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Argh. I can't take this. The no side is going to win in Sweden's euro referendum, and for the first time in my life I am going to hold a majority opinion. This is making me feel queasy, so in the interests of a closer race, I'd like to examine those cases where voters should, rationally, vote yes to the euro, purely out of economic self-interest.
1. You own stock in or work for a Swedish company that gets the the bulk of its revenues from euroland. Such a business would be able to eliminate all costs associated with managing exchange rate volatilty, and this should add a percentage point or two to the bottom line. Some of Sweden's largest companies, including its multinationals, fall into this category. If you were the CEO of such a company it would be your duty to shareholders to lobby for joining EMU, regardless of its greater good. And indeed, this is what many captains of Swedish industry are doing, on TV and in the papers.
The same goes for smaller businesses and freelancers. If you make the bulk of your money in euros, it's in your best interest to vote yes.
However, there aren't that many of you. Exports constitute around 45% of Sweden's GDP, which is quite a high number, but of that only about 40% is to euroland countries. Only about 18% of Sweden's GDP is directly attributable to trade with EMU countries.
There is little doubt that some companies will benefit if Sweden adopts the euro. The costs, however, would be borne by the country as a whole, in the form of interest rates that are not optimal for Sweden's economy, because they would be optimal for Germany and France, mainly.
2. You are an immigrant from an EMU country and you send remittances home. You'd save on the costs of converting your money, and you would not be subject to the vagaries of a floating exchange rate regime. Conveniently, you get to vote. If you are a Swede but spend most of your money abroad, the same argument applies.
3. Your wages are paid in euros. If you're posted here from an EMU country, either for your business, or as a diplomat, or as a correspondent, chances are you're getting paid into your bank account back home. The euro in Sweden would make things a lot easier for you. Since you get to vote, make sure it's yes.
4. Your prestige as a European leader rests on your country adopting EMU. If I were Gˆran Persson, I would vote yes early and often.
Is August a bad month for blogging? Even James Lileks felt compelled to apologise today ("nothing Iíve written here in the last gasp of August has satisfied me...") and I certainly did, sort of, a few posts back. Andrew Sullivan may have been on to something when he shuttered up completely for the month. Could it be that blogs are inherently derivative, in the sense that they feed on news, and on a slow news month they simply lose their verve?
Or perhaps there are more people on vacation in August, so there are simply fewer participants thrumming on the great sounding board that is blogging. This makes more sense, as August has hardly turned out to be slow in the news department.
Still, blogaholics find ready enablers in the millions of internet dens that now dot holiday destinations. I certainly was able to get my fix in western Ireland, and Ben Hammersley is getting his in Kabul. But over the past few days, as I read his blog, I have noticed an aspect of his writing that I recognized in my own over the past month or so: it's the tone of the travelog, of the visitor, of the person skimming the surface of a place, and by necessity this is not as enlightening as the writings of an expat (site currently down) living in the place, or that of a well-travelled native. I think this is because the best writing about places is about the author's connections to those places. It takes time to make those connections ó at the very least, it takes longer than a holiday.
So perhaps summer blogging is a little like the summer fling: fun while it lasts, but of no lasting importance.
Who needs democrats? Seriously, I just met up with my friend Ben N. from SAIS, who is passing by Dublin, and we had a few in a local pub. He is one of the two smart republicans I know (the other being Kim) but found him to be radically moderate all of a sudden about a great many things. He is against the Iraq war, outright, and has been from the start. He's against the recall vote in California (direct democracy being bad), nodded at my lamenting the rise of dynastic democracy of the USAfter the Bushes, watch for Hillary in 2008, though she might have to run against Jeb., and had we ventured into the US budget, we would probably have found ourselves in full agreement.
Where were the days of our stubborn idealism? I remember one pitched battle in the kitchen of our flat on Via Irnerio, in Bologna, about whether European or American democracy was superior, which degenerated into call and response along the lines of "is so, is not, is so..." Now we'd probably be at pains to point out the good parts of our respective democratic heritages. I certainly do about the US. On occasion.
I think I know where Ben's mellowing has come from. He was accompanied by his lovely democrat wife, whom I hadn't met before, and it is clear that in this bipartisan marriage, Ben has been doing some political migrating. I'm glad he has, because it gives me the necessary empirical evidence to push a hunch I've had to the level of hypothesis. His marriage is the third involving overtly political friends of mine that has manifested a lurch towards the political leanings of the woman in the relationship.
For example, Eurof, who used to fall asleep clutching a dog-eared copy of Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, or who in a moment of drunken sincerity proclaimed his sexual attraction to Margaret Thatcher — this very same Eurof now entertains conspiracy theories about why Greece is no longer a superpower. He believes French foreign policy is enlightened, for God's sake, and this coming from a Brit. Clearly, he is in love with a GreekEurof is on holiday in Greece at the moment, where they invented the internet 2000 years ago along with everything else, but lost it, so he will not be able to comment here just this minute..
Kim and Matthew, Oregon Gothic, 1998
Meanwhile, Matthew's trajectory has been the opposite. He hailed from a solid middle class North London Labourite family, and his main stab at rebellion involved making bad postmodern student movies at Oxford. In Bologna, he dabbled in anarcho-revolutionary publishing, and was certainly not above such typical propaganda activities as spreading misinformation about revolutionary rivals. All this came to a screeching halt when he met Kim. Kim owned lots of guns. Now Matthew owns guns. Now Matthew wants to kick ass in Iraq. Enough said.
How to test my hypothesis, so that it can aspire to scientific rigor? Hoping for divorces and observing any shifts would clearly be unethical. Perhaps in the future we should do a better job of chronicling our stated political leanings, so that we can be held to account when we venture off the Shining Path and down the wedding aisle. Oh, that's what blogs are for.
Having resigned myself to cajoling from the sidelines in the upcoming referendum on whether Sweden should join the EMU, I was surprised and, to be honest, gleeful to find an actual rˆstkort, or voting card, in my mail when I dropped into Stockholm for a job interview this past weekend. It appears that, as a resident, I am eligible to vote in this referendum. And vote no I will. My reasons are here, here and here.
I'm really quite flattered by this. This is making me very grateful to Sweden. It will in fact be the first time in my life that I get to vote. Admittedly, it is unusual to find a Belgian who has never voted — you are obligated by law to vote if you are in the motherland on election day. But I've hardly ever lived in Belgium, and certainly not on an election day. Meanwhile, Belgians living "abroad" were not eligible to vote until this year. So don't blame me for my dismal voting record, blame the size of my country — I never manage to stay in itThis weblog was all set to ease slowly back into substantive issues after a summer's worth of somewhat superficial travelogging (one of the downsides of reading this blog is that when I'm shallow, you'll know about it), when in popped this gloriously bloggable rˆstkort..
Everywhere else I've lived, I've been subject to the usual regime of taxation without representation. The US was especially happy to take my tax dollars without asking me how to spend them. Voting opportunities, then, have not exactly been falling in my lap.
Until now, apparently. I had been under the impression that even progressive Sweden would leave weighty decisions — such as whether to switch currencies — to Swedish citizens only. Every Swede I've talked to had assumed so too; Anna and Magnus were in despair at my newly acquired electoral clout, though perhaps their reaction had more to do with how I plan to use my vote. I can see their point, however. How dare I have a say in the future of Sweden so rapidly after my arrival here; I've been a resident in Sweden for less than a year. All I had to do was turn up and register for an ID card.
I went to a party for foreign ministry types Friday night, where EMU discussions were rampant. I posited a few theories. Perhaps my rˆstkort was a mistake? "The state never makes mistakes," one Swede replied, with a wry smile.
"It shows they're desperate," said another. If they're letting foreigners vote, it's because they need all the yes votes they can get, and foreigners, presumably, are already sold on the euro. Would this be legal? Quite possibly, because these folkomrˆstningar, or referendums, are not actually legally binding, though they have a moral authority that a Swedish government would find impossible to ignore.
Nobody was in any doubt that the result of the referendum will be a no. Polls have shown a consistent majority for the no-camp, though I wouldn't write off the yes camp just yet: In particular, many Swedes have been on vacation in euroland, where they used and possibly liked the euro. The mood of these returning holidaymakers has not yet been captured by polls.
Almost everyone at this Stockholm party intended to vote yes. In the spirit of debate, I told several people that their voting intentions stem from nothing more than desire to vote in favor of whatever rural Sweden is against. If the farmers are against it, then it has to be a good thing, goes the rationale. This mental shortcut is lazy, for it leaves out the possibility that most no-voters have reached the correct conclusion for the wrong reason. I believe this is the case. Most reasons for voting no are bunk, but this does not invalidate the no case — most reasons for voting yes are bunk too.
Also, the euro vote is not necessarily a choice between what is good for Sweden and what is good for Europe. I am convinced that a no vote is the best thing both for Sweden and the EU. Expanding EMU beyond its optimal area is going to lead to political frictions as soon as member countries' immediate economic goals diverge, as they are already beginning to do. I am a strong believer in keeping the monetary and political spheres separate, because I hope that the EU keeps on growing. The EU should be a club for countries that observe best practices in democracy, free trade, and human rights, not an exclusionary Christian country club, not an economic fortress, and certainly not, as one person was hoping, a "counterbalance" to US power (oh the folly of that idea).
But I am repeating myself; more interesting was the positive reception these ideas got from many of the people I talked to. The economic risks were readily acknowledged; instead, the maintenance of political clout within the EU was touted as the ultimate reason for their yes vote. "Sweden should be a joiner," was the refrain. "Sweden should be in the lead." Sure, unless the planned activity is jumping off a cliff.
I could of course be wrong. The euro might just work fabulously, despite the risks. I promise to vote yes in 5-10 years if this is the case, so that Sweden can join at the same time as Poland and the Baltics. In the meantime, Sweden's GDP growth looks set to handily outpace that of euroland. Adopting the euro is a decision that is practically impossible to undo; there really is no need to rush into itImages courtesy of my rˆstkort. This last image instructs me to eat a hot dog after voting..
I will vote conscientiously on September 14, but there is one thing that receiving my rˆstkort has allowed me to do right away. I now have a much more satisfying way to end EMU arguments. I tried it on Anna, and boy does it work: "In any case," I told her, "my vote will cancel out yours."
I take it all back, everything that I said about Ryanair. Two months and 6 flights later, it's clear that deregulation is drastically changing the way Europeans will fly — much in the same way it did in the US. The era of the accidental tourist is truly upon us: Cheap last minute flights now make it possible to fly from London to Italy on a whim.
And that is what I did last week. Matthew and Kim had already hired a villa outside Siena, Michael B. had already rented the car from Rome's airport; I just needed to show up at the appointed hour. In the event, I managed to talk Eurof into abandoning his wife and child, and off we went, like Navy Seals of tourism, ready to be dropped into the world's cultural hot spots on 48 hours notice.
Random acts of tourism have their payoffs. In our case, it was stumbling onto the Palio horse race, which began on the day we went into town. While others had waited for hours in 40-degree heat to witness the race, we rounded the corner to the Piazza del Campo just as the canon went off and the race started. It wasn't fair — we should suffer more for our arte.
New trend alert: In crowds, digital cameras are now held aloft as periscopes for the shorter members of the entourage.
Skellig Michael is a rock jutting 217 meters straight out of the Atlantic swell some 14 km off Ireland's westernmost coast. It bears the brunt of what the Gulf Stream throws at the mainland, so it is fiendishly hard to land on. Nevertheless, it's been visited since Celtic times by the odd persevering pilgrim — druids were drawn to the impossible fresh-water spring on its cliffs, and in the 6th century, a hermit went to live on its grassy summit, closer to God. A few more pilgrims stayed, and thus Ireland's most fabled hermitage came to be. There were never more than a handful of monks present, but over the centuries they built a warren of beehive huts at the summit, and carved steps into the cliffsThey held out until the 13th century, when climate change forced them to abandon the monastery. Detailed histories of the island can be found here and here..
Skellig Michael is on the left, further away. Little Skellig, a bird sanctuary, looms on the right.
Until Irish monks discovered Iceland in the 9th century, Skellig lay at the edge of the world. Ships rounding Ireland had to pass by it or flounder founder on its cliffs. Vikings took an interest, and raided the monastery in 812, and again in 823. In 993, the viking Olav Trygvasson visited, was impressed, and came away baptised. He went back to Norway, became King Olav I, and forcibly converted his country to Christianity. Norwegians, then, have Skellig to thank for their religionScilly Islanders are under the impression Olav was baptised on their islands. Both Scilly and Skellig (Sceilig in Irish) are derived from the Gaelic word for rock. But it's Skellig that had the hermits, and it's Skellig that induces the fear of God in people. Vikings would have had coddled Scilly islanders for breakfast. The original account (including a mistranslation of Sceilig) is here (scroll down to para. 32). It's gripping reading, what these vikings got up to..
This is Little Skellig, close up. The white specks are thousands of birds.
Almost a thousand years later, a Norwegian returned the favor. Thirty kilometers to the North of Skellig, some 5 km off the end of Dingle peninsula, lie the Blasket Islands, Skellig lookalikes save for the largest, Great Blasket, a long narrow ridge with grassy slopes. It too is often made unapproachable by the Atlantic swell, but for hundreds of years it supported a hamletful of fishermen farmers.
This community was perhaps Ireland's remotest. By the turn of the 20th century, most of Ireland had switched to English, but Blasket Islanders still spoke Irish, though their numbers were thinning. In 1907, the Norwegian linguist Carl Marstrander visited Great Blasket and soon had the islanders convinced they were a living treasure of language and folklore. He proved to be the proverbial grain of sand in the oyster; the villagers began to write, and the result was a splendid and prolific literary harvest. Marstrander and his protÈgÈs got to the island just in time; the village was abandoned in 1953.
The northwest coastline of Great Blasket Island, looking southwest towards America.
I visited both Skellig and Great Blasket last week. I wasn't able to set foot on Skellig — the swell was too great on the appointed day — but the island was certainly imposing. George Bernard Shaw's own account of his visit finds him grasping for words, so I won't even attempt my own rendition, at least not until I set foot on the island, next time. As our little boat bobbed in the wash of the waves crashing against the rocks, the three most annoying of the 12 passengers threw upNo, Felix, I wasn't one of them., to my great satisfaction. One of them was an unpleasant German who had previously been snarky about my picture-taking, in German to his wife, but I had understood him perfectly. The captain merely smiled and looked away — at 35 euros a head, I wouldn't mind rinsing landlubber vomit off my boat either. Perhaps Skellig is closer to God.
The Blasket Islands seen from Dunquin, the closest village on the mainland.
Great Blasket Island is on the verge of being discovered by mainstream tourism. There is a visitor center in place on the mainland, and a 3-room hostel and cafe are open for the duration of the summer, when the island is serviced by a small ferry. For now, many of the visitors are daytrippers of a literary bent; they'll navigate the abandoned village, book in hand, retracing the steps of the characters they've read about. Some come for a few days, erecting tents in the husks of abandoned cottages, in search of shelter, and a little horizontal space on this diagonal island.
The northwest coastline of Great Blasket Island, looking northeast towards the Dingle peninsula.
My own appreciation of the islanders' literary feats came after I visited. The day I was there, I merely clambered around the island, seeking more and more incredible views. Now that I've read Peig's stories, and Eibhlis's letters, and as I'm in the middle of The Islandman, their lives are being evoked with an immediacy that few books I've read can muster. The whole collection forms a web of narratives spanning generations, sharing characters, yet each with an honest, distinct perspective.
So there you have it: An island of Irish monks and an island of Irish writers, both intimately linked to Norway. It's stranger than fiction.
Dublin has the best bookstores I've ever seen. They're like the London specialty ones, but cheaper. In this town, the section for books by local writers holds vast swathes of the English-language corpus. And these stores litter the city, interspersed by traditional cafÈs like Bewley's where people really sit and read for hoursAnd I thought Ireland was all about the pubs..
All this literary splendor is lost on summer's most ubiquitous Dubliners — schoolkids from Italy and Spain, sent by la mama to learn English in a Catholic country, lest they be corrupted by Protestantism and notions of divorce. From what I can tell, their exposure to English amounts to the daily ordering of a Big Mac Menu from the McDonalds on Grafton Street, where these hormonal hordes congregate for lunch.
But they cannot avoid exposure to some of the greatest Irish fiction, because it is found on Dublin bus timetables. These have no connection whatsoever to actual bus appearances. When buses do appear, they arrive in clots, and then they are frequently half full by New York standards, which means the driver decides no more passengers could fit, so he guns it past the busstop. Even if his bus is empty, he might still decide to drive by you if you fail to hail sufficiently eagerly. Should you be fortunate enough to actually catch a bus, don't try to get off via the back door, they don't actually work. If you do something New Yorkish like yelling "back door!" when they refuse to open, or perhaps try to follow the instructions ("Push to open," no mention of emergencies), you will be reprimanded by the driver.
I also discovered today that Dublin barbers are very good. Here they actually seem to know what to do with a bald pate in need of mowing. In Stockholm, barbers study my head quizzically, then peck at it haltingly with miniature tools, as if short hair requires small measures. In Dublin, it is shorn with confidence.
Warning: The following is another of those horrid posts about the mechanics of the internet. Not interesting at all, but in the same way that breathing isn't interesting...
If hell is an offline existence, then surely purgatory is dialup internet access. I was weaned on 1Mbps+ in New York, and in Sweden I was ogling the 26 Mbps (!) service being introduced by Bostream, so when I saw my parents' paltry setup here in Dublin I decided to get them up to speed, so to speak.
Ireland, the European technology darling of the 90s, would surely be drenched in broadband. Not so. I was told there was no broadband internet access available to our (posh) area in Dublin. Incredulous, I set out to prove the naysayers wrong, and thought I had scored an early victory when I found that the local cable company, NTL, had started broadband services just last month. I called them, expectantly, but they informed me that they were only experimenting, really, and no, our area wasn't going to be serviced for a long while yet.
They did, however, offer a special kind of internet access that they would gladly install anywhere in Dublin. The salesman quoted the price a little sheepishly: 9800 a year for a 512kbps leased line. I actually said "Oh, that's not too bad" before I realized he was talking in euros, not kroner. For that price, I would expect my emails to be delivered personally. No wonder NTL is not rushing to roll out cheap cable internet services.
DSL, then. No luck here either. Although the phone lines clearly suffice for the ISDN setup they support, they apparently don't qualify for ADSL, the operator told us; either our phone lines are too old or we are too far from a switching station (here in the center of Dublin), though which of these two possible reasons it might be the operator wouldn't tell. Could we get a new phone line? We could, but she couldn't tell us if that new line would qualify until we got it. Fat chance, then
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Is it really possible nobody laid any decent cable in Dublin, through which the internet might flow unfettered to the masses? Apparently so, and I am not the only one to notice. It's actually cause for a political movement here. Might there then be a push for free and public wireless access, ‡ la what's being built in the East Village? Well, there is a nascent group doing noble work here, yet Dublin is too diffuse and the transmitters too weak to blanket the area. But their nodemap did put me in touch with people who knew of a local company offering residential wireless internet access.
Bingo. They have a transmitter some 800 meters from the house, and an (obligatory) line-of-sight survey confirmed we get a good strong signal from it. Today they came and installed the antenna, and I've been in broadband heaven for hours now. Most surprising is the strong upload capacity: Earlier, I was video iChatting with Felix in New York. Nice perk: a fixed IP address!
Watch this space. I have a huge backblog to inflict on you in the next few days.