For an outsider, it might be hard to understand the wide eyed Swedish, borderline morbid fascination with the more sickening aspects of European WWII and post WWII-issues. More literature of this kind receives accolades in Sweden than in almost any other country in Europe. Steve Sem-Sandberg’s praised account on the persecution of the Jewish population of Łódź and more notably so, the granting of the Nobel Prize in Literature to the mannerised and overly emotional Herta Müller are but two examples of the trend. None of them are particularly interesting in any novel, scientific or cultural way.

Why are Swedes so fascinated by accounts on the suffering of the Baltic States? And why now?

Could it be the latent guilt of not participating (openly) in WWII? Or is it the plain and simple fact that the nature of the Swedish soul, so succinctly captured by Bergman, has isolated them from the heartland of Europe and now, over fifty years later, they’ve finally mustered some infinitesimal strand of courage and opened the door to peer in what the country’s closest neighbors have been laboring with for decades? Guilt is certainly the most Swedish of emotions. Collective guilt is what they excel in. So, what better when things become too hard to bear on their own soil but to project it onto unsuspecting neighboring states?

It might be that the answer is laughably simple, as most answers regarding human behavior usually are. Simpler still than being about guilt: Swedes discover other countries by way of mouth and groin. What can be eaten (or screwed), can also be adopted and loved. The sheer number of Thai restaurants in the country closely follows the pattern of vacationing Swedes in Thailand (in excess of 350 000 Swedes make their way there each year – a staggering number considering a population total of just above 9 million inhabitants). Similarly, Swedes discovered Estonia because they could go there for a budget vacation, at convenient boat cruise length. And much like in the case of Thailand, for the cheap and moral-free sex (even so accepted as to being culturally parodied). Because after all, what you don’t soil in your own back yard, according to prevailing human morals, you don’t soil at all.

There is no inherent shame in this; it’s just how things work. Consider The Germans, and the incessant drive to dominate and invade things – whether financially or by force. The Americans share a similar enthusiasm, but for other reasons. The Swedes eat and screw their way through the world (which, incidentally, I personally consider a rather innocent, almost childish motive).

It is with no small amusement that one watches the present Swedish society marvel at the horrors of the Second World War, where almost all of Europe toiled and suffered – and then watch them take up a humanitarian and moral stand to it considering why they got interested in the facts to begin with. Now stories need to be told, social trials need to be played out in public and common guilt needs to be accepted by one and all. Amusement borders on tragedy however when prominent culture critics such as Mr. Eklund hail the mediocre, formulaic works of say, Oksanen – while almost entirely foregoing the vast body of work already written on the subject.

Why the insightful, hard to read (and hard to bear), difficult work of Aleksander Wat (the biographical novel, “My Century”, in particular) is never mentioned can only be a testament to the modern sloth where prerequisite knowledge is almost totally subjugated in favor of cheap emotion-ridden ready-to-feel literature. Say that of Oksanen.

Wat was there. In the middle of the internment camps, in the middle of communist Russia. He lived for it and he died from it. It is an affront to intelligence to have to bear the presence of postindustrial, gothrocking Lydia Lunch-lookalikes and the hacks who hail them. Say Mr. Eklund, to name but one – though he is nowhere near alone in his limitless, borderline moronic adoration for Oksanen.

Another factor in play might be the fact that Swedes, while well versed in their ancient, Viking heritage, are almost totally oblivious to their own contemporary history of the last 50-60 years. They live in a housing system they do not understand and complain about it incessantly (mention “Gunnar Sträng” to the common Swede and he will look at you dumbly). They live in an undeserved economy that was founded from the ground up via the Marshall Plan. Money routed to Sweden that was turned down by the Soviet Union. Funds that were supposed to re-build war-ravaged countries in Europe. Not miniscule, unnotable nations of an absolutely war-spared North! The economic aid that was destined for Poland and many of the Baltic States that Swedes now so openly, and laughably, lament – was used to build this very nation’s economy. Again, ask the man on the street and he will, once again, be oblivious to this fact.

It’s a bit late to cowardly dodge the war, steal the victim’s money and now, over fifty years post-fact start some sort of population-wide guilt campaign where they lovingly rediscover the horrible heritage of neighboring countries that they’ve blatantly ignored for an equally long term, if not for longer. And rediscovered it by way of sex-tourism, no less (although this point can be argued at length – I’ve certainly simplified things for the sake of argument). Pathetic, transparent and typically Nordic, behavior.

I shiver to think of the hug-to-death-sessions that might take place when most Swedes, and their cultural prophets, will discover the atrocities made in far less years than those fifty during the second world war. What of the bloody revolution in Poland in the beginning of the 1980′s? While that war-torn land was fighting it’s way out of communism – Sweden didn’t even cast a second glance (actually, some in fact did – but they go on uncheered and unacknowledged to this day). But boy, they were – like totally – there – for the celebrations when the Berlin wall actually fell. You’d think they pushed the damned thing down themselves. I suppose that in those days of freedom frenzy, no one noticed a couple of uninvited Swedish bystanders in the cheering crowd.

The rest of Europe has moved on since the war. There are new troubles and there are new areas to explore. The Swedes, historically at least, stand in the same muddy cesspool that most of their closest neighbors have left long ago. They keep sending one-eyed, crying explorers into the Baltic backwaters of Europe, or their confused senior relatives of Eastern Europe – without a rudimentary understanding of how, why, what, when. Anything that would anchor an understanding to their statements. Then they go on to write politically correct accounts of the historical suffering without the benefit of first-hand experience. Adding insult to injury, the cultural so called elite of this nation goes on to praise campy and stilted authors, such as say, Oksanen.

Here’s a tip. Europe doesn’t need your Swedish guilt or your naive, child-like investigations. Participate – for real, or get the hell out of dodge. In literature, or elsewhere.