CULTURE AND SOCIETY

 

CULTURE, SOCIETY AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Five articles from Newsmill (2010) republished by Newsvoice (2018).

 

A POLITICAL PASSION FOR PEOPLE

In Memory of a Dear Colleague: Henning Mankell, 1948-2015

I bear in mind his remarkable conversion of critical insight into a flow of immense creativity

"Jag hör ett starkt minne av rättvisans röst eka ut i evigheten."

(I hear his strong voice of justice echoing in eternity...)

I was first introduced to Henning Mankell, who became my colleague in 1986, by the chief of cultural affairs in Kronoberg County, Anders Ekberg, in Växjö. Henning had already been working for several years as director of the Kronoberg Theater while I had just assumed the post as the first director of music of Kronoberg County Music Foundation (Stiftelsen Musik i Kronoberg), in Växjö. He was already an experienced author, although the intensity of his engagement with the Kronoberg theater ensemble absorbed his attention to the point of reducing his literary productivity during these years (he held his post in Växjö during 1984-1990 but the stream of books was apparently interrupted during these years). Afterwards, a surge of productivity seems to have been released as the immediate stress of responsibility was reduced and he could focus wholeheartedly on his authorship alone. We had discussions and he was obviously deeply interested in music, not only because of his namesake grandfather, the composer Henning Mankell (1868-1930). The popular success of my 1984 book on music led to my election as a member of the Swedish Authors' Association, so this background formed a solid frame of experience for our exchange of ideas.

I was deeply impressed by the drive and intensity of his immutable engagement for people and concern for the human being as the sole arbiter of value in society. As our chief, Anders Ekberg, took us and a selected circle of board members from the County on a tour to inspect newly established concert houses, we traveled together and spent a few days - into late night - in close social conviviality: for example we visited Luleå in northern Sweden, where a new concert and cogress house had been erected. Växjö was planning a new cultural center and concert house, and Henning and me came along as advisors to the politicians and decision makers.

I understood that the inner driver of Henning's immense creativity and working habits had a darker inside where he harbored the grounds for his grief and stress, all emerging from the internalized conflict he felt against the surrounding values that contrasted deeply with his firm ideals. This passion for people is the most distinct trait in his personality, and also what made him capable of such a lucid reading of situations, and incisive understanding of human conflict. This, of course, was also the result of his many years of hard work as a born man of theater: the spotlight on the human dilemmas, the naked but reflected reality that made us fascinated by his figures - it was all an outcome of a hard working, truly immutable artist who had made man the focus of his study of life.

I met him several times after we both had left Växjö: and we both had reminiscences of the solidness but also narrowmindedness of this mid-sized city of the forest landscape of Småland, southern Sweden. We had both learned and assimilated some important experience from working with the resistance in people who struggled to liberate themselves from the shackles of relative isolation from mainstream trend - and even more radical forms of modernism. He learned greatly from his failures and he brilliantly used the ensuing higher level of conflict as it was gradually converted to creative flow, tamed only by the limits of the hours of the day which were never sufficient for his productive zeal.

The last time I met Henning was at Copenhagen Hovedbangaard, the Central Railway Station, some years ago. As we were both growing older, his vigorous interest in knowing about my recent experiences corresponded almost too well to my "mirroring" of youthful interrail traveling, as he had just returned from one of his visits to Africa.

These were different worlds in more respects than one, but he was always bridging the experiential gap, and reflected on the key point of humanity: the humane experience of social value and equal respect for all people regardless of their social standing.

I always felt this was an insight in him that was less politically orthodox than marked by an immediate interpersonal understanding and a deeply felt emotional sense and concern for all fellow human beings he came across.

 

Nils-Göran Areskoug 2015-10-06