The 6th of June is the National Day of Sweden. I am very proud to be Swedish and have always been and I think that Sweden is the best country in the world. But still we have problems of course, as in any other countries. One of them is our lack of national pride.

Half of the Swedish population consider nationalism as an negative word. A lot of people in Sweden are angry. And a lot of these angry people seems to be completely convinced that the Swedish traditions are at risque, due to immigration. And every year, on the national day, and christmas, off course, it is the same arguments over and over. We are not allowed to celebrate the National Day in schools anymore, because that will insult the immigrants. They have completely forgotten the fact, that all Swedes are free at school on our nationalday, since it was made a holy day, in year 2005. They also claim that they are not allowed to use the flag or celebrate the national day without being called a racist.

Off course all of this is bullshit. I’ve never heard of any person being called racist for using the Swedish flag or singing the National anthem. However, in Sweden, people are in generel very bad at embracing their our traditions. They claim that our traditions are threatened, but they don’t even manage to actualy prepare and celebrate it. Christmas is threatened, they say. No, it’s not. You just have to move your ass from the chair and buy a Christmas tree, some goodamn sour fish and give away present to your family and make it comfortable with candles at home. There you have your Swedish christmas. You should not blame immigrants for your own lack of will to celebrate a Swedish tradition in a proper manner.

Off course, our Swedish traditions will not dissapear just because immigrants comes. And my opinion is that every person in his own house decide the tradition of his own. But let’s not forget the fact that Swedes are amongs the peoples in Europe that have the most lack knowledge of our own history. Many of us, can’t answer the question why we are even celebrating our national day. But I can tell you. We celebrate the day when the Gustav Vasa became the king of Sweden, in the 6th of june in 1523. After that, Sweden was formed as a national state and decades of civil war and Danish accupation was over.

But not many know what an evil and brutal king Gustav Vasa actually was in reality. He was completely glorified by the nationalistic policies that influenced our schools and history education in the early 1900’s. And the picture of Vasa as a hero who defeated the Danish occupation forces and founded Sweden, is just pure glorification that still affects our image of this old king.

Anyway, I think we have the right to be proud Swedes, no matter how our ancestors behaved. What makes me a proud Swede is the fact that our welfare system in the 1900’s, developed to one of the most advanced in the world. Sweden went from one of the world’s poorest countries to some of the richest. And that a lot thanks to socialists and social democrats and left wing powers who worked together and fought for the people’s rights. A welfare system that has been an isnpiration to other western nations and that unfortunately, is under attack, by the right wing powers. That’s my opinion about it anyway.

Have a great national day, folks! I’ll add my cover of Our National Anthemn here. Peace!