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Business English: Middle-class Swedes swap reserve for revolt
Stockholm's genteel residents are fighting against urban planners in an unusual uprising against the government.The red flags of revolution are flying over the upmarket Stockholm neighbourhood of Odenplan, fluttering from windows and balconies around the square that surrounds the magnificent dome of the Gustav Vasa church.
Faced with the construction of a massive shopping centre, residents of this genteel district of small theatres, cafés and boutiques have cast off their middle-class Swedish reserve and risen up in revolt.
Leading the protest is an unlikely gang of former chief executives, management consultants and academics, who have asked locals to hang banners from their windows as part of a campaign to shelve the shopping centre. "It is not open war - yet", the local newspaper says ominously.
The people of Odenplan are not the first city dwellers - and will not be the last - to feel the dead hand of an urban planning department on their backs but this uprising carries a particular significance.
It is said that the Swedes "clench their fists in their pockets" - meaning they get infuriated with the smothering embrace of the nanny state but bottle it up for the common good.
However, in Odenplan, fists have been taken out of pockets. "This is not for us, this is for other people," said Ulf Johanisson, a retired management consultant and protest ringleader. He said residents had reluctantly accepted the building of a new train station in Odenplan but drew the line at the shopping centre, which would mean seven years of construction and destroy the area's ambience.
"It's seven years of hell for something we don't want," he said.
The lesson from this movement is that, despite a culture that savours consensus and has granted the centre-right government considerable powers over the individual, Swedes can only be pushed so far.
Bo Broman, a poet, philosopher and 10-year resident of Odenplan, said the movement demonstrated the erosion of trust between Swedes and the government. "People are tired of changes coming down from the top, from the politicians and businessmen. This protest is about dialogue," he said.
Mr Broman criticised the cultural homogenisation and demise of local retailers that came with modern shopping centres. "There is a special atmosphere here. We have small shops, cafés, theatres. It is a neighbourhood," he said.
Such activism is slowly growing in popularity, leading to a new-found empowerment among Stockholm's middle classes.
Residents objected to a proposed floating hotel in Riddarfjärden, a stunning bay in the middle of Stockholm. Local politicians had approved plans but swiftly backtracked once they realised the strength of the opposition. The project now appears to have been shelved.
Alienating the middle classes is something Sweden's government is keen to avoid. It secured a razor thin majority in the last election, much of which came from the same urban middle classes who are now hanging red flags out of their windows.
Local politicians are already taking note. Hanna Broberg, chairman of Odenplan's council and a member of Moderaterna, the main party in the coalition government, has lent her weight to the campaign.
"Odenplan has a certain creative style, architecture and atmosphere that I would like to have for many years in the future," she said. "We need to listen more than we have or there will be an impact at a national level."
The national government was also paying attention to the growing disquiet, said Jens Nilheim, the project's co-ordinator, and would talk further with local residents to assuage their concerns.
He argued that Odenplan was going to be dug up to build the train station and the shopping centre would not cause much added inconvenience. "If you increase the number of people you need to increase the level of services," he said.
Mr Johanisson disagreed: "We have over 6,000 signatures and most of them say they are just horrified. We don't want it."
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FTD.de, 16.01.2008
© 2008 Financial Times Deutschland,
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