STF, the Swedish Tourist Federation, is a non profit organization that runs the Mountain station in Sylarna. As such, STF is not a hotel or they would hold a monopoly being the only service provider on public land. I broached this issue with one of the climbing instructors from Girls Get Higher, a SKF initiative to encourage women to climb in the alpine. Catering, to me at least, seems to be an obvious move toward a for profit organization, it's just a stone's throw from flying in suits from Stockholm for an exclusive dinner in a mountain setting. The instructors response was beyond anything I could have expected, "If you don't like it here maybe you should go live in a different country."
I had no idea, even after the Swedish Democrats took 6% of the popular vote in the last election, that I was living in a country where there are people who seek out the mountains that are racists. I couldn't help but ask if she'd voted for the bigots...
1/100s, f/2.8, ISO 1600, 35 mm © 2011 Shawn Boye
4 comments:
No worries, there are stupid people all over the planet.
YOU be happy and that´s it!
All the best
Unai.
What an unbelievably rude response from the instructor! (And you are not exactly the only one in this country that worries about the commercialisation of STF's mountain-huts!)
The context was quite clear, we disagreed about STFs role as a service organization in the mountains. Different points of view are completely acceptable, they should even be encouraged. On hearing the statement in question, I was shocked and two thoughts immediately occurred to me before I responded. Was the statement made in the context of the discussion? Would such a statement be made to an ethnic Swede? The answers were obviously yes and no. So, the question remains, when can such a statement be appropriately directed toward an immigrant?
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