd argue, this is mostly the case. I'm not sure I'd want to assimilate if I were forced to move to Sweden.<<<

I'd have to dye my hair blond, grow a foot, affect a bored, aloof attitude, and drink like a fish.

[GL]

I didn't know Swedes had three feet. Must be a great place to sell shoes. ;-)