I just feel like we don't talk enough about what is happening in so-called sweden. Or at the very least are not connecting the various horrible things happening at once. It's like I am witnessing a societal case of analysis paralysis.

1. A law aimed at punishing anyone getting in the way of police, fire departments, or ambulance personnel or their work was approved. It is combined with very very high punishments for this, and the judgment of what constitutes this crime is based on the testimonies of the cops. It included fire departments and ambulances in the law, but to be honest those things have very very seldomly been the target of any conflicts. This law is to allow cops to work without ever encountering resistance or talking back.

2. Preexisting conditions include negotiations with so-called turkey and Erdogan around the extradition of Kurdish people from so-called sweden. The individuals targeted in the list are Swedish citizens. They are in sweden on the grounds that they are not safe in turkey due to their connections to (direct or indirect) what Erdogan considers to be "enemies of the state, in reality, these movements are liberatory resistance fighters against an authoritarian dictatorship. These negotiations are "needed" because apparently, we are now joining NATO at any cost. The joining of NATO is not something that is even discussed here. It has been decided by the government.

3. LO (the biggest swedish union) is opening up to negotiations and cooperations with the Sweden Democrats (the fascist right-wing party that is now in a type of position in government where the coalition that has governmental power cannot do it without them and therefore must go along with most of their suggestions).

4. Announce Tidö-avtalet: a new deal emphasizing the importance to adhere to swedish societal AND cultural norms and expressions, to be allowed to remain in the country if you are an immigrant, opening up for expatriation (forcing migrant people staying in sweden to move "back home"), among a lot of other things. The basis for being judged to not follow swedish norms is for example association with a criminal organization (including networks or clans), lack of adherence to rules, prostitution, drug use, participation in organizations advocating for violence, extremist organizations or environments that threaten fundamental swedish values, or if there are other indisputable concrete signs of unswedish living. Oh, and they also removed the right to have an interpreter when in contact with health care officials. Oh, and it also includes a clause that would enforce health professionals to investigate and report the legal status of any patients.

5. Remove the Environmental ministry (Miljödepartementet).

6. Demand a list of members of Naturskyddsföreningen (an NGO that is focused on grassroots organizing around environmental topics.

7. The strategic plans for how to work with topics of racism and ensuring rights for HGBTQI+ people were removed from the government pages. This was without explanation and as far as I know, this has not been explained.

8. An FN delegation reported that ethnic discrimination is the most common ground for mistreatment by police in sweden. And that things are getting worse.

9. A push for stopping governmental support for NGOs and the many many cultural clubs that exist in sweden from the SD part (sweden democrats). The logic of their reasoning is that all of them are just left-liberal and that it is a question of societal hygiene to break apart those types of organizations.

All that said: we are very rapidly moving in a very dangerous direction. This is almost step-by-step how other authoritarian and very repressive regimes have gained their power.

One big difference here to other places where this process has been played out is that in sweden we are extremely trusting towards the state, we have a very very individualized society, and we have a very vague understanding of what solidarity actually means. I do not believe that we will see any significant resistance to the state when these various suggested law changes come into effect (which I do believe they will). The majority of the swedish populace is actually identifying as middle-class and is expecting their own personal lives to probably be benefitted from these changes. I find myself living in a country primed for a descent into genocidal fascism.

But, this is nothing new. Sweden has always been fascist at heart - but a kinder "more humanist" flavor of fascism than let's say Mussolini's fascism. We have literally been steeped in these building blocks of fascism since forever, so we have been very bad at noticing the rising temperature of our proverbial bathwater.

#swepol #sweden #fascism #tidöavtalet #overview