Swedish News:

Working class hero? Sweden’s first female archbishop. Greeks to Sweden. Hope for the Gavle goat? 

  • Gävle Christmas goat in 2006 (yes, it was burnt down that year also). Perhaps this year, if a group of volunteers gets what they want, it won’t be in flames? Photo: Stefan/Wikipedia
  • Working class hero?
    According to the Moderate Party's secretary Kent Persson, we'd better stop pretending what's what in politics. Persson says Sweden's real "workers’ party” is the Moderate Party (a center-right, liberal-conservative political party). And in fact, on the party’s new logo it says: ”Sweden’s workers’ party”. What do you think?

  • Is the Moderate Party the new working class party?
  • Sweden's first female archbishop
    Say 'grattis' or congratulations to Antje Jackelen, bishop of Lund's parish, because she was just elected archbishop, and is the first female archbishop in Sweden. "I'm dazed and very happy,” she said in a press release. All members of Sweden’s parish boards and dioceses have had their say, and the 58-year old Jackelén is now making Swedish history. She won with 55.9% of the votes. ”It’s not surprising, she says. ”We’ve had female pastors for 50 years, so it’s quite natural that we also have a female archbishop.” Born in Germany in 1955, Jackelén was ordained priest in the Church of Sweden in 1980, and became a doctor of Theology at Lund University in 1999. She was elected bishop of Lund in 2006, and succeeded Christina Odenberg in 2007. So... Sweden may not have had a female at the top politically: The other four Nordic countries have had women at the top. Not Sweden but, now at least spiritually.

  • Antje Jackelén, bishop of Lund’s parish, has become Sweden's first female archbishop ever. Photo: Boberger
  • Increasing Greek immigration to Sweden
    The number of people immigrating to Sweden from crisis-ridden Greece has increased a lot, according to Statistics Sweden. A relatively high percentage of them have previous connections to Sweden. In 2010, 872 Greeks immigrated to Sweden, in 2011 the number was 1,554, and last year, 2012, 2,254 Greeks moved to Sweden.

  • More and more Greeks move to Sweden, leaving their crisis-ridden country behind.
  • Hope for the Gavle goat?
    Is there perhaps hope for the straw goat in Gavle this year? The giant version of a traditional Swedish yule goat made of straw, is erected on Slottstorget in Gävle every year before Christmas, and has become the subject of a ”tradition” of regularly being torched by vandals. Well, a group of volunteers are offering to be on watch to make sure the goat is not set on fire this year, accoring to gd.se ”I’m not a particularly frightened person, I don’t mind stepping out nighttime, if there’s a group of four to six people. I have a dog that I can bring also,” says retired Gävle inhabitant Ewa Lindfors, one of the initiators behind the idea of making sure a group of people by watching the goat will prevent vandals from destroying it. The City Council has yet to consider the proposal.