WIN Youtube October 2022
(3) FIGHTING THE RIGHT TURN IN SWEDEN – A WIN Youtube discussion. October 2022 – YouTube
Along with the disturbing successes of far-right parties across the world, most recently in Italy, perhaps the most shocking was the victory at Sweden’s recent general election of a coalition including the openly racist party the Sweden Democrats, which scored 20.5% of the votes, second only to the Social Democrats (SAP). The Social Democrats had governed Sweden continuously from 1932 to 1976, and in coalition for several years since, at times winning more than 50% of the votes. This time the party won just 30.3% of the votes – its worst result ever, apart from the 28.3% it scored in 2018, which was its lowest level of support since 1911.
Bernie Sanders and other left reformist politicians continually cite Sweden as a model for the kind of “democratic socialism” that they stand for. The truth is that Sweden’s famous past welfare rights were a product not of benevolent reformism but of bitter class struggle, and that what little is left of them today are under constant attack.
We invited comrade Jan Hägglund to introduce the discussion. Jan is the leader of the Workers’ Party Group (Arbetarpartiet) and publisher of the New Workers’ Journal (Nya Arbetartidningen). He has been a member of the municipal council in the northern city of Umeå continuously since 1991, having just been re-elected along with other members of the Workers’ Party Group for the ninth time in a row. In the face of bitter attack from the capitalist parties, these comrades have waged a sustained and courageous struggle against the openly fascist party Alternative for Sweden (Alternativ för Sverige, a breakaway from the far-right Sweden Democrats). These comrades are using their position in Umeå to campaign for the launch of a national weekly internet paper combined with a web TV station, to create a platform for the next general election in 2026.
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After the meeting, comrades Jan and Davis and Madi added supplementary comments.
This is what Jan had to say – the majority of the traditional bourgeois parties, together with the Swedish Democrats, won the parliamentary election in 2022. The peculiarity was that the most anti-union bourgeois party, the Centre Party – the former farmers’ party – was part of the bloc led by the Social Democrats. Therefore the most important reason behind the defeat of the Social Democratic-led bloc (except reformists being reformists) was the rise of the Swedish Democrats. And he most important explanation behind the rise of that party is: a) The question of immigration, and b) the refusal of “the left” (the Social Democracy, the Left Party, the Greens) to recognise the problems with religion (because Muslims take religion seriously, unlike protestants). That includes the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood and other islamists are actively working against integration and are oppressing other Muslims. Without the subjective factor of the islamists there would not be parallel structures in Swedish society.
One huge problem is that the Social Democracy made a deal with the Muslim Brotherhood in 1998 – they exchanged votes for positions. CWI tried entryism. The Muslim Brotherhood are much better. They got a minister (for housing) in the Social Democratic + Green government after the election in 2014. He was forced to resign two years later. Not for his association with the Muslim Brotherhood, but for his connections to the fascist Grey Wolves in Turkey (a country whose president is connected with the Muslim Brotherhood).
Most of the parliamentary parties have been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood, to a bigger or lesser degree. They were most successful in the Greens (the minister mentioned earlier was a member of the Green Party). This has created a contempt both for the Greens, and for the Social Democracy. These two parties have turned a blind eye to this infiltration within their own ranks for a long time. And in some cases, the infiltration is still present. Votes in exchange for positions.
The following parallel is, of course, only partial: But the issues surrounding immigration, including the shootings that are deadlier in Sweden than any other European country, have served the Swedish Democrats in a way like the Versailles Treaty did serve the Nazis in Germany during the 1920s in their campaign against “the traitors” who signed the Versailles Treaty. This is how powerful these questions are in Sweden.
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This is what Davis had to say – We were also asked if we could elaborate a bit on our anti-racist and anti-Nazi work in Umeå. The Workers Party Group has an over 35-year-long history of fighting against racism and Nazism in Umeå. Our work has played a significant role in keeping the fascist and Nazi presence in Umeå at a minimum throughout the years. Our method, through the years, has been to quickly expose the Nazi threat and to mobilize as many people as possible to protest against them. Let us give a few examples.
Our first major anti-racist work was in the form of a solidarity campaign against the apartheid regime in South Africa back in the 1980s, that later became an inspiration for the entire Swedish section of the CWI. Among other things, we organized 12-15 rock concerts to collect money that was smuggled into South Africa to the anti-apartheid activists.
Throughout the 1990s, we organized many activities against the skinheads / white power-movement. Back then, a big part of the income for the various Nazi organizations came from the sales of music records. The most popular among the Nazi bands was called “Ultima Thule”. In 1993, we managed to convince every record store in Umeå to stop selling their records.
We also called for a boycott of a play by the famous Swedish playwright Lars Norén, which contained Nazi propaganda. The actors themselves were active Nazis, who secretly used their involvement in the play to plan a bank robbery. The bank robbery ended in a car chase and the murder of two police officers. (Police killings are a very rare occurrence in Sweden – only 32 on-duty officers have been killed since the year 1900.)
This anti-fascist work came at a price. We received the first death threat against us in 1987. Jan Hägglund was informed by the police that his name had been found on three separate “death lists” found with Nazis. One of the lists was found in the computer of one of the Nazis who were responsible for murdering trade union activist Björn Söderberg in 1999.
In 2013, Umeå was invaded by the violent Nazi group “the Swedish Resistance Movement” (SMR). Their most violent band of thugs was marching through the center of Umeå, carrying flags and shields – looking for a fight. We contacted just about every left-wing organization in Umeå, and in a matter of minutes a counter-demonstration of almost 500 people gathered to protest the Nazis. The Nazis started throwing glass bottles and making charges into the crowd using their flagpoles. Several people were injured. But the Nazis were eventually rounded up by the police, had their equipment confiscated, and were escorted out of town.
We immediately started mobilizing for an anti-Nazi demonstration. Two days later, almost 3 000 people gathered in the main square of Umeå in one of the biggest anti-Nazi demonstrations in the city’s history. We truly united all of Umeå against the Nazis. We later found out that our demonstration in Umeå had been the inspiration for the organizers of a large anti-Nazi demonstration in Stockholm later that year. They told us that they would never have believed it would be possible to organize such a demonstration if it wasn’t for the example from Umeå.
Starting in 2015, we “took over” the yearly manifestations to commemorate the Kristallnacht events in 1938. By inviting all the parties represented in the Umeå municipality (except the Swedish Democrats), and the local Jewish organization, we created a yearly tradition of uniting Umeå against Nazism and antisemitism. Through this work we met a young school student who had joined the Nazi group “the Swedish Resistance Movement” (now renamed the Nordic Resistance Movement), who eventually left that organization behind. We have since then worked together to expose how the Nazis are trying to recruit youth through the internet. This year, he was eligible to vote for the first time. And he happily informed us that he cast his vote on the Workers Party Group in the Umeå municipal elections.
Today, we have our eyes set on pushing back the attempts by the “Alternative for Sweden” to establish a presence in Umeå. This group was formed in 2015, when the entire youth organization of the Swedish Democrats was expelled due to having too many Nazi sympathizers in it. One of the most important issues on the agenda of “Alternative for Sweden” is a massive deportation program, which even includes recalling Swedish citizenships for certain immigrant groups. “Alternative for Sweden” also heavily tried to exploit the “swamplands” of conspiracy theories regarding the COVID pandemic and the vaccines (as did several other far-right groups, including the violent Nazis in the Nordic Resistance Movement). To push back Alternative for Sweden is the main goal of our anti-fascist work in schools and in the university this autumn.
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Immigration – responding to Janne Hägglund
By Madi Gray, October 3, 2022.
At WIN’s weekly zoom meeting on 2nd October, the main speaker, Janne Hägglund offered a
controversial explanation for the swing to the right in Sweden. He ascribed it to responses to
mass immigration, amongst them reactions to criminal gangs belonging to the Muslim
Brotherhood. This ignores the tightening grip of capitalism busily destroying common goods.
Janne also declared that the Sweden Democrats, the political party gaining the most in
the elections of 11th September in comparison to previous years, was no longer a Nazi party.
In preparing this response, I’ve consulted a number of experts, including a demographer and a medical doctor who both assist Afghani refugees. I’ve also looked more closely at the tables that Hägglund presented.
Hägglund’s figures focus on 2015, seven years ago. That was a year with a record number of asylum seekers from Syria and Afghanistan. In November 2015 the social democratic government clamped down on the flow, and Sweden soon joined the EU member countries that accepted fewest asylum seekers.
In addition, the Swedish Migration Agency has consistently deported Afghani refugees,
using a variety of reasons, some of them underhand, like choosing suspect medical methods
to raise the ages of minors seeking asylum. Since the US withdrawal, Afghani refugees are
still being given deportation orders; however these are seldom carried out at present.
Official statistics.
According to Statistics Sweden, the government agency in charge of official stats, over
90 600 people immigrated to Sweden during 2021, compared to over 82 500 the year
before. The annual increase is under 10 per cent during the Covid years which restricted
international travel. In both years the single largest group was Swedish born returnees,
about 10 500 in 2021 and over 11 600 in 2020. Returning Swedes has been the largest group
for most of the 2000s. In both years, 2–3000 more men than women came; a consistent
trend over decades.
I’ve added up the figures for immigrants in 2021 according to continent of origin, in
descending order of numbers. E.g. Afghanistan is last on one list, contributing 2 022
immigrants compared to the first country, India, that contributed 6 017 new immigrants.
Please note that a third of all immigrants come from nominally Christian countries, more
than any other group of countries.
Germany, Poland, Finland, Denmark, Rumania, Norway, France: 14 100;
United States, Brazil: 3 133;
Eritrea: 1 165;
Syria, Turkey, Arab Emirates: 7024;
India, Pakistan, Iran, Irak, China, Afghanistan: 17 869;
Other countries: 36 861.
Another way of looking at the statistics is by the numbers coming to each region. In the
county of Västerbotten, where Umeå lies, 2 049 immigrants came, adding to a population of
270 469. We can compare this to the Stockholm region with 2 361 864 people that received
30 702 immigrants in 2021. Or the region where Gothenburg lies, with a population of
1 718 832 that absorbed 15 451 immigrants.
About 20 per cent of Sweden’s population today were born abroad. There was almost
a doubling of foreign born people in Sweden in the past 20 years, from just over 1 million in
2002 (11,3 per cent) to over 2 million in 2021 (20 per cent). This is very rapid growth.
Until 2017, the largest number of foreign born residents, about 151 000 came from
neighbouring Finland, a number declining since 2000 (about 192 000). In 2017 Syrians
became the largest group born outside Sweden with close to 172 300 people. Irak with
146 000 overtook Finland (144 500) in 2019. In 2021 about 94 000 came from Poland, and
close to 83 000 from Iran. The largest number of the foreign-born population live in the cities
of Stockholm, Malmö and Gothenburg (between 27 and 22 per cent), whereas the average
in the rest of the country is 16 per cent.
A brief glance at this information shows that foreign-born residents of Sweden come
from both Christian and Islamic countries and also from countries where other religions
dominate. What is also occurring is that substantial numbers of immigrants and asylum
seekers come from countries with significant cultural differences, which may lead to
adaptation difficulties for both the foreign-born and the Swedish-born population groups.
Asylum seekers
Asylum seekers are not included in official immigration or population statistics in Sweden.
In 2021 there were fewer than 11 500 asylum seekers, attributable to the far more
stringent application of regulations, some of which are new. This can be compared to the
early 2000s, when the average number was around 30 000 annually. Asylum seekers reached
a peak of 160 000 in 2015, largely because of the war in Syria.
About 40 000 refugees from Afghanistan sought asylum in Sweden in the same year.
Last year, although the largest single group, numbers of Afghani asylum seekers were fewer
than 1 500. Asylum seekers from Syria were fewer than 1 300. From Somalia, Eritrea and
Ethiopia came under 1 200 asylum seekers, although these are all war zones.
523 asylum seekers came from the Ukraine. In 2022 this figure is expected to rise
considerably, as refugees from the Ukraine are being welcomed with open arms in Sweden.
Control of the drug trade
A friend living in Gothenburg says criminal gangs are operating in certain suburbs where
immigrants predominate. Fighting between gangs does occur and at least one of these gangs
consists of a large Muslim family, a clan. Similarities exist in parts of Stockholm. A person working for a major Christian charity does not believe in the existence of organised Muslim Brotherhood gangs. He says families or clans may fight each other, and that social factors, like integration, housing, level of education, etc. play a role. The spoils? The people I’ve consulted all agree: control of the drug trade. The media do not report on gangs belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, or similar criminal organisations. Gang members are often second generation immigrants. Swedish security police (SÄPO) maintain that radical right wing extremists and radical followers of Islam are the most dangerous groups today. 20-30 years ago they said the most dangerous elements were radical vegans who released minks from caged captivity. About 1 per cent of Swedish born people are suspected of being criminals and about 2
per cent of foreign born people. Jerzy Sarnecki, himself an immigrant, hypothesises that what is happening is that new arrivals often end up at the base of society, pushing the locally born upwards on the social scale. He points out that new arrivals, who do not know Swedish and may be poorly educated, will get the worst jobs, if they get any work at all. In a comparative study over 20 years of 20 municipalities with high immigration and 20municipalities with low immigration, statistics show no increase in crimes. This result is unexpected and could be explained by the changing class structure described above.
In sum, one-fifth of the population in Sweden today is foreign-born, including me. About 40 per cent of those working in the health care sector have an immigrant background. Some have simpler tasks. Others are doctors and medical specialists.
Sweden continues to import tens of thousands of workers a year, mainly to fill menial
posts. During summer and autumn, many are seasonal workers helping with the harvest.
As so many Afghanis are threatened with deportation, many flee. It’s estimated that
5 000 Swedish speaking Afghanis have fled to France; most have permission to stay.
For some, there are potentially happy endings. Recently I’ve read about young men
who learnt Swedish, sought education and a job within 6 months of completion of the
course, who were given a residence permit 7 years after their arrival. This follows a relatively
new law that was doubtless formulated as a response to pressure from the public.
Protests against the shabby treatment of refugees in Sweden continue. For the past
year or longer there have been hundreds of demonstrations all over the country where
people attend with black umbrellas to support asylum seekers mainly from Afghanistan.
There are other demonstrations, like this reaction in Umeå this coming Saturday to a suicide
bomber who attacked a school in Kabul, killing 30 or more youngsters, mainly girls.
The four right-wing political parties (Sweden Democrats, Moderates, Christian Democrats
and Liberals) arguing about forming a cabinet in the government have a slim majority of 3
seats (176) in parliament compared to the four parties (Social Democrats, Greens, Left Party,
Centre) in the red-green opposition bloc (173). Hägglund points out that the Social Democrats have moved rightwards. It’s a process beginning with Tony Blair in the UK and Göran Persson in Sweden, continuing up to the previous Prime Minister, Stefan Löfvén.
Privatisation of schools, preschools, health care and other formerly publicly owned
assets have been sold to private companies, several of which are based abroad. In the
municipalities of Stockholm and Gothenburg, voters are so incensed that they voted for
change after years of right wing rule. The Left Party and the Social Democrats gained the
majority, winning nearly 60 per cent of the vote in Stockholm.
Core social democratic values are nowadays mainly espoused by the Left Party.
It does not follow that because there’s a break away to the right of the Sweden
Democrats, they are no longer neo-Nazis. One opinion put forward by a reader of the largest
daily newspaper in Sweden, Dagens Nyheter, is that some who voted for the Sweden
Democrats did so as they were offended by all the criticism from the red-green bloc.
The next General Election in Sweden will be held on the second Sunday of September 2026. In the interim, the cabinet and governing parties may fluctuate. Watch this space!