Needless to say Sweden was pretty happy about Obama�s win --- even the right wing Moderates expressed their joy with the selection. I overheard the following exchange on my commute to work.
3 ten year old boys sat engrossed in their smartphones discussing the virtues of Instragram, when one says:
�Hey, did you see that Obama won in the US�
�Yeah, Yeah, good huh?�
�Yeah good.�
�If it were the whole world voting he would have one easy don�t you think?�
�Yeah, that other guy wouldn�t stand a chance.�
�Yeah�
�I have like 300 followers on Instagram�..�
And I think this conversation sums up the general reaction to the elections around here.
After Obama won the first time I remember on of my Swedish colleagues telling me �You know, for a minute there, I think even I kind of believed in the American dream. No way a minority Swede with an Arabic name could be voted into power as Prime Minister here in Sweden.�
This time the reaction was a bit more low key, but the American election is by far the only other election in the world that garners the front page of every major newspaper in Sweden. I don�t think even Denmark, Norway or Finland would have that honor.
I did get pissed listening to one morning radio that decalared �I think we should get to vote in the American election, I mean WE know more about what is going on in the US election than your average elction . .. .� Oh really? You think this is the case?
Because many Swedes think Obama is staunchly anti-death penalty and anti-gun and everything else they are anti. But in reality? Not so much. So while I am glad Swedes are knowledgable and have an opinion about the election, that doesn�t make you eligible to vote (although the US would look a lot different if you did � maybe for the better).
No comments:
Post a Comment