The specter of Swedophobia

The far-right Sweden Democrats party is continuing its work on promoting its particular brand of hatred and xenophobic racism in Parliament. I was tipped off today by my friend Marleen to a motion submitted in the Riksdag by two SD members about "counteracting Swedophobia".

The motion itself is extraordinarily laughable, reading more like a very poorly researched report by a junior high-school student than a painstakingly assembled parliamentary resolution. Nevertheless it contains an incredible amount of anti-immigrant racism (trotting out the well-worn crime and sexuality tropes) and plays fast and loose with the few statistics it does cite (albeit indirectly), using those to propose undermining some very democratic laws designed to protect those who are actually the most vulnerable in Swedish society.

Originally I had thought to provide a point-by-point refutation of the document, but frankly it's not worth my time tracking down newspaper articles that are more than a decade old just to try to establish the contexts they were taken out of. On the other hand, there is one point well worth hashing out in some detail because the statistics are readily at hand; it is thus easy to illuminate the deceit the Sweden Democrats are using to justify trashing the law against incitement to racial hatred.

They cite at length a report by Brottsförebyggande rådet (the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention) about youth-on-youth robbery in the cities of Stockholm and Malmö. They claim that native Swedes are overrepresented as victims and immigrants are overrepresented as criminals, completely ignoring the fact that the schools covered in the study were separated into three groups based on socioeconomic conditions. Not surprisingly, the students in the lowest socioeconomic group generally had the highest percentages of students who committed robbery regardless of parentage (though it should be noted that the percentage figures for students born abroad who committed robbery actually went down from Group 1 to Group 3 in several categories). Overall, this would seem to indicate socioeconomic conditions as a greater determining factor in who commits a robbery than ethnic origin or immigration status.

Nonetheless, this has not stopped these closeted neo-Nazis from crying "Swedophobia" and claiming it is unfair that Swedes are not offered the same protection under the law against incitement to racial hatred as the minorities the law was specifically designed to protect. They would like to see the law revised and to force anti-racist organizations and schools to devote equal effort to combating this long-ignored phenomenon that threatens Swedes everywhere. As noted previously, they cite incidences of sexual harassment and bullying at school (which, it is implied, honest native Swedes would *never* stoop to commit) that occurred years ago as examples of problems for which they found "reason to assume" Swedophobia lay at the base.

What they conveniently ignore, however, is that Sweden already has a law on the books covering exactly this kind of thing: the Discrimination Act, passed in 2008. In addition, Swedish public education has a structure in place for dealing with bullying in which the targeted student can actually open a case against the principal of the school and demand damages; it was inaugurated in 2006, presumably, to deal precisely with events like the ones cited in this motion. These laws and structures cover everyone equally, which means that native Swedes are not in fact discriminated against when it comes to protection against what are in fact very serious problems.

Immigrants, on the other hand, are vulnerable in a way native Swedes have never been and will never be. Uprooted from their home countries for any number of reasons, coming to a country with very little to their names and generally unable to find anything but the crappiest jobs even if they have excellent educational qualifications, they live not only under the cloud of possible deportation but also the very real threat of racist violence that far exceeds anything the Sweden Democrats were able to come up with for their eighth-grade project they call a resolution.

Immigrants don't have thugs organized as political parties ready to trash everything they can reach when they rally and march. They are therefore in need of any and all protection the government can be compelled to provide them in order to bring their status up to even close to equal that of native Swedes. That is not special protection; that is justice. The Sweden Democrats, under what can only be described as the banner of "all lives matter", are looking to strip that justice away. Don't let the poor logic and execrable research fool you; these people are serious and must be fought every step of the way.

Below is a translation of the motion in question. It's a very good indicator of exactly what this party is up to.

(WARNING: Some strong sexist language, and talk of sexual assault.)

Proposal for parliamentary resolution

1.       The Riksdag proclaims as its intention to the Government the statements in the motion on setting up an investigation charged with surveying the prevalence and character of Swedophobia, as well as proposing measures for the purpose of counteracting Swedophobia.

2.       The Riksdag proclaims as its intention to the Government the statements in the motion on reviewing and amending the wording of Acts that permit negative discrimination of native-born Swedes.

3.       The Riksdag proclaims as its intention to the Government the statements in the motion on State support for anti-racist organizations only being provided to such organizations as also engage in counteracting Swedophobia.

4.       The Riksdag proclaims as its intention to the Government the statements in the motion on providing directives to the country’s schools that shedding light on and counteracting Swedophobia must be included as a natural part of the schools’ work on basic values.

Justification

Over the past few decades, the State has devoted a great deal of resources to counteracting, researching, and spreading consciousness concerning the negative attitudes, the discrimination, and the violence that native-born Swedes subject immigrants to. Much of this work has been good and necessary.

Unfortunately, however, almost no attention has been directed against the discrimination, the negative attitudes, and the violence that native-born Swedes are subjected to owing to their origins, despite the fact that to all appearances, Swedophobia is a serious and commonly occurring problem.

Swedophobia can be expressed in many different ways. One example is Swedes being victims of discriminatory legislation, which is illustrated by such things as the current application of the law on incitement to racial hatred.

In view of a report against a letter to the editor in the newspaper Mitt i Södermalm containing grossly disparaging assertions on “typical Swedes”, the Office of the Chancellor of Justice wrote the following in an opinion from 05 November 2003:

"The purpose establishing penal regulations on incitement to racial hatred was to ensure legal protection for minority groups of various compositions and adherents of different belief systems. A case in which someone expresses criticism towards Swedes was probably not intended to be touched by the penal legislation. Owing to what has already been said, the contents of the letter cannot be considered as constituting an incitement to racial hatred."

Native-born Swedes are thus not covered by the protection that the law on incitement to racial hatred is intended to provide. Unfortunately, there are several examples of legislation that permit negative discrimination of native-born Swedes.

Swedophobia can also be expressed in the form of harassment, violations, and derogatory attitudes linked to Swedes’ origins or appearance.

In an article on 06 May 2006 in the newspaper Uppsala Nya Tidning, a girl talked about how, after a long period of Swedophobic harassment, she no longer dared go to school:

"They hit me, spit in my face, and called me a Swedish whore. They threaten me on the internet and say that they’re going to destroy my life. They scream at me and taunt me during lessons and recess. The teachers ignore it completely even though it happens out in the open during lessons and in the corridors."

A long series of media features from around the country speak of similar incidents. An article from Helsingborgs Dagblad on 11 May 2006 reads as follows:

“Several boys kicked me while I was down. All I thought of was protecting my head.”

This brutal assault occurred last winter and was the culmination of a couple of years of harassment, threats, and violence that Jesper and some ten of his friends had allegedly been subjected to by a gang of boys with immigrant backgrounds.

“Every day they try to pick fights by shouting things like ‘fucking Swedes’. It feels like it will never end,” Erik says. They’re convinced of why they in particular are coming to grief.

 “It’s because we’re Swedish. Reverse racism is what it is, but even that it happens is something that is rarely noticed,” Anders says.

On several occasions, offensive opinions about Swedes have appeared in the established mass media that would hardly have been let through if it were about any other ethnic group. In the newspaper Expressen on 26 June 2002, for example, writer Linda Skugge wrote the following:

"I hate everything genuinely typically Swedish. Most Swedes are ugly. Fine blonde hair that’s too thin to put up in a tuft, pasty bluish skin with red patches that turn crimson in the sun–butt-ugly, plain and simple."

Ethnologist Maria Bäckman has, in several studies, reported on the vulnerability of Swedish girls in suburbs with a heavy immigrant presence. In one interview with the Norwegian scientific periodical Forskning, 31 May 2005, she speaks of things such as how blonde Swedish women color their hair to look less Swedish and thus avoid sexual harassment. Bäckman explains the background as follows:

Being a blonde girl means being ascribed an identity that is full of derogatory prejudices about gender hierarchies and female sexuality. This entails a painful visibility: cars honking, men staring and boys calling you a whore.

A third form of Swedophobia, also the most serious, is the violence and crime Swedes are subjected to owing to their origins. In several studies, the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (1996:2, 2000:6, 2005:17) has shown that immigrants are overrepresented as criminals in most categories of crime, and that native-born Swedes are overrepresented as victims. There is also reason to assume that in at least one part of these cases there is an underlying Swedophobic motive.

In Report 2000:6 (Youth who rob youth in Malmö and Stockholm), approximately 90% of the robbers in Malmö had foreign backgrounds, and a nearly equally large proportion of victims were native-born Swedes. When, several years later, sociology student Petra Åkesson conducted a study where she interviewed young robbers in Malmö regarding the motives behind their crimes, she received the following answer, according to Dagens Nyheter, 25 March 2006:

"When we’re out on the town we make war, we make war on the Swedes."

On the question of what the concept of power meant for one of the robbers, she received the response:

"For me, it’s Swedes lying down on the ground and kissing my feet."

Sex crimes are the category of crime where the over-representation of immigrants is greatest, and even here there is reason to assume that basic Swedophobic motives may be part of the explanation.

On account of a gang rape in the Stockholm suburb of Rissne that garnered a great deal of attention, Dagens Nyheter conducted a reportage series where young people were interviewed about the incident. In an interview on 11 February 2000, an immigrant boy asserted:

"It’s not as wrong to rape a Swedish girl as it is an Arabic one. (…) I don’t have much respect for Swedish girls. You could say they’ve been fucked out."

This image was confirmed in an interview with a group of Swedish girls on 18 February 2000:

" ‘Fucking Swedes, they say,’ Jessica tells us ... And it’s the Swedish girls who suffer the most. Because in addition, they’re whores. Swedish whores.(…)

Does reverse racism come into play when Swedish girls are violated by immigrants?

‘Yes, I think so,’ Jessica says.

‘Immigrant boys don’t have great respect for Swedish girls, especially not those who are dressed provocatively,’ Malin says."

In view of what has been stated above, we believe it to be high time that the Government take measures to survey and suppress Swedophobia. As a first measure, we propose that an investigation be set up with the task of surveying the prevalence and character of Swedophobia, as well as proposing measures for the purpose of counteracting Swedophobia. In parallel with this, the wording of existing Acts that permit negative discrimination of native-born Swedes should be reviewed and amended. Furthermore, we propose that State support for anti-racist organizations only being provided to such organizations as also engage in counteracting Swedophobia, and that directives be drawn up for the country’s schools that shedding light on and counteracting Swedophobia must be included as a natural part of the schools’ work on basic values.

.

Paula Bieler (SD)

David Lång (SD)