Whether you live in a Western society or not, you probably couldn’t have escaped the term information society, or even better, the knowledge society. Of course not, those are buzzwords. If you want your country too look good both nationally or internationally politicians and businessmen will be talking about their populations living in an information and/or even knowledge society today. With what they just want to say how advanced they are. Being one of the model countries in many ways, I’m sure Swedish politicians and businessmen are doing the same around the world. Maybe they should, but their society is very much still a paper-based I-don’t-know-how-to-help-you knowledge and information society.

Buzzwords aside. Whatever they want to call it, I say it’s first and foremost an overly paper-counter-clerk trio bureaucratic society. From educational institutions to Internet providing services and libraries, public transportation and banks (not to mention the state itself), you cannot do anything, absolutely anything useful without your arm being twisted. It is a country where the Swedish personal number and not the king, as many like to believe, rules.

A personal number? Yes, it’s a several digit number by which you are recognized wherever you go; it is your personal trace and I think pretty much every adult knows what I am talking about. So what, you get that once and from then on your life is a breeze. Yeah right, as if it was easy to get the Swedish one. The taxation office that is in charge of giving out these personal numbers, has a selective eye, as it turns out.

But it took a week of meandering from door to door before I have even reached the local taxation office. Everyone on the way (some of them I’ve mentioned above) knew only that they need a personal number from me, none where does one fetch one. Until I stumbled upon the wise one.

After a week of trying to sort out things that need to be sorted out when moving to a new country, I came across an official (I don’t remember where exactly it happened as I’ve seen a few too many) who actually even knew where I can get this elusive number. To keep a long story short the visit to the tax office looked like this: I provide them all the information about myself they need before assigning the number, return to the counter where stiff official looks at me carefully, walks away, comes back, and finally utters that they will give me the number once I find a job. But I’m here to study and need the number for who knows how many things? Find a job first! There you go. Maybe I should just make one up.

That’s only the regular life part of the Swedish information/knowledge society. The other one is school related. And I don’t know anymore which one is more, both hilarious and obnoxious at the same time. At Valand School of Fine Arts where I have been accepted to study, I have been repeatedly met with blank stares and who-are-you questions. In spite of the fact that Valand is a small school with only about 60 students, the most frequent reply to my “But, your school has accepted me into one of the programs”, is “I haven’t heard anything about you before.” And that’s after talking to the administrative personnel of the school where I have been accepted and after I have presented a letter of acceptance they have issued just a few weeks ago. Not enough?

No, the administrator also wants to see the proof that I am a student at the university from which I am coming. Luckily I have that too, I think to myself. She leaves the room to take copies of both documents. Upon her return I feel triumphal as things are finally moving somewhere, yet my joy is met with “I can’t register you.” Why? What else do you need? My Swedish personal number? You name it, I’ll produce it. All I get in reply is: “There’s nothing you can do. I don’t know you and I didn’t expect you.” As if I wouldn’t have already noticed myself that I cannot do anything. I briskly leave the office after I am handed a university reference number on a heart-shaped red Post-it note. Am I in a Buñuel movie?

Have I mentioned bureaucratic obstacles somewhere already, or is this just an elaborate practical joke?

Before I register with the Göteborg University I cannot use any of the supposedly many university services, from student health care and other benefits students in Sweden are entitled to, all the way to their libraries, Internet connections and information systems. While without the Swedish personal number, the Swedish taxation office refuses to give me, I can’t do anything else. My hands are tied.

It feels weird. Sure Göteborg University has excellent premises, a variety of courses, at 5,500 they sure employ a lot of people, all of which is nice, but it is definitely a pain in the ass to even get a schedule for your courses. I should start counting how often I’ve been told to visit Mrs. Nextdoor, tomorrow, of course.

Coming from a much more efficient system put up by the Finnish society, I’m slowly beginning to loose my patience here. Have you seen the super-cheesy movie The Terminal? Well, I feel exactly like Mr. Viktor Navorski felt like when his light-green form has been rejected for the n-th time. In my case it hopefully won’t take nine months to sort things out before I can begin a living a bureaucracy free life in Sweden. Or am I asking for utopia?

Mladen

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007 at 2:16 pm and is filed under Culture, Education, Politics, Sweden. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.