Page 59 - VEM ÄR DIN MAMMA

Irène Karlbom Häll
freelance writer
One dark evening at the beginning of this decade I went to the big hall in Fröslunda, where the po- lice and the municipality had called for a meeting on security in general. Most of the people who had found their way there were older Swedish ladies and gentlemen who had made up their minds to speak out and also complain about the transformation of the area into a place of cultural diversity. But that is something I found out much later. Because that night, it didn’t happen.
A single Somali woman in a radiant blue dress and matching turban overturned the entire plan – without knowing it – just by showing up and being present, by telling her thoughts and her story. No one had the guts to say what they originally planned, not in front of her. Instead, the whole conversation took a different, more positive turn. Other people, less angry ones, got up to give their version of Fröslunda. They had experiences too. The children who roamed the area in large groups were actually quite possible to talk to, if given the chance.
The municipality had a great solution to the problems discussed at the meeting: night patrols. Night patrols may seem like a strange thing to someone not born and raised in Sweden, parti- cularly if you come from a country where most social life takes place at night because the mid- day is too hot, the evening pleasantly cool and, on top of that there are more people around in the first place. Organizing night walks and discreetly keep an eye on teenagers who might possibly get too drunk in their process of liberation, may seem comical to someone from a culture where social control never needed to be organized by anyone, where no one is expected to liberate themselves, why, from what? and where alcohol is not the first choice if you intend to be naughty. The pro- blems in Fröslunda were of a different kind.
But if night patrols are what they want, they shall have them. This is how I think she reasoned, this queen in a blue dress. A week after the me- eting she came to City Hall, straight and elegant as ever with a young man who was ready to go out at night and get working. But – according to the rules the patrols needed to be a minimum of
three, formally organized and registered, which meant a great deal of paperwork and by far more complicated than showing responsibility in general. (Today the rules are more flexible, night patrols are out there from time to time and they may consist of mothers.)
A few years later I was back in Fröslunda and heard the stories of the sometimes unbearably tough road many people had taken to get to Sweden. One thing was clear; they knew the art of carrying children on shoulders for hours on end.
Yet I met a family who had done just this and we made friends, despite the fact that we could barely talk at first. It was just a strange kind of recognition. But at one time, when there was an interpreter present I noticed they took the chance to tell me for instance that they carried the children this way for days without even thinking of it as a difficult thing. There was just no other option. They had a completely different view of what was difficult.
I decide to try it myself with my own child who was a little younger and less heavy but I could ba- rely make it to the nearest bus stop. It was quite a burden. Now imagine some additional burdens, like ones most treasured possessions, family do- cuments perhaps. And yet you have to keep going or die. Wouldn’t that knowledge take you another mile, maybe all the way to Fröslunda?
In the end my family, for so they had become, got their residence permit. A year in limbo was over and they had taken their first step to becoming Swedish. It was as if an invisible burden was removed from their shoulders. It was time to see the capital, I decided, and so I dragged them past the parliament, The Royal Palace, took the ferry over to the Nordic Museum and the gigantic stat- ute of Gustav Vasa. The amount of Swedishness in one day made my own child tire completely. She was carried by a pair of soon-to-be swedish shoulders all the way to the Central Station in the cold wind, and this distance was definitely a piece of cake. As was the weather, and basically everything else.
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ALL THE WAY TO FRÖSLUNDA