Tuesday 9 February

The sun was shining and somehow my alarm had decided to respect the silence mood for once. There were only three reminders chiming when I turned it on, but not even that could make the day less bright. A simple phone call informed me that I would be contacted by a courier service that would deliver my lost baggage at my doorstep tomorrow. I spent the morning reading before class on nationality, subjectivity in the global world and British cinema.
The lecture and seminar made me think. The lecturer had just talked about nationality as cultural belonging, as communicative discourses, media constructions, existential, habitual security net in what we can take for granted or recognize when we feel lost. And I can´t help feeling lost when someone changes the topic suddenly to say: “Anyway, the weather is nice today.” He uttered the words as we walked from lecture to seminar room. To him it was a moment of cultural belonging, normal discourse. For me “anyway” signaled “in contrast to what we just said”, so I wondered what we had talked about that wasn’t nice at all. But I new it was only me who was lost in national discourse.
Like one of the English students said about half a year in the US: “here is this huge gap when it comes to humour and references. You would think there was more of a common ground. Instead there were constant misunderstandings.” (I cannot guarantee I give an exact quote since construction workers were pounding outside and the echoing room. And I couldn’t help thinking of all the times I wondered what my former Norwegian college actually meant, although she spoke perfect Swedish.
We were asked to introduce ourselves to the seminar group, with name, focus in our studies and a comment on our nationality. I couldn’t, as always, just produce the ‘Swedish’ answer: “Swedish, but we are have a very low key sense of nationality.” Sometimes comments and questions are like Rorschack-tests. It is nice to treat them as such as long as the subject isn’t changed too much: So I said “Swedish, but since I am going to marry an American, I assume my sense of nationality will be a blend in the end.” I gave all allowance to the fact that culture always is affected by global trends. After all we were talking about our sense of nationality, of perceived and conceived subject positions. Then he surprise me with a follow up question: “So if or when you eventually have children, what will they be? American or Swedish?” I hadn’t thought about it before, and I recalled former pupils who either try to distance themselves from or longed for a closer relationship to the most distant nationality of the two they had been brought up with. Seemingly, after a very thorough examination of all facts available, my conclusion is that any enforced second nationality creates an opposition, whereas an explorative approach based on curiosity results in a more natural relationship to the culture. However, I may in the future both revise and add to this statement.
The seminar addressed limitations of being caught in a subject position, or the frustrated defense against being caught in a definition. One of my fellow students stated with what I perceived as a politically correct arrogance: “I don’t acknowledge ‘nationality’. I cannot see myself as English or British. I am European”. The new liberal concept of nationality was presented. All concepts of nationality are defined as inclusions and exclusions. ‘European’ include a specific set of values, but is still opposed to being Asian, American, African, Oceanic, South American. It is still full of can’ts and cans. I suddently could define myself in numerous ways: Jakobsberg, Västerås, Haga, Falun, Utanmyra, Dalarna, Västmanland, Sweden, English or American too for that matter, regarding my present and future position. However, I have a hard time to see myself as European, although I know I am. History, culture, legal issues, traditions and politics make me a European. What my dislike to the concept tells me is how much I regard ‘European’ in a political, legal, cultural and philosophical perspective – an abstraction and intellectual influence, just like British is opposed to English. As it said in this weeks text by Kumar: “ ‘English’ evoked a people rather than a state , with a specific set of traits regarding rusticity, emotions and common history: a notion of something smaller and gentler, compared to’ British’: something hard rather than soft”.
On the way home I thought of what constructs me the most: cannots or cans. I do react strongly when someone says I can’t, mustn’t, shouldn’t. It isn’t that I want to do something different, because when people use those words they usually have some kind of a point, and out of respect alone I would generally do things their way, but it is the relationship between the imperative and the trust in my judgement that makes me react, I think. Where there are can’ts, shouldn’ts and mustn’ts there seem to be a need for an external domination of the will and mind; a prisonlike state, as if the internal “I” cannot be trusted. I guess I am a sucker for trust. Trust is sexy.
Running, trying to find an entrance to the park system, actually the park system altogether, I kept thinking. I wonder how I became so sensitive to distrust and exclusion. In general, I go back to my dad-experience, but I cannot find the answer there. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I wasn’t trusted as a child. Can you tell me what is wrong with wanting to see firsthand what happens if you jump from the top of Svampen in Örebro? I was a curious child!
Still, I hope I act in accordance with the idea of an open mind and more often ask if something is possible, wanting to try things anew instead of saying can’t, mustn’t, won’t, don’t and shouldn’t. There are so many things in the English culture that I wonder about and really could say “I don’t like it” about, if I didn’t and don’t give it a second or even a third chance. But I even begin to accept the plumbing, the separate hot and cold water taps, the closing hours of the supermarket and the typically British asphalt. I have learnt to accept the rugs and coffee. Eventually, I will learn to appreciate paying £2,8 per machine+dryer doing laundry.
Still there are things I can’t learn to live with. It is far from the Britain it used to be in the 70’s, with people smoking at the cinemas and the supermarket, but still, so many smokers. I don’t think the percentage is worse than in Sweden, but there are more people cramped in on a tiny island. Also, there is here as everywhere else, so many people who cannot understand how others, like the Scots, Irish etcetera, can think and react the way they do. I guess when it comes to identity and nationality we live in a time of subjectivity, rather than empathy. I hope that I will manage to go against the grain, in the end.

I guess todays seminar addressed me.