"To vote, you should pass an intelligence test first!"

This was the opinion of one of my classmates when I studied at Chalmers university of technology. Or, as he put it:

 "Det borde fan krävas intelligenstest för att få rösta!"

However, since democracy by definition is:

"A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections"

it will not be a democracy if only part of the people, those who pass an intelligence test, is allowed to vote.

So I disagreed with the comment at the time, but there was something in there that resonated with me and I have remembered it ever since.

Recently I read a quote from Roosevelt that made it all more clear to me:

"Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education."

That was it! It is not an intelligence test that is needed, it is ensuring everyone is "prepared to choose wisely"!

How do we make sure everyone is prepared to choose wisely?
Free access to education is one step of the way. It is not enough though.

Because as I wrote in this blog post: Ignorance is not the problem; pre-conceived ideas is. To not know, but behave as if we do, by spreading and believing in simplistic and incorrect views of the world is a recipe for disaster.

So if education is the first step, the second is to accept that no matter how much we know, there is always more that we do not know so we need to keep an open mind at all times.

Finally, we need to be willing to choose wisely.
Willing to not just accept the simplistic answers.
Willing to not act stupidly when in reality we know better.

Because as Martin Luther King Jr said:

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and consciencious stupidity."

I hope you are all willing to apply the knowledge you have, keep your mind open and choose wisely.

Angela Merkel - I wish you were Swedish

Many Swedes are proud of persons like Raoul Wallenberg, Dag Hammarskjöld and the contemporary Jan Eliasson.

Today, when men, women and children seek refuge with such desperation that they perish on the way, the Swedish politicians...

•  talk about how terrible the situation is 
•  talk about how more countries need to provide shelter for refugees
•  talk about how we need to agree within the EU about how to handle the situation

Talk, talk, talk.

When children are drowning the time for talking is long over.

If a house is on fire there is no time to discuss who should put it out or how to make sure everyone contributes in a fair way. First you put out the fire.
Who should put it out ?
Anyone who is able to.
What if not everyone helps out?
Then those who put out the fire do so without the help from the others. After the fire is out, there will be time to talk to the ones who did not help out and agree on how to improve in the future.

Angela Merkel seems to know this. In addition to talking to other politicians, she takes action.

She has decided to ignore the Dublin regulation for now, letting refugees from Syria stay in Germany even if they originally entered via another EU country. (When Swedish politicians were asked if Sweden would do the same the answer was that they wanted to discuss it more within EU first.Talk, talk, talk...)

She has sent in armed forces to put up tents in public parks, to provide shelter for refugees.

She is showing the way for her fellow politicians when she says:

 "If we rescued the banks, we can save refugees"

The title of this blogpost says that I wish Angela Merkel were Swedish. Let me re-phrase that:

Angela, I wish the Swedish politicians would act the way you do.

Dont' get me wrong. This is not a complaint. Sweden is doing well; giving shelter to many refugees and being part of discussions to improve the situation. But the leadership is without a doubt coming from Germany's Angela Merkel.


PS. There are people who spread a video on social media where Angela Merkel is telling a Palestinian girl that not all refugees can stay in Germany. Often the ones who share the video do it to discredit Angela.

I wonder if the same persons think that we should not honor Nelson Mandela for all the great work he did, since he also participated in violent actions before he was put in prison?
And should we ignore the great I have a dream speech because  Doctor Martin Luther King Jr was not only a great civil rights fighter but also a man who cheated on his wife?

Let´s not be childish. People who do great things today should be recognized for that, even if they have also done things that were not great.
Luckily Angela is recognized by many for what she does, for instance by a number of Syrian refugees. According to an article in the Swedish newspaper Göteborgs posten she is now referred to as The mother of the outcasts:

Maybe one day Angela, you will be the reciever of the Raoul Wallenberg award - or maybe there will even be an award named after you.

#SwedeInMadrid: Fine Spanish fines

Fine fines? How can there be something fine about fines?

Well, fines are never really fine, but some are less bad, or "finer" than others.

Like paying a fortune to park the car outside of Liseberg; a great attraction park in Göteborg Sweden, estimating the time when we will be back and noticing when standing in queue to the last attraction for the day that we will miss the end of the paid time with a few minutes - and then ending up with a heavy fine. There is nothing fine about that. It makes me wonder why I paid for the parking at all, I could have just paid for one hour and not four when I ended up with a huge fine anyway for not paying for four hours and ten minutes.

When we parked in the Spanish town Santiago de Compostela the same thing happened.  We came back to the car some time after the time we had paid for had expired. Now to the fine part. By going back to the automat where we had paid for the parking and paying a little extra (in our case 6 euros) we could avoid the fine of 60 euros. That sure felt a lot finer than the fine I had to pay for standing a few minutes too long outside of Liseberg!

Another example are speeding fines. I have had my share of these in all three countries I have lived in; the Netherlands, Sweden and Spain.

My approach used to be to ignore the fine and hope that they would forget all about it and I would not have to pay. That worked in the Netherlands. In Sweden, with personnummer (similar to social security number / NIE numbers) and efficient authorities that never worked. My fine would never end up lost and after a reminder I would pay it.

In Spain we (well, I was the one speeding, but the car is registered on my husband, thus we) received a fine as well. It was not possible to pay via internet so my husband went to the bank, shortly after the fine came to our house. We were both utterly surprised when the 100 euro fine was quickly reduced to 50 euro, "since we paid it so quickly".

So to me, the Spanish fines are finer than other fines.

The fat lady in the ladies room

How can she even look at herself in the mirror without puking?

 Linda stared at the fat lady at the washbasin as she closed the door to the toilet booth behind her. The lady with the fat rolls on her hips was washing her hands. As Linda went to wash hers, they looked at each other in the mirror and nodded shortly.

I bet she ate at least ten doughnuts for breakfast, 

Linda thought as she quickly washed her face. She had eaten her veggie smoothie after doing her 5k run in the morning. When she glanced over at the fatso again she could not help but notice that despite the double chins she had a pretty face. And a very friendly smile. It was probably all the unhealthy sugar she must be eating that made her nice and sweet. Who knows, maybe that was what Linda was lacking. Sweetness. Perhaps that was the reason her husband had left her. Not for a younger, prettier woman; for an older woman! What did that say about her? That she was so unbearable to live with that her husband left her for an older woman because she was nicer?

I bet fatty here has a great relationship, 

she thought as she wiped her hands on a paper napkin.

Annie looked at the well-trained woman next to her. She wondered what it  was like to be that slim. The lady next to her could probably eat anything without gaining a single gram. Unlike herself. She had eaten her sallad this morning and she had biked to work. She was not completely OK after the accident yet, so biking required a lot of effort. Not that it was only the accident´s fault. She had not been as slim as the woman next to her before the accident either, but the many months in the wheel chair and the medicines that she took that made her all puffy sure did not help.

No matter what I do I can never look like that woman. Life must be easy for someone like that. 

As Annie left the ladies room, they smiled politely to each other. Both thinking they knew all there was to know about the other one.

I have written about it in a previous blogspot, but it is worth repeating:

This time  I also want to add two rules from Dalai Lama:
Rule number 1: Whenever possible; be kind.
Rule number 2: It is always possible.

With the help of the poet Robert Louis Stevenson I wish all my readers a lovely summer!

Summer Sun (1885)

Great is the sun, and wide he goes

Through empty heaven with repose;

And in the blue and glowing days

More thick than rain he showers his rays.

Though closer still the blinds we pull

To keep the shady parlour cool,

Yet he will find a chink or two

To slip his golden fingers through

The dusty attic spider-clad

He, through the key-hole maketh glad;

And through the broken edge of tiles

Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.

Meantime his golden face around

He bares to all the garden ground,

And sheds a warm and glittering look

Among the ivy´s inmost nook

Above the hills, along the blue,

Round the bright air with footing true,

To please the child, to paint the rose,

The gardener of the World, he goes.

#SwedeInMadrid - do they understand it's just water?

"If it rains we will cancel"

This sentence that I never or rarely see in Sweden, is very common here in Spain.

When the school sends out information about  "Dia deportivas" (friluftsdagar, sports days) that sentence is always added to the end of the informative text.

Whenever anyone arranges an activity outdoors, the same disclaimer is added. If it rains we will cancel. 

Not everything can be cancelled. People need to go to work and school also when it rains. That is not easy, with Spanish drivers panicking and causing even more traffic jams than usual.

Not that I understand why. Do they spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to turn on the windshield wipers they so rarely use? Are they scared their cars will suddenly misbehave when they get wet? Do they think the roads will turn into slippery slides?

I do not know, I only know that going to work when it rains means a lot more queues than usual. (I am so happy I go by my motorcycle so I can pass the queues!)

If we are out walking and there is an unexpected shower, the busy streets will become close to deserted in just a few seconds. Because you cannot be out in the rain now, can you?

To me it seems as if Spaniards are just as afraid of rain as they are of silence.

I can't help but wonder if they understand that it is just water coming down from the sky...

Maybe they, like donkey, think the rain will make them melt?

#SwedeInMadrid: A scary sound

When my parents visited us in Madrid, we were sitting in our small garden. It is surrounded by a high fence and there are houses on both sides so you cannot see very far.

My mother listened to the screaming, laughing and shouting and said:

"When we drove here, I did not see that you had an amusement park close to your house?"

There is no attraction park close to where we live. But there is a school. What my mother heard were  Spanish children on a break.

Children all over the world scream and shout but here in Spain they do it several times louder than Swedish kids. (See Turning a perfect Spaniard into a Swede .)

It's not just the kids of course. Adult Spaniards are also loud, even though they do not scream and shout as much as kids.

I can deal with the loud volume. What bothers me is the inability to be quiet.

The school that our children go to has a music profile and often arranges concerts.
Children of all ages perform in front of their friends and family. Often, far too often, the parents in the audience talk so loud it is hard to hear the children who have prepared much and long. The teachers ask the audience over and over again to be quiet, but the only thing that happens is that the talking becomes slightly less loud for a few seconds but thereafter the volume goes right up again.

It was during one of these concerts that it hit me. The loudness, the continuous talking, the interupting, the lack of ability to just wait and listen... It seems that to Spaniards: