National Day of Sweden

Today we celebrate the National Day of Sweden. It has been a public holiday since 2005. It then replaced Whit Monday, which is now an ordinary working day. So what do Swedes celebrate? I guess most citizens would have to google to get the answer. I had to do that. Well, I knew about Gustav Vasa or Gustav I and the constitution of 1809. But to get some more facts I needed to do a bit of research:

One reason is that Gustav Vasa was elected king of Sweden on 6 June 1523. That marked the end of the Kalmar Union (a union between Sweden, Norway, Denmark and I guess Iceland, which was part of Denmark or Norway at the time and possibly Finland, which was part of Sweden. But the boarders were different. Was Greenland also part of the union?) Kalmar was very central. The union was formed in our home city in 1397. The regent was the Danish Margareta I with the nick name: “The King without trousers”. So that is one reason. The election of Gustav Vasa formed the beginning of the modern, independent Sweden.

Second Sweden got one of the fundamental laws that set up its constitution on 6 June 1809, called the Instrument of Government. Basically it put an end to the dictatorship of Gustav III and the parliament and the king started to share power. It was only replaced in 1974. (It was then the second oldest constitution in the world!)

Enough with history! Sweden celebrate tomorrow its independence, being a democracy and not an autocracy.

But we live in South Africa and it is an ordinary working day. And to be honest, we will probably not celebrate much. Just like the Swedes. It is not a very strong tradition. We always compare our "non-celebration" to the way our neighbours, the Norwegians, celebrate their National Day, the 17 May. During the World War II Norway was occupied by Germany and on that day they got their freedom. Many Norwegians still remember this. And they tell their children why they celebrate. We miss this in Sweden. Other examples of countries really celebrating are the celebration in France on 14 July and the United States on 4 July. We have experienced both and it’s very different from Sweden.

I wonder if South Africa has a single National Day. It is probably Freedom Day, 27 April, the day of the first democratic election in 1994. But I must say it was more similar to the Swedish celebrations then to the Norwegian, French or American.

Personally I rather celebrate internationalism then nationalism. What about the United Nations day, 24 October? But then of course, UN is not really an exciting organisation any longer.

What remains is to wake up every morning and celebrate life itself, the possibility of showing one another love and the vision of building a just and equal world for all its inhabitants. That’s worth celebrating every day.