Letter from Stockholm

I chose the worst time to come to Stockholm. It’s cold. Not regular cold – freezing cold – the winter is early and the snow pellets are falling from the sky. 
The sun is going down early too. By 4pm, a blanket of darkness comes over the city and holds until about 7am. This makes productivity hard. Work in darkness is hard – pressing on when the sun has gone down is even harder. 

It helps though that there is order in the city. It’s a breath of fresh air from Kampala. A functional public transport and good roads should be a bare minimum for any city, I make no excuses for that. And Stockholm has a tonne of those. 

Most of Europe has been engulfed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A lot of painful decisions have been borne at institutional and individual level. At the institutional level, a lot more taxes from European taxpayers are being funneled into supporting Ukraine, a runaway inflation is biting across the board. Everything down to a cup of coffee has gone up by over 10 percent. 

At a personal level, many Europeans are adjusting to the energy bills hitting their homesteads. Many more are opting for different sources of light – and saving up large kitties for the coming winter where heating homes will rip through pockets. Young Europeans are waking up to the vagaries of war, it’s intricately woven fallacies and its unforgiving nature. Some young Swedes I’ve spoken to live in the constant fear that it may escalate to nuclear warfare in which they’d suffer deeper consequences, others worry that if the war swings Russia’s way, the smaller states in this area would have to think long and hard about how to defend themselves – but others say they are fed up of imperial agendas in Europe and that goes for both Russia and the United States which many rely on – and NATO – for protection. 

Away from the politics, social life is also a huge contest here. Discussion around immigrants is slowly influencing politics and political decisions in Sweden and the Nordic states. The role immigrants play in both the economy and social life is beng negotiated – in some parts with tough sanctions and in other parts with open debate. It will be interesting to see the globalization effect on welfare states in the coming years. 

Uganda, of course, has a huge immigrant community here – for a reason I can’t put a finger too. Our current president sought haven here during the bush war – as did many Ugandans after that. The famous Madoxx Sematimba ‘Namagembe’ hit song was written, recorded and mastered here. Including some of Philly Bongole Lutaaya’s Christmas music. 

The Swedes were also the first people in the world to create a law for free expression – and that’s sort of seeped into both the blood and lifeline of the country. All public information is truly public – and debates can be vigorous with the amount of information at the disposal of everyone. The folks here pay a small tax for journalism to thrive – a small tax. 

The government sends money to newsrooms in the millions of Euros – to enable reporting and critical journalism to thrive. In turn, it stays out of the affairs of the press and talks through an ombudsman. The system isn’t rickety at all. It could be a tree the Ugandan government uproots and plants with a few modifications.