Voices of Europe; Sven Lindquist

Voices of Europe. Milton mair American author and lecturer broadcaster and professor in the Institute of Social Research from Frankfurt University has been recording the voices of Europeans who are alive and sensitive to the conditions that surround them. Here is Milton Mayer recorded in Sweden in the pleasant little port city of Milo in southwestern Sweden where incidentally a double murder and suicide occurred the day before I got here and talking with Herr salient. Yes the Swedish businessman whose hobby is the world his fellow Mao Marlon's explained that he is so much interested in the world that his business is going to pieces. ERLINDER first admits that this is the case.

He admits it with a dour smile. Hughes known far and wide in his own province has an extremely dire our man. That's why I wanted to talk to him here and then Chris and I have been everywhere in Europe. I have heard from almost everyone in Europe and wherever I go I hear what I want to hear. I'm tired of hearing what I want to hear about Europe. You know I want to hear what I don't want to hear. And I am told that you write this week to last. My first question then is what's

wrong with the Swedes. Well I think if you knew what has happened recently in this part of the world I could give you part of the answer. They've recently lifted the passport regulations we used to have which means that nowadays any suede can go to Denmark without having to show a passport. They can go to Norway and Finland as well and naturally the inhabitants of these countries can also free to go to Sweden without having to produce passports. The Danes have come over here and bought coffee because they have a shortage of coffee and Denmark. Then I would

have gone across the border into Sweden and bought sugar. But I know that many of us have gone to Denmark and made pigs so I suppose we've got them drunk. That is because we seem to feel that liquor is highly important. We are regulated on it in this country we have a certain amount a month only the first thing then we've done with this newly won freedom has been to abuse it in such a way that there have been editorials in both the Norwegian and the Danish press about the way sweets brought Carolyn exist and I understand that the Swedes behave better at home. Well I think it has because of all the regulations imposed upon us. We are watched over

and it's being seen to it that we cannot. Get just about any amount of training where as soon as we get to Denmark we can start ordering because there those things are free. Now there is I should say too is a recent development. Only as far as the Scandinavian countries are concerned. Right after the war. Swedes started travelling all over Europe with passports because those you have to have in other countries in Europe but the Scandinavians and when we came into Italy the chief criticism was not that the country was full of ruins but that you couldn't have the same kind of bearing Saddam smorgasbord dishes snuffs

as you can have back home in Sweden. We behaved in an immature way. We behaved in such a way that we would became now on very fast boats and fronds and Italy and other countries in Europe or what we are. No wait a minute here link first. You make it sound as if the Swedes are like the Americans just tourists having a good time. Is it really as bad as all that or are you Ariens really an inferior race. Ole or no I don't think we are a superior race. I think we're just about as bad as most other people. Or rather I should say the ones of us who can afford to travel. And it's the same thing. In my experience when it comes to

Americans I saw last summer for instance over and Copenhagen the beautiful custom built British car. The most expensive make there is as far as I know next to the Rolls-Royce Bejar guar. And it was owned by an American businessman who was Ferus a tourist. It came out from the hotel with a friend of his and he pointed to the car and he said well that's just one of those small European jobs I bought myself. I have to dash around and when I'm over here you know there's really nothing like a Buick Roadmaster anybody who knows automobiles would say that if you have a choice between those two cars it's a Jaguar. But this was just a little car bought to dash around him.

And I don't think that man is as typical of the American as you find him over in the United States. You mean that we both make fools of ourselves when we have enough money to the Swedes like the Americans came out of the war rich. Yes. And the reason we were rich is that we were so terribly rich to begin with. That was hard for us to become poor the reason you were rich was that you had managed to keep out of these wars of the world for our 150 years or so. On what basis have you Swedes managed to keep out of these wars are you going to tell me that this is just self-interest and no idealism at all. You've done a pretty fair job serving as Newcastle's I think you know as well that that question was

a big one certainly. I think we have been very lucky when you must also realize that for instance during the later stages of World War 2 there was a definite decision in Germany as far as their headline was concerned to attack possibly take over Sweden. But it couldn't be done because of the fact that there were not enough troops to go around and sell attack was called off. We didn't have any part in that it wasn't because of our policy. We were saved because of certain circumstances. Don't you think it is sweet that you have put your neutrality to good use or way of tried to we've done our best. I could recall

quite a few instances where during the Second World War we we did things that you mightn't say exactly that they were proof of any neutrality because the shipment out of Sweden of ball bearings to the United States by way of England or the bringing into Sweden almost overnight of the untiring Jewish population of Denmark. The way we dealt with the Germans saw that when the war was over they owed us money. And a few things like that. Well Cherilyn first. The fact remains that you did come out of the war rage. Yes I see tractors and columbines all over Sweden I certainly don't see any in your neighboring

Scandinavian country Finland. The fact that you came out of the war rich I should suppose would not make your Scandinavian brothers or cousins in Norway Denmark and Finland love you very much. I don't think they do either as you could say during the late Olympic Games and send them every time. Swedes lost they were being applauded and on such a way that you could understand it was to make fun of them while they were being booed. Just because we're we're not very popular certainly not the know we do say that the only thing we suffer from during the war was lack of bananas. We're still complaining about that although we have them now. Erin Quist the Swedes are. At least they have the reputation in America

of being clean industrious artistic and democratic is their reputation justified. Well that's certainly an awful lot. At one time for a small people of 7 million to live up to. Well let's take it one at a time. Let's start with the statement about hours being so clean which of course is I think the American expression for it would be a lot of bunk where not if you see for instance in the street. How they are being swept. Roger is never applied. Before. I don't think it's applied after either a man goes around and sweeps a dry

street which means that as you pass by you get all the dried up dirt into your nostrils and your lungs. Nobody notices that something remarkable and nobody says we ought to flood our streets first like the supposedly dirty French do in Paris. They always flood the streets and Spain too. As far as I know. And then they sweep this I must say as a shocking revelation to me and fewer as a fact if for no other reason that the Swedes certainly has no shortage of water. No but you could take our bathrooms too you know they became very popular during the Second World War as storage space for things that had been hoarded by many people or they were you being used for storing coal.

Will you go into a typical Swedish home you might see in the bathroom applied to odd kinds of uses except the one that IT staff on namely take showers and baths. Do you mean in the countryside or even here in MT or even here in Monaco and certainly in other cities as well because after all many of the people living in our cities today are borough dwellers who have only recently moved to the big towns and they still take with them the old habits and customs from the farm where you maybe don't have time to be so you know I don't know what I think it's a fundamental unwillingness to take baths no Swedish art. We Americans are great admirers of Swedish our Swedish glass Swedish steel Swedish

ceramics. Don't tell me that this too is a mist. Well. I shouldn't say that it was a myth it was true but I think that in the last few years the myth is beginning to ascend. I think too that if you look around yourself and go on and send one specifically those two countries you will see that they have us Swedes and B when it comes to both us furniture ceramics and many other things and I believe but that is my personal idea that the reason is that you create more beautiful things out of nothingness.

When you live in an abundance when you have everything you begin to lose your sense of form and the region of beauty this sign goes off on time. Well today we're not as good as we used to be and I think it's important for us ourselves to realize that we should realize that where we're in. Competing with other countries and that is highly incentive for us to renew ourselves how we do it. I don't know but you are as democratic as you ever were are you not. That we certainly have the view in America that Sweden though it is a monarchy nominally

has perhaps the soundest democracy in the world resting squarely upon universal education. On the one hand including adult education and on the other hand the middle economic way steering a course between rugged individualism on the one hand and rugged collectivism on the other. In the first place to say that we are as democratic as we used to be. Well actually. Constitute stately word democratic That's a very complicated one. I think it's it's a word that it's a cliche. Maybe we are democratic but then again if if you'd stay here for some

time if you'd lived with us you would say that there isn't any more reason for that word here than in many other parts of the world. Well let me let me try and offhand definition of democratic as the spirit of human equality. One man's being as good as the next. How does that work in the suite. I think it works fine. I hope it does. From what I see around myself yes. To what extent have you failed to achieve democracy. But we've gone pretty far naturally. There is no doubt about that. What I mean is that if you live here long enough you might see government being applied in such a form that you cannot say

that it's acting in a truly democratic way. You can say many instances in everyday life. You can say it sometimes may be in the press the way the press deals with various problems and questions or you might say that you could see it in the way the government wants the press to deal with certain questions. But you do have a certainly a free press representing every shade of opinion. You know do you have a free press in the United States. That's an interesting question here Lynn first. We certainly don't have a a genuine representation as far as availability to the general public is concerned.

I have very distaste for minority points of view extremes of the right or left. What I thought of when you asked me did we have a free press here. So yes if you look upon it superficially on the surface but don't tell me that there aren't people in the business and the press here in Sweden who will not listen when some big advertiser tells them that there's not I should not like to have done and such and such a way or maybe they do it in a more subtle form. Certainly I know of some cases where it has happened.

I would suppose it was Sharon and Christine your own profession and you were an advertiser yourself. Well yes to some extent although I cannot recall that I have ever. Asked anybody to keep something specific out of the paper because I didn't want to say it there. Your link. First what is the consequence been if any on the Swedish or perhaps I should say Scandinavian character maybe you would like to distinguish the two for me. What is the consequence of being an hour of the day. Gads centuries in the case Sweden of neutrality and prosperity has a been a debilitating or an invigorating consequence.

Well if you look upon the official facts and figures certainly you would say that great progress has been made in this. But to get a country living standards have been raised and industrial output has been increased productivity rates have been brought up. The picture's quite the beautiful one. Everything is fine but is that the truth. I mean this stuff the whole story because it is not. Not if you stay here and if you live with us and see what happens. You will find smugness and you will find.

An attitude of insularity or isolationism although I think you ought to distinguish between the two. You will find among the people the man in the street very little are the words of John dawn about every man. Being part of it all. Sometimes I think forget where we are on the map. Sometimes we seem to remember it because every time we go across the straits between this country and Mark we speak of going to the continent. If you look at the map you'll see that Sweden is part of the

continent but fundamentally speaking I think that we have forgotten that. And perhaps what I mean could be illustrated by reference to people for which I have a very high admiration. The Italians who have lived through. You might even say thousands of warriors who have had their country devastated and ruined so many times and who are the very poor people there are sophisticated people live to them is something very precious that comes but ones and at the same time they know about those who lived before them and

those who will come out after they are worrying about. They do it in such a way that they may lead a very dignified life. Are you suggesting Carolyn Crist that warrant devastation and ruin are good for people. I am not suggesting that but I am saying that. All this business of neutrality being a businessman I speak in such terms I say this business of neutrality. We've had too much of it. It's not good for the people. If it's combined us it has been here it would all of us. Technical progress and what have you.

We become highly materialistic. Where interested in are beautiful homes our automobiles use bulk of the tractors and combine on the farms all those mean an awful lot to us. Those things that you can buy has the involvement in the war on the part of Finland which of course has been a great many wars and on the part of Norway and Denmark which were caught up in the last one has involvement in the war affected the other Scandinavian countries as far as you can see in your travels. Well if we continue the conversation along the same lines as when we were recently talking about Sweden and

Italy I think I believe from what I have seen that the Finns as I said before are way ahead of us in architecture and industrial lot. Because they have suffered. They create beautiful things out of nothingness almost they want to have beautiful things around them. Nod to help them out of the misery they are after Master of the latest few wars they have fought so bravely. We have not had anything like that to burn the store and therefore most of the things that we became famous for such as our beautiful glass for instance is now becoming bulky over decorated

degenerating in form and design. And that applies also I believe to a certain extent to the soul of the Swede. He is a thoroughly Americanized Westerner. Thank you Carolyn because the program you have just heard has been made possible under a grant from the fund for adult education an independent organization established by the Ford Foundation. These programs are prepared and distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters. This program was introduced by Norman McKee and this is the end AB tape network.