About ”The Minister is Dead”
On the 11th of September, 2003, the Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh passes away after having been stabbed at a department store in Stockholm the previous day. The perpetrator is a mentally unstable man under the supposed supervision of the Swedish mental care.
On the 11th of September, 2003, the five year old girl Sabina is stabbed to death at a kindergarten in Arvika. The perpetrator is a mentally unstable man under the supposed supervision of the Swedish mental care.
While the former stabbing deserves a tremendous response in Swedish and international media, the latter is virtually unnoticed. And everyone talks about the murder of the minister, about the attack on the Swedish society and political system. Everyone speculates whether this is a deed by terrorists, perhaps Al-Qaida, as World Trade Center was demolished in New York exactly one year ago. Everyone talks to everyone, speculates about anything, except for the murder of little Sabina.
And everyone is horrified and brutalized. But at the same time, it’s one of the rare occasions where a whole population strives in the same direction, where everyone is included in the same fellowship, where petty differences are temporarily put aside. And it’s a very ambivalent buzz. A sharing feeling, so overwhelmingly positive that we become ashamed that we enjoy the situation so much.
We buy every newspaper we can get our hands on. We watch the news on TV, over and over again even though nothing new is said. Reporters, experts, foreign correspondents accounting for the abroad response, we wolf down every single word. We all become experts, we all know the newest detail, so that we can call relatives, so that we can talk to neighbours we normally never speak to. Here is an opportunity to make new contacts, or to re-establish old friendships, to rejoice!
Except for those close to the victims, to the minister, to the little girl, to those unseen whose lives ended on the 11th of September, 2003.
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On the afternoon on the 11th of September 2003, Martin Löfgren takes a piece of paper with some lyrics scribbled down to the studio and make the first demo of “The minister is Dead”. On the 11th of September 2007, the song is released as a single by Marina Siertis.
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