The Swedish tradition of celebrating Saint Lucia on December 13 is an ancient tradition. For ages it has been celebrated with children in a candle lit parade singing Christmas carols. Sweden seems to currently be suffering from a cultural identity crisis in what seems to be at a breaking point. All over the country traditions are being questioned, discarded and shunned in something reminiscent to a cultural revolution.
The ”progressive” and ”modern” elements of the Swedish society has a tendency to use racism and intolerance as the leverage in lobbying for these changes. The latest expression of this process of denial of the cultural heritage and traditions is the banning of the use of gingerbread costumes traditionally used in the Saint Lucia parade in a school in Sweden. According to the school it is racist to dress up in gingerbread costumes.
It is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I tend to agree. This also means that shame, and racism is in the eye of the beholder. Gingerbread does have a brownish color. There are also people around the world that have a more brownish skin color than most Swedes have, although in the summer most of them try to get some color on their pale bones. So I suppose, but I might be wrong since I don’t know, that the school in question thinks that a dress that share a remote similarity to a color of skin that many people have is racism. I’m sorry but I’m not following. Does the school mean that the manifestation of a different color of skin, or that this is implied, is offensive? I think this is very odd and so does others as well. In all the years that I as a child celebrated Lucia, I never thought that my ginger bread costume was offensive or racist. I have asked others that similar to me dressed up in gingerbread costumes as kids, and like me no one have any memory of any racist meaning in the Saint Lucia celebration and up until now no one ever even thought about it as being racist.
So if all traditions are to be dissected, deconstructed and discarded or changed it kind of ruins the initial idea of traditions, which is that they stay the same, basically, in a world that otherwise is changing. This is very strange, since Swedes by no means are unaware of the value of traditions in other circumstances or in other countries. Swedes travel a lot and often are interested in learning about other peoples’ traditions. But the ”progressives”, in considering their own traditions as racist, it seems like they not only is missing the point with the large variety of different traditions around the world and the diversity it signifies. Also its like they attribute an unrealistic and twisted importance to their own traditions in a global perspective. If regional Swedish traditions are offensive and racist in Sweden according to these progressives, does that mean that the they also mean that other traditions in other regions and countries are racist or is it something that just applies to Sweden?
Is a world without diversity in traditions and local traditions the only world without racism according to this avant-garde? No one dress up in brown! No one dress up in red! No yellow clothes either! Are white clothes allowed? Or in the name of equality, brotherhood and tolerance maybe all should dress up in blue clothes.
