Center party leader Annie Lööf said today that she regrets the Center party congress’s decision to work towards making circumcision illegal except when necessary for medical reasons. At press conferences today, Lööf stressed that it was not the position favored by party leadership, and that freedom of religion is really (really!) important to the Center party.
Since the current Social Democratic-led government is beholden to the Center party for its continued existence, what the Center party decides, at its congress or otherwise, matters. Perhaps decisions like these are like the Swedish expression barnsjukdomar, which means something like growing pains as the body matures, that then blow over as they grow up. The Center party has support numbers that allows them to flex some muscle – but that makes their tantrums all the more problematic.
Everyone knows that religion plus politics is a area where only angels dare to tread. And yet, the Center party at its congress today decided to do just that: it will formally and officially work towards making circumcision illegal unless medically necessary.
Circumcision is a religious obligation in two of the dominant world religions, Judaism and Islam. It’s also a widespread practice throughout the western world, and even a hospital union in Beijing (with 50 other hospitals as union members) decided only this April that they too will “popularize” circumcision at all its hospitals as a way to prevent HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (Chinadaily.com).
The Center party has injected itself into this practice to protest the “insult” to a male infant’s integrity. Speakers for the proposal argued that there were aspects to the issue that outweigh freedom of religious expression. In fact, said the Center party’s vice chair Anders W. Jonsson, “the debate wasn’t about religion at all, it took into account a children’s rights perspective and an integrity perspective.”
Though the Center party might say it isn’t about religion, there are a whole lot of others that say it is. Mohamed Temsamani, chairman for the United Islamic Associations of Sweden, stated the the Center party decision limits freedom of religion. Further, “Muslims and Jews,” he said, “aren’t going to stop circumcising their boys. The risk is that people will be forced to do it away from prying eyes in an unsafe manner” reported Expressen. “If this were to go through” said Aron Verständig, chairman of the Council of Swedish Jewish Communities, “it would mean the end of being able to live as a Muslim or a Jew in Sweden” (aftonbladet.se).
Previously, only the Sweden Democrats and the Left party have been opposed to circumcision being legal. Now the Center party is joining their ranks.
The Swedish public school is in the news today. Then again, when is the Swedish public school not in the news?
Today’s news on the school front is threefold: school news from the Center party congress; school news on the curriculum front; and a computer malfunction that is currently causing hundreds upon hundreds of school computers to crash.
A blog at this same location yesterday, on the ongoing Center party congress, promised updates – so here’s an update. A motion to allow uncertified teachers to give school students a formal grade at the completion of a course lost. Not by much. The vote for allowing this was lost only because the congress was split on the issue and they tossed a coin to decide.
The Center party leadership was for allowing uncertified teachers to give out grades because, they argued, there aren’t enough certified teachers around. And the work uncertified teachers do should be shown official appreciation. Plus, they would only be allowed to do it if the school principal was ok with it.
On the other hand, people who were against the motion argued that it would depreciate the quality of school education even more, it would be insulting to teachers who actually put in all the work to get a degree, and would even jeopardize the trustworthiness of a grade given in this manner.
When the motion went to vote, the results were an even 245 for, and 245 against – hence the need for a coin toss. For the DN article, click here.
In a second bit of news, although this did come out a couple days ago, there’s a suggestion from Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket) to stop educating kids on ancient Rome and Greece because there just isn’t time in the school year. In the Swedish school, they argue, history begins after year 1700.
In Sweden’s defense, there is a huge uproar about this, and it isn’t likely to get pushed through. This time.
Finally, school computers across the country are dying, DN reports. It started last Wednesday, when the first reports of laptop death were circulated. Since then, 750 computers have reportedly been hit, and more are expected.
The problem is a faulty drive routine that causes computer failure when restarted. The company behind the drive, Fujitsu, is working the weekend (we assume) to fix the problem. New USB drives are being distributed, but there’s no fixed date for the problem’s eradication.
There just isn’t a lot of good school news out there. Sorry.
The Center party’s congress began today in Karlstad, and the comments in the papers appear to be mixed. Göran Eriksson, political analyst at Svenska Dagbladet, writes that although it goes well for the Center party, the support for the four parties that together make up the united front of government is still near an all time low.
What’s also got to pinch is that the whole point behind the Center party letting the Social Democrats hold on to power was to continue to freeze out the Sweden Democrats. And yet, the Sweden Democrats are only getting stronger and more established. So that didn’t work (SVDEriksson).
What did work for the Center party was getting a whole lot of sway over the government’s policy. The Social Democrats are having to do things that they are seriously unhappy about, in particular the elimination of the extra wealth tax, but also looking over the holy grail of LAS, and cutting back on the Swedish Public Employment Service (arbetsförmedlingen). LAS, the law on employment protection (or, lagen om anställningsskydd) has been around in some form since 1974, and formed part of the very apex of dreams for a perfect society. LAS today, even in its slightly watered down form, still makes it extremely difficult to fire someone from their job. This has good sides and bad sides of course, but the Center party made it clear that their support was contingent upon allowing more exceptions to the “last in first out” employment rule. That this hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean that the Center party is going to let it slide.
Anyway, Göran Eriksson wonders, if by their success, the Center party is losing votes for the Social Democrats – in which case, if these voters go over the Sweden Democrats – Center is contributing to the decreasing popularity of the government they went out on a limb to support. Eriksson, however, seems to be just taking it to the extreme, because it’s fun to be extreme. Voters that leave the Social Democrats because of more liberal Center politics aren’t that likely to head farther right.
The other main thing that came out of the congress’ opening shots was a jab at the former alliance parties, saying they were basically spineless for walking out on the talks on combating gang violence. Lööf said, that if parties were serious about ending shootings and violent deaths they would scrape up the courage to remain at the negotiating table and “make the decisions that need to be made.” The Center party, of course, had just that courage, and are open for continued cooperation – “building a new security for everyone” (). For some people it’s called being an enabler, but others can call it courage. What you see depends on where you stand.
The smart thing to do is not, however, to react to crowd-pleasing opening speeches (guilty as charged), but to wait and see what the summary statements have in the way of real politics. The congress has three days to go – stay tuned.
Little foretastes of the coming national budget continue to land on the proverbial palate. Like it or not. Besides the Green Party’s “free year” and the Left Party’s bank tax, the Center Party has apparently finagled a rural tax reduction (). Almost everyone living in Norrland, Dalarna, parts of Värmland and parts of Dalsland will be able to write a bit off of their taxes because they live in a low population area, or, as they’re known in official-speak “support area A and B” (stödområden).
“It’s all about being fair, and reducing the tax difference between city and country” said Annie Lööf, Center Party leader. She also motivated the tax reduction by noting that country residents often pay some of the highest local municipality taxes but generally receive fewer services (read: a health clinic or dentist in the area, or a local unemployment office) in return.
About 830,000 people are eligible for the rebate, to the tune of about 140 kronor a month, per person. On a national level, the reduced tax is expected to cost about 2.2 billion kronor ().
Although it works out to about 1650 kronor a year, there won’t be much to it if the gas tax is raised, as is expected to happen. Living in the country means needing a vehicle, especially when the state’s services are few and far between. The tax reduction might then cover the cost of filling the tank a time or two. Only voters can decide if the trade off is a fair one.
