My friend Barbro was recently shopping in her local grocery store on a Sunday morning. In the produce section, she saw Sweden’s Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt selecting oranges. His bodyguards were in the distance around him, but basically he was doing the family shopping on his own.
Barbro, an American who has lived in Sweden for more than 50 years, went up to one of the bodyguards and asked if he thought she could ask Fredrik to autograph her grandson’s birthday card. The guard said certainly, so Barbro walked right up to the prime minister who said yes and asked what he should write. Being who she is, Barbro couldn’t resist telling the prime minister that while she did not vote for him, she thought he was doing a good job.
I love this story for so many reasons, but mostly for what it says about Sweden: that the prime minister can grocery shop without being hounded by photographers, fans or enemies. He was just another person grocery shopping on a Sunday.
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My husband has a similar story about whoever was prime minister when he was a kid (my Swedish political history is quite poor). His family was apparently on vacation at the same lake as the PMs family and they all went swimming together.
That’s great antropologa. It is truly a cool thing about Sweden.
That’s such a cool story! Although I don’t know that our prime minister or our state premiers would do the grocery shopping like that, we do have a similar casualness here regarding our elected officials. I know it is often said that if you ran into the prime minister in the street, you’d call her “Julia” and not “Prime Minister” – I get the impression that no one would think of doing that in America!
Christian,
You’re absolutely right! In a lot of ways, Australia is similar to Sweden, according to my Aussie husband. As for going up to a prime minister on the street in the US – if we had one – he or she would probably be too surrounded by bodyguards to get near!
In a funny coincidence i also saw mr. reinfeldt out shopping. He was at a meat counter when I saw him and I didnt even notice him standing directly next to me (holding his nummerlapp!) until Erik gave me a elbow poke and pointed out the secret service guys hanging out by the cheese.
Great story Susan. Thanks for sharing it! Reinfeldt is obviously a busy shopper.
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