I was back in Sweden.
“We’re ruled by the Netherlands now,'' said another person.
“What the hell are talking about?” said I.
“We had an economic collapse and the krona plummeted. The EU decided we had to sell out our government to the highest bidder. The Dutch government bid 50% over market value. It was a good deal. Now Sweden is run by a trust board in The Hague. We had to sell some land, too. Norway bought everything north of Kiruna, mostly out of sympathy I believe. And NATO bought Gotland to use as a military base. The Russians are furious about it, which I guess was the point.”
“This is insane! This is completely unprecedented and illegal!”, I said, shocked. “Not even Greece had to do any of this in 2012!”
“Actually, people are quite happy with it by now. There were a lot of protests and social media anger about it at first, but the guys in The Hague are actually bringing in some very reasonable reforms. That and there are a lot of Dutch moving to the countryside, and they bring in hard currency. Most of Sweden, by area, is definitely doing better economically now than before. Many Swedes have also moved to the country because that’s where the money is. So even life in the cities is better, thanks to lower rent!”
“Okay just back up a little. Let me get my questions in order. This trust board in The Hague: are we electing them? Don’t they still have to obey under Riksdagen and enact their laws?”
“Yes, Riksdagen is still officially the highest political power in the country. But a majority of the parties are playing along and don’t propose laws like the ‘Cast out the foreign usurpers’-law. And so much of political work is about wise execution of the laws anyway, which is the government’s job.”
“And who elects this trust board again?”
“Well, it’s elected by a process which is ultimately held accountable to the people’s will.”
“That’s not reassuring at all! That could be used to describe China!”
“Really, you won’t notice the difference when you go out in the street. You can think of it like with IKEA. IKEA has been controlled by a complicated network of foundations and holding companies in the Netherlands and Lichtenstein for decades. But when you walk into a store today, it still feels like the same old IKEA, right? It still feels quintessentially Swedish. Someone else just handles the admin.”
“But...but...what about the Thing we were gonna do? Do the admins know about the Thing?”
“The Thing? What thing?”
“We were gonna do a Thing! This whole country, it was all set up for a very specific purpose. It’s what I believed my whole childhood. I can’t remember exactly what it was right now. But it made it much easier to go through every day in school, it even made it pleasant. When I saw other Swedes, even if I didn’t know them, I still felt a connection to them. I felt that if they cried for help, I would reach out my hand. If they told me something that was hard to believe, I would give them the benefit of the doubt and listen. Because that was the only way that we were gonna accomplish the Thing. And some people obviously hadn’t understood the Thing at all, or they were working against it. They had to be convinced or left out. Others were cynical about it, but played along out of habit since childhood. But as long as the large majority of us were pro-Thing, it would still work. It was definitely a huge net positive for us to have the Thing.“
“This Thing you’re talking about, I don’t know. It sounds like some foggy notion you made up in your head. Aren’t you just thinking about Democracy?”
“I guess sometimes it was referred to as Democracy, or Solidarity, or Happiness. But it wasn’t really like those words helped to explain what the Thing was about. Instead it was more like having knowledge of the Thing helped you understand the meaning of the words ‘democracy’, ‘solidarity’, and ‘happiness’. Or at least, their intended meaning. Everyone knew that the Thing was hiding behind those words, and thinking about the Thing gave you a good feeling in your stomach. So those words were used a lot. Did people really forget about the Thing?”
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