Whitecaps

Friday morning brought clearing skies but also winds strong enough for white foam crests to form on the tiny Nydalasjön. Meanwhile, in Swedish domestic politics, the centre-right keeps flirting with a different kind of white caps, if only to take back their overtures the next minute. Now the second largest party in Sweden, Sverigedemokraterna is nevertheless emerging as a very real threat to our “freiheitliche demokratische Grundordnung” (to borrow the German expression). What I find striking is the lack of reflexivity among the other political parties and their inability to formulate attractive visions of an open future.

Whereas Monocle may ask us to simply “cool it”, it should be obvious that many people are not content with merely being reduced to consumers. In my view, an Apollo project for clean energy or a tenfold increase in the funding for early childhood education would go a long way in restoring public purpose and providing societal direction. Unlike hairshirt environmentalism that only offers an emasculated politics of scarcity, such visions would speak to our greatness and channel our energies into something far more productive than the securitization of migration.