Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Bildt till Mellanöstern nästa vecka


Sveriges respektive USA:s utrikesminister, Carl Bildt och Condoleezza Rice, i the Outer Office på amerikanska UD, samtal den 22 maj.

Foto: Gunilla Kinn

Washington (TT)

När utrikesminister Carl Bildt på tisdagen träffade sin amerikanska kollega Condoleezza Rice fick situationen i Mellanöstern stort utrymme. Bildt reser själv till Jerusalem och Ramallah redan i nästa vecka.

– Vi hoppas kunna hjälpa till att förbereda ett mer konkret palestinskt statsbyggande — som en del i fredsprocessen, sade Bildt till svenska journalister efter mötet med Rice, där han betonat vikten av stabilisering i regionen.

Utrikesministern beklagade att den palestinska samlingsregeringen inte är så effektiv som man skulle kunna önska.

– Men skulle den falla sönder och vi skulle få ett inbördeskrig, ett sammanbrott på den palestinska sidan, skulle det de facto innebära ett sammanbrott för fredsmöjligheten. Det har vi ett gemensamt ansvar att förhindra.

Halvtimmesmöte

Trots att samtalet mellan Carl Bildt och Condoleezza Rice i hennes mottagningsrum knappast varade längre än en halvtimme hann de med en lång rad heta utrikespolitiska frågor, förutom situationen i Mellanöstern: främst Iran, Irak, Kosovo och relationen mellan Ryssland, EU-länderna och USA.

Bildt skulle senare under tisdagen träffa flera andra företrädare för amerikanska utrikesdepartementet, däribland den politiske chefen Nicholas Burns.

– Irak har varit uppe i flera samtal, av lätt insedda skäl, sade Carl Bildt, som sade att han tagit upp att Sverige tagit emot en orimligt stor andel av den irakiska flyktingströmmen.

– Vi har en generös flyktingpolitik, och det ska vi ha! sade utrikesministern – men antydde att han tyckte att USA borde ta emot fler flyktingar från Irak.

– Här i USA förs nu en inrikespolitisk debatt om immigration som kanske gör det omöjligt. Det kan jag beklaga.

Moskva nästa

På fredag — efter att ha mellanlandat i Stockholm, men före besöket i Mellanöstern — reser Carl Bildt till Moskva. Där kommer Kosovo att stå högt på dagordningen. Rysslands roll är särskilt viktig, eftersom frågan om Kosovos framtid snart kommer att avgöras i säkerhetsrådet där Ryssland har vetorätt.

– Det är ett känsligt skede av förhandlingarna. Det gäller att bedriva kreativ diplomati. Ryssarna har starka synpunkter, men det har även amerikanarna och vi i EU.

Carl Bildt hävdade att han märker "en positiv efterklang" av Fredrik Reinfeldts USA-besök i förra veckan, och försvarade statsministerns val att fokusera på klimat och miljö.

– Som utrikesminister har man många andra frågor, sade Bildt.

Det är ingen tvekan om att de svenska transatlantiska förbindelserna är fler nu. Vi för en mycket intensiv dialog.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Kristina Should Have Known

"In New York"– bi-monthly newsletter of the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce – 2/2007

How The Ark made me think about Kristina from Duvemåla


By the end of the Swedish final of the Eurovision Song Contest in March, as the flamboyant glam rockers in The Ark once again went on stage and made their victory performance of “The Worrying Kind”, in front of millions of TV watchers, I felt how my eyes slowly filled with tears.

First, I thought it was because I was so happy that a great band that I care for had indeed won the usually slightly cheesy contest.
Not only do I appreciate The Ark's music, energy, and visual appearance. I've also interviewed some of the band members at various stages of their careers - most recently the infamous event when they performed outside of House of Sweden in Washington DC last year.
How could I not share the charming singer Ola Salo's total joy in the Globe arena in Stockholm – after I had seen their show live, in front of a small and enthusiastic crowd of Swedish and American fans next to the Potomac River in October?
Much of the band's success is their ability to make their audience feel it's part of it all as well. And after interviewing Mr Salo about his unfortunate joke on flying airplanes afterwards, I have had a professional reason to follow the band's endeavors as well.

Then I thought I felt so moved, because I had just seen lots of young, clever artists do what they love: sing, play, and perform.
But it's usually talented amateurs in school shows that I really have a soft spot for – not professionals, like the ones in the Eurovision Song Contest (this is the event that gave the world ABBA, in 1974).

All of a sudden, however, I realized my spontaneous tears most of all had an entirely different reason. Maybe surprisingly, the event made me think of Kristina from Duvemåla, the fictional character in Swedish writer Vilhelm Moberg's great epos The Emigrants.

See, I was watching the event not in front of a TV-set a Saturday night in Sweden, like everyone else - but sitting in the pub of the Roger Smith Hotel in Manhattan, together with other New York-based Swedes. The entire show was streamed via the Internet.
I watch Swedish TV clips and listen to direct transmissions from the Swedish radio all the time, so the benefits of modern technology are no news to me. Whether I am at home or traveling the world, I live and breath the effects of the proverbial shrunk globe daily – and so far during my six years in the United States, my parents in Stockholm have never been able to tell any Swedish news as of politics, business, or entertainment I didn't already know of.

Yet, what this means has never hit home as clearly as it did this Saturday afternoon.
I felt so strongly that by watching The Ark win the Eurovision Song Contest, sitting on a bar stool in Manhattan, I could instantly share an experience that would be the next few days' water cooler topic in most of Sweden. (Maybe Americans watching the Super Bowl in Swedish sport bars feel the same.)

So, my sentimental tears actually came when I thought about how very recent it was that Swedes who made it to New York really had to cut off most ties to The Old Country. The subconscious thought of how Kristina from Duvemåla, a woman maybe my age – who supposedly passed Manhattan on her family's passage from Småland to Minnesota in the 1850's – like so many real emigrants had to leave everything behind made me sad.

Thanks to progress in general and technology in particular, I don't have to make the choice Kristina and her peers were forced to. Now it's actually almost possible to live in two countries simultaneously. Even poor immigrants who come into the United States today can keep in touch with their loved ones back in Guatemala or Guinea-Bissau, thanks to the Internet and low telephone rates. My tears were a tribute to Kristina, who was only 150 years from all this.

The members of The Ark happen to be from the very same part of Sweden as Vilhelm Moberg and Kristina – Småland, and more precisely Rottne, Uråsa, Kosta, and Växjö.
Ola Salo was reportedly surprised when he heard that Söraby Skytteförening, the shooting club in his small home community of Rottne, had arranged a large-screen viewing party of the TV contest in their sports centre. Even though New York is like another hometown for The Ark, I guess he would be even more surprised to learn there was a similar party, albeit smaller, on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan.

And I guess we will be there again, when the final contest is transmitted from Helsinki in May – with meatballs tapas in one hand and a glass of prosecco in the other. Now we can have it all.

Gunilla Kinn
is a freelance journalist, based in New York and Stockholm
http://gunillakinn2867.sitewelder.com
gunilla@kinn.se