European elections

[liv]

It's very interesting being a foreigner and watching the electoral campaigns. The thing is, I don't have any preconceived notions about what the various parties stand for, so I get the emotional impact of the advertising more or less undiluted. Pretty much every party has a poster campaign consisting of large images of their candidates with some kind of slogan, but they convey very different impressions.

On this very unsophisticated emotional level, the Centre party seem most appealing to me. They have by far the most diverse slate, in terms of age, ethnic background and other visible markers. Their slogans are enthusiastically pro-EU, for reasons that seem to boil down to "together we're stronger". The green party have very witty posters (and break the general rule of having portraits of their candidates dominating their ads), but I am automatically biased against single issue parties like that. The main opposition party, the left wing Social Democrats, are pretty much treating the European elections as a chance to campaign for their usual domestic issues and not really saying anything about European politics specifically.

There are a couple of anti-EU parties which make me roll my eyes, I mean, really, what's the point of standing for European elections on a platform of "we hate the EU"? And they tend to be at the extreme ends of the political spectrum anyway, the "leftist" party who would be communists except that the communist party got banned some years ago, the "workers'" party which is some splinter group from that, the "feminist" party which is a national joke. On the right, the weird nationalist and "Christian" parties who are knee-jerk against foreigners. And a single issue anti-Europe party, which is possibly the stupidest of the lot.

The "liberal" or centre right party are also pro-EU, but for the wrong reasons. They want an international police force, tougher anti-immigrant policies, free trade within the Union but protectionism outside it, and as far as I can tell from my superficial impression they seem to be pushing for some form of federalism. The right wing incumbent party, the "Moderates" (known colloquially as "the Borg") seem to be taking a pragmatic attitude to EU politics, implying that a strong national government can push the EU towards working for Sweden's benefit, but will be vigilant against any erosion of sovereignty.

The thing is that we've been hearing reports that some of the Moderates' posters are getting defaced by people scrawling "JEW" across them. In Sweden the political left tends to be very anti-Israel, whereas the Moderates have a vocally pro-Israel wing and even their mainstream party line is at least vaguely sympathetic to the Israeli state. None of their candidates actually are Jewish, but apparently antisemitic slurs are a way of expressing frustration at the unpopular current government. It's happening in the parts of town with high immigrant populations, but I don't infer from this that (presumed Muslim) immigrants are responsible; areas with lots of immigrants tend to contain lots of poor and disaffected ethnic Swedes as well.

It's of course an unfortunate historical accident that the Swedish word for "Jew" happens to be identical to the German word. And I personally think it's most likely that these "attacks" are being perpetrated by kids who feel angry and want to get a reaction, rather than an organized anti-Jewish campaign. But there are an awful lot of people in the Jewish community who are very triggered by seeing JUDE ✡ all over the place.

Actually, I found the Moderates' posters disturbing already, even without the graffiti. They're over-photoshopped, in some attempt to make the candidates look flawless. But the effect is to create a wall of very blonde faces, with perfect smiles and unblemished skin, and a slightly robotic air. They're very blonde because, well, it's Sweden, the majority of people and the very great majority of the kind of people who are in a position to become major politicians are blonde. Just, on the irrational level where I'm receiving political messages this election, it's creepy.

Comments

[pthalo]

i've always felt the same about Hungarian elections, though now I'm eligble to vote. We have so many parties, and every four years everyone's fed up that in the last four years Hungary hasn't been transformed into a utopia but is still post-communist and struggling. Of our parties, I like SDSZ best, the social democrats. We also have a few extreme parties, but their presence encourages people to vote, because of enough normal people vote, the Nazis won't get a seat in parliment (you need 5% to get in parliament).

Someone started plastering posters a few years ago for "two tailed dog party", making fun of the whole thing, really.

[blue-mai.livejournal.com]

sounds pretty creepy. yeck. must be odd though, just seeing the posters. i mean the posters here i always feel are so awful, given the sophistication of advertising generally, and the amount of money that must go into commissioning/developing it...

[lavendersparkle]

I've been enjoying watching the party election broadcasts for the smaller parties. They're hilariously bad. The UKIP one seemed to contradict itself by saying that we have no idea how many immigrants are in the UK and then telling us that there are lots and lots of them.

One of the many reasons I'd favour a more proportional system is because it would result in more amusing low budget party election broadcasts, although I don't think we'd ever reach the heights of the coalition between Holocaust survivors and pot heads that was the Green Leaf advert last Israeli election.

I also find it silly that people vote for anti-EU parties in European elections. The decision to leave the EU would have to be made by a national government so logically that's the elections you should vote for them.

[nanaya]

I found it really interesting living in Denmark when we became very friendly with our next door neighbours. They were a couple in a fairly dysfunctional marriage, with 2 teenage daughters. One was traditionally Scandinavian-looking, tall blonde & fair, taking after her mother. The other was dark-haired, brown-eyed and slightly darker-skinned, like her father, and people often thought she was Italian. We didn't talk about it much, but the older daughter did occasionally remark that strangers didn't always expect her to be Danish. Which seemed very othering for her.

It must be curious living in a country with a strong sense of appearance being tied to national identity, if you are in fact a member of that national group but don't conform to the image. That's one way in which England doesn't fit the stereotype, I don't think, because even (the ever-shrinking group of) people who still assume that English-looking=white tend not to go *much* further than that, even the real wingnuts.