Imagine my surprise when I learned,
Gothenburg was pronounced Yothe-bury, a different name.
How can you let us get away with mispronouncing this place?
She smiled, awkwardly I guess,
never considering Swedish words,
were anglicised the world over.
There was so much we presumed about those relegated to Viking and their serfs.
What we don’t see are the pillars, windows, walls of love,
built to serve the people across class.
The housing projects that match earth’s slopes,
including libraries, pools, forests and open lawns, making bulk brick or concrete estates a laugh.
Every road has pavements and bicycle lanes,
private property, whether walled in or fenced off,
is kept minimal by roaming rights.
We should be able to enjoy the land and beaches, a fine sight.
Sweden’s people, their elected reps,
largely control the sale of alcohol, thank goodness.
It’s illegal to carry guns on the street,
including knives or weaponised scissors.
The state regulates rental prices in public housing and private property,
making sure people have access to affordable housing,
everyone should be able to live,
to resist a money-making suffocate, round ring.
Most schools are public, municipal run,
not the for-profit private institutes at every turn.
Here again, this is to ensure all children, irrespective of class,
enjoy fairly equitable roots as they learn.
Did you know, school aftercare is managed by the state,
while schooling is free, aftercare comes at an expense,
but if you’re poor, your cost is equal to your family income, verified of course,
if you’re rich, your cost is limited, which makes fair, good sense.
Olof challenged sex and gender inhibitions,
suggesting democratic rights should be enjoyed by all.
He supported worker unions,
and questioned the geopolitical domination that enthralls.
The architecture was built a long, long time ago,
and while cracks, shifts, anger and hurt over governance,
rises up in waves from the working and middle class,
what is clear is that the impetus to serve was there, a fight against ruling class stubbornness.
A house was built to serve an entire country,
not a single Swede understands engineered economic mass exclusion and exploitation,
when 90% of your country is deliberately undermined, exploited and brutalised,
how can they fully appreciate the impact of South African pillars that serve some over many, the dominance of self-absorbed ruminations.
The flying critics that spread their wings are woefully misled,
while the criticisms of South African governance are true,
their substance however diverges from a total review of systems, control, processes and influence,
that see domestic and foreign holdings, an expansion exacerbating gross inequities anew.
If Sverige’s architecture were different,
if a false love was built and shaped to serve indecent minority enrichment,
ABBA’s country might have been another South Africa, smaller but similarly divided,
a working class much alike and equally, vociferously astringent.
So bless the pillars of love,
the windows, walls, stairs and doorways that were built.
Take heart in knowing Sweden, that once a ruling class cared enough,
to build a house that serves all fairly equitably, accessibly, a real home.