Thorbjorn Fälldin and his family lived in a dizzying beautiful idyll with views of the river valleys.
Nature was untouched and original, only grandchildren large plastic pool reminded of our time småfula consumer society .
Ramvik, Fälldin home village, was safe for him the quintessential get how he wanted to organize Sweden, how he wanted people to live.
however, there was always a way and an opening to the outside world. Fälldin family invited African freedom fighters to the Christmas party. Mozambican leader Samora Machel were invited, to security agents horror, to the steaming hot sauna.
When I was visiting Fälldin I was asked to dance on the second floor. Thorbjorn wanted to see a EWK-subscription. EWK, Aftonbladet världsmästartecknare was close friends with Fälldin. On the drawing can be seen China’s former leader Deng. “Well, you know, I was of course in China, and they described me as Sweden’s great peasant leader. We found it easy to talk; he wanted to know how we had been able to increase productivity in the Swedish agriculture. “
Fälldin visited as prime minister Africa and met Robert Mugabe, then best known as a great liberation leader. The Swedish prime minister did not speak much English, however, he was able to examine the horses straight into your mouth and determine their age and their health. Such was the impression of the African leaders, most accustomed to the white colonial masters superiority.
Bond conductor of the Chinese, agricultural expert for the Africans Perhaps it was also so Swedes watched him.
Fälldin – a peasant democrat
We had long conversations in his home; I had been commissioned to write a biography of him. Not completely obvious to me that almost never resided in the country. Fälldin told of a social struggle that reminded me of battles I felt better; those that characterized the labor movement.
Fälldin had read the great works of the Swedish countryside, such Olof Högberg The large knobs – a novel about the oppression of peasants by state bailiffs who made life a living hell, and if people who had to leave their homes for a proletarianized life in the major cities.
I listened, recorded and taught me, I think, understand Fälldin the driver: He was a peasant democrat, not at all unlike Vilhelm Moberg’s figures. He wanted to revolt against the society which deprived rural people a life of dignity. He wanted above all to fight to the young people of the country would have the right to quality education.
Fought to a degree
Thorbjorn Fälldin himself was like so many others fight their way to a school certificate with of correspondence courses. He was a reserve officer in order to learn even more and he went out as one of the primary education. But when the defense wanted to sign him, he said no. He probably would not have been able to submit to the military system hierarchies.
The policy attracted, he said, when we ate of his wife Solveig’s goulash soup. He wanted to change the laws that were about to stop him from building his own farm with potato growing and sheep farm. And he would set himself and his movement in the path of the policy was summed up in the concept of the AMS – All Must south. With a few votes margin he was voted into parliament and was the Centre Party’s rising star, in the TV debates with Olof Palme and CH Hermansson. When the Center would choose new leader for the eternal Gunnar Hedlund were Norrland peasant Fälldin south peasants Johannes Antonsson.
“I knew John weaknesses,” said Fälldin somewhat mysterious to me. He won, of course by far.
The party gained 30 percent
Bond Democrat Fälldin soon became social democracy’s chief challenger. His party flew up in the air and reached the 30-percent level. “You know very low right time for us. People became more and more critical to urban concentration, the ruination of the environment. It was then the Green Wave did well. “Young people moved to the countryside in search of new life, even a new civilization.
And here is the second Fälldin phenomenon. He became rebellious 70′s foremost critics of civilization – opponents of super technology, extreme urbanization and, above all, to technology that could wipe out all of humanity, nuclear power. Nobel laureate Hannes Alfvén provided him with scientific arguments.
“I had the right,” said Fälldin and gazed out over the valleys. “The accidents came, Chernobyl occurred, killing people and nature. And so the people could even mock me for my opinions. “
Fälldin – the tool that would overthrow the Social Democrats
Thorbjorn Fälldin became the idol also a bourgeoisie that otherwise despised simple people in rural areas. He was a tool that could be used to overthrow the seemingly eternal Socialist government of the time.
“Maybe I would have been able to make up with the Social Democrats,” said Fälldin to me. He always said “the Social Democrats.” “I found it easy to talk to Ingvar Carlsson. We had a fairly similar childhood and we were equally obsessed with the sport. But it was never to be heard with Palme. “
I got the impression that he grieved over the conflict, which he also bore responsibility for the their tremendous anti-socialist statements. He compared Sweden with DDR.
was called “sheep farmer” of the Palme
“We could never talk to each other,” explained Fälldin. Palme always called him, though internally, where the “sheep farmer.” Tormented by to even be challenged by a person with Fälldin background.
It was not just a personal conflict. The Social Democrats stood for the eternal progress optimism and faith in reason, science and the modern. Fälldin saw the inhuman elements of the system, the threats to rural areas, the risk of poisoning by nature.
How did you prepare for the debates with Palme, I asked Fälldin. “Well, you know he would always talk so fast and with such elegance and he was irritated by my slowness. So I made sure to drag the tempo further. “
Reign tore him down
Chariots big moment occurred in September 1976. Fälldin ousted the Social Democrats, saw to it that an almost eternal hold on power ended .
“we did not know how bad it was in the Swedish economy,” said Fälldin when we talked about the takeover: “we got no information. It was just Thage G. Peterson who came with a paper on Geijer affair, about the brothels history. Otherwise blank. “
Reign tore down Fälldin physically and mentally. He put on an unreasonable workload, read in every case in detail, was forced into constant conflict with both the Moderate Party’s hardline Gosta Bohman and the Liberals who wanted to preserve the nuclear power: “I finally got a rash all over the body. I was periodically ill, told Fälldin.
His dream of stopping nuclear power dissolved. In the end he could not hold together his own party. “They conspired against me; they wanted me away, “he complained when we talked.
Met his dream
For a brief heroic moments he regained the lead over the state; it was when he led the government in the fight against the Soviet submarine in Harsfjarden. He wanted total control and scolded and even the country’s Foreign Minister ola ullsten outside: “I really did not trust him,” said Fälldin.
The bay is your main bet? What are you most proud of? The kind of questions you have to ask after all.
Fälldin replied: My School. He was involved in building a college that primarily would be able to receive young people from rural areas, giving them the right to education, creating a cadre of skilled young people who would be operating outside big cities.
“It was to meet a dream, “he summarized. My School later became a university.
We brought our call late in Fälldin life. He was tired and had difficulty with balance, could not leave his Ramvik. The memory of the political time was unshaken. He followed not so closely with the politics of the day and was slightly disappointed in his own party, who distanced himself from his ideology and his dreams of a society where “the whole country should live.”
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