It was great to get a prompt response (re. my previous post “Clachan smallholders”) from a David in Lochgilphead who wants to join the smallholders network. The address for anyone else who wants to join is: smallholdersgathering@yahoo.co.uk.
Travelling through Sweden in the summer showed me other European countries are further along the Transition journey that we are in the UK. Sweden isn’t a Utopia but hopefully we have now learned that Utopias are doomed to failure (“Utopia” means “no place” so doesn’t exist anyway!).
What impressed me most about the people of Sweden was their continuing belief in equality which is also coupled with their consensus approach. In the UK a belief in equality has long been polarised politically. For decades it was seen as the province of the Left; nowadays New Labour has almost abandoned it altogether. Instead what is talked of is “equality of opportunity” which is a nonsense when you consider the contrast in life-chances of a child born on a sink estate as compared with one growing up in a nurturing, comfortable, suburban household.
You may ask: why do I not write about how good Sweden are at recycling, at managing their forests, at going over to renewables and other green measures? The reason is that environmentalists have always put the cart before the horse. The fact is that if we genuinely care for eachother – not just our family and friends but the human “family” as a whole - we are far more likely to genuinely care for the planet as a whole. In other words, change in terms of how we feel about Nature can only come about if we change the way we feel about eachother. This demands that we pay attention to issues of fairness, justice and equality.
Our last holiday accommodation was a hostel in Stockholm which until the 1970′s has been a prison. In Sweden they are closing their prisons whilst in the UK we are still building them! This for me summed up the contrast between the two countries. In one of the corridors was a fascinating exhibition describing how the prison came to be built and closed. It ended with a simple statement that the Swedish aim was to have no one in prison at all! Imagine someone in the UK standing up at a party conference and saying this!
So – forget Ikea and Volvo as Swedish exports: long live their vision of fairness, justice and equality!
