The interview with the Malmö policeman posted here yesterday was drawn from a Swedish news source called Folkets Nyheter. It is described as a “Swedish nationalist” newspaper, and at least one commenter seemed to view it with some distaste.One of the main tactics the Legacy Media use to maintain their “authority” is to discredit any information that appears in venues that are considered disreputable. For many years the Washington Times was included in such venues. It featured important news that no other paper was willing to print, but since it appeared in the Times, it could be safely ignored.
As the mainstream media become steadily more univocal, any information which doesn’t fit the template they impose must necessarily appear in other sources. Such sources are not always the most reputable publications, and may give an enlightened intellectual pause.
But the important questions that should be asked are independent of the source: Is the news credible? Can it be checked? And is it, therefore, true?
So now we return to the Malmö policeman. Fjordman considered the issue important enough to drop me a note yesterday:
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Regarding the online paper Folkets Nyheter that you linked to: I wasn’t familiar with this newspaper before. The situation they describe is no doubt correct, but some of the ads they run are for organizations that I would deem to have extremist views. And I do mean extremist in the real sense, including direct references to neo-Nazi groups, not in the BBC sense.
I think what you see there is a glimpse of what Sweden’s future may become, with the rise of neo-Fascists. Sweden has a history of totalitarianism, was pro-Nazi before WW2, pro-Communist during the Cold War and pro-Islamic now. One of my best Swedish friends believes they will do a complete coin flip, from PC to Fascism, within a generation. I wouldn’t be surprised if he is right.
Swedes keep bashing Denmark for “xenophobia.” But the truth is that Denmark is a lot healthier as a country. It is still possible for “normal” people to oppose mass immigration, which is very difficult in Sweden.
After Steen posted his comment, Fjordman sent me another email:
Some additions: I see that Steen from the blog Snaphanen, whom I respect a lot, says that he has seen far worse Swedish nationalist websites than this. So have I, and he’s right that freedom of speech in Sweden is virtually non-existent, and that we have to link to whatever news comes out of there. I’m still not thrilled about those ads, though.
I have called Sweden a soft-totalitarian country, but I am sometimes not so sure about the “soft” part. Opinion polls have revealed that two out of three Swedes doubt whether Islam can be combined with Swedish society, and a very significant proportion of the population have for years wanted more limitations on immigration. Yet not one party represented in Parliament is genuinely critical of the Multicultural society.
Earlier this year, the Swedish newspaper Expressen warned against the “low-intensity terrorism” conducted by extreme Leftists and neo-Nazis. But they were honest enough to admit that the extreme Leftists have tended to get away with their violence because it has been directed against the despised right-wingers. Now, their violence is increasingly aimed at established political parties and state institutions, too. Political scientist Peter Esaiasson has done research into every election movement in Sweden since 1866. According to him, the organized attempts at disrupting meetings during the 2006 elections had no parallels in modern history.
We at Gates of Vienna know all too well the “bad company” riff that goes with the turf. Because of our (and Fjordman’s) anti-immigration stances, we have been linked by various sites we find repugnant, from generic white-supremacy types to outright Nazis with swastikas prominent in their site headers. It’s just one of the risks that one takes when expressing opinions like ours.
Such links will be used to discredit us, just as the neo-Nazi ads are used to discredit Folkets Nyheter. When dissent is ruled out of polite conversation, it is forced into the same area as impolite conversation, even when the content is well-reasoned, temperate, and above all, valid.
A man who is locked out of the house during a blizzard is forced to shelter in the byre with the swine.
10 comments:
I don't know Swedish so I can't judge. There is one piece in English on the Malmo Policeman, and it seemed sane and reasonable enough. Besides, as I said before, we must take allies wherever we can find them.
I appreciate your comments, but it's not just the ads. These people are obsessed with the whiteness of skin, or lack thereof.
The only end result will be that the left will be swept out of power in a very violent and ruthless fashion. These things build up and build up until the people get so fed up with it that they snicker when the old mavens of acceptable thought get taken to the gallows. I don't think that I would shed a single tear for one of them either. Anyone who responds with the threat of legal force to shut down an opinion is, IMO, morally no better than a barbarian that would slit your throat for saying something they dislike because behind every legal action is the implicit or explicit threat of force, deadly or otherwise.
If Sweden is totalitarian, it is most definitely "soft": It may be tough for dissenters to get published there, but how often are they "disappeared" by the secret police? Not often, I bet. Is there a Swedish Gulag? Not that I've heard of.
They may be drifting towards totalitarianism, but they're a long way from behaving like the Soviet Union or North Korea.
eatyourbeans, "taking your allies wherever you can find them" is how the left ended up in bed with the Islamists.
Whats true about Folkets Nyheter, is in a way true of swedish politics in general: a lack of instinct, maybe developed through many years of irresponsability and nautrality".
In Folket Nyheter you see excellent articles, mixed with a bit of anti semitism and quasi nazizm - or at least, a nationalism that is rather illiterate. (The anti semitism bit is a rather old thing old thing i Sweden - ex the universities in the thirties)
Anyway, ther´s still nothing wrong with the police interview, and only the headline is a bit exaggerated. The article is moderate and straightforeward, I think.
ps : Remeber - main straem media are not balanced either.
They are so insecure, that the spectrum of consensus and debate is very narrow.
In a left wing danish newspaper, you will see 4 pages of opinion, and the whol political spectrum represented. In Sweden - never!
Only yesterday DN editor said in swedish radio in a debate with a danish collegue: "It´s a good thing we moderate our debate in this country" - and they DO !
"Such links will be used to discredit us, just as the neo-Nazi ads are used to discredit Folkets Nyheter."I think there is a big difference. They approved the ads and one must assume got paid to run them. The links to your site are totally out of your control.
The links are out of your cojntrol, nevertheless that won't stop people with an axe to grind from using them to tar, and possibly feather GoV. I know of certain types of people who angrilly browse extremist websites looking for things to denounce. They've probably seen links to GoV already.
Truly the best strategy is to simply ignore them.
Now, as to the article, my limited swedish gives me the impression that others have expressed: it's fairly neutral, probably quite accurate, with a loud and slightly boorish headline. The problem niche papers like this place have is that they have a hard time getting "legitimate" ad revenue, so they have to take what they can get, I guess. Fair bit of fatherland and "national identity" stuff, but not amazingly extreme. I suppose it's a simlar situation to that find here in the UK, with the BNP emerging from the shadow of national socialism as a moderate populist party that addresses issues ignored by everyone else. They wouldn't have a platform if these issues weren't ignored by the mainstream parties and media.
Such is life.
"A man who is locked out of the house during a blizzard is forced to shelter in the byre with the swine."
I think this about sums it up.
When the spectrum of acceptable opinions is very narrow, those opinions who do not fit in have to find shelter from any place they can.
I don't think this is positive, since it is so easy to ignore or discredit an opinion simply because it is printed on a suspicious paper or website.
Regarding the Swedes, the pseudoscience of eugenics was very popular in Sweden in the early part of 20th century. Swedish scientists determined that Finns and Lapps belonged to a genetically inferior race. Today's Swedes know very little of this though.
And I don't think it's fair to say that Swedes sided with communism during the Cold War. Sweden was more like "a moral superpower" with a self-righteous tendency to lecture other countries on how they should behave.
Eugenics was popular everywhere in the early 20th century. It became unpopular everywhere somewhere near the middle of the century. Something about a war? I'unno...
Anyway, finding out who was the superior race was all the rage back in that era. Even in the United States, where it was popular with a certain Democrat supporter and car manufacturing magnate... such is life.
The difference is, as you point out, that the swedes don't know it. IT's no wonder they're so bereft of love for their own country when they have no real knowledge of the history. This is why I tend to be very... vocal, about sweden whenever it's brought and criticised around here by certain commenters, who apparently aren't able to appreciate just how little freedom the Swedes have in such areas, simply because they've been denied their own history. It's why there's such a large anti-semetic attitude amongst certain sectors of Swedish society (not counting the obvious one beginning with I, in this case). They don't know the past. We all know what's been said about what happens to those who don't know their history...
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