Hakan:
>Yeah, we're probably among the least religious countries (if any >Swedish
>politician would invoke god the way American presidents seem >to do every
>now and then, people would stare at him as if he's gone >completely off his
>rocker) but we use religious curses. For a >foreigner, all the English
>curses about making love are a bit weird.
English curses, weird? Or do you mean the English translations of these
Swedish curses? Many of the Swedish curses listed here are almost identical
to English curses I've heard.
And what's with the American obsession with religion, eh? ... Actually, I
have to say that it's been creeping into Canadian politics too. It was great
in the 60s (or was it the 70s? Oh well, let's just say "before I was born")
when we had Trudeau as prime minister. He was a hip cat. He'd middle-finger
people in the streets without remorse.
Nowdays, the "Alliance", based out of the province of Alberta (practically
overrun by Americans now, the Canadian Bible Belt) is trying to become a
(gulp!) popular political party in Canada. The scary part is that they
actually beat out the Liberals headed by Joe Clark, a very respected,
time-tested, rational man. The Alliance won out despite the ultra-religious,
exclusionary, homophobic and racist comments (Wanna talk swearwords? I'm
sure Alliance knows them all). The big thing in the papers about Stockwell
Day, head of the Alliance, was his avoidance of working on Sundays (What
would he do as prime minister, a 24-hour job??) and his big kick on
"family", which was an understood codeword for white, heterosexual,
fundamentalist Christian family.
More irony... I was talking to a friend of mine. He's ultimately from
Beijing and his father actually voted for the Alliance! This is shocking
considering that one woman from the party had lamented in public just before
the elections about Chinese students coming into this country and ruining it
for the rest of us! Excuse me??! But then, perhaps the perceived popularity
is out of total political confusion, of which there was plenty this time
'round judging by the ugly television spectacle.
Boy oh boy, us Canadians have to get our act together before we become a
[expletive] American political system! Not to say that Americans are evil...
just generally creepy :P, sacrificing facts and reality for faith rather
than the opposite, the latter defining a sane individual. I mean, if you're
going to sacrifice reality, for the love of God or the deity of your choice,
do it for money, not faith! :)
Still, Canada would appear to be much like Sweden then, where "God" is
usually a sort of "curse word", a way to hang yourself in politics due to
its exclusionary tone. Being that this country prides itself on
multiculturalism and diversity, comments of any kind that undermine this
pride are the real Canadian swear words.
- gLeN
_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at
http://www.hotmail.com