First They Came for the Swedes

We have recently been following the plight of Dahn Pettersson, a Swedish politician who is in the process of being broken on the wheel of political correctness.

Mr. Pettersson committed the mortal sin of uttering less than laudatory words about the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo who have settled in Sweden, and the Multicultural Inquisition has passed judgment on him. He will not be burned at the stake for his crimes, but the PC regime intends to cripple his career and empty his pocketbook.

My report yesterday concerned the verdict — guilty, of course — and the sentence passed on Mr. Pettersson. Since then our Swedish correspondent LN has been combing the newspapers and online sites for additional information. He has translated a very interesting item from yesterday’s Metro:

“He Has to Learn”

Kosovar Albanians satisfied with the slander sentence

SENTENCED. The politician Dahn Pettersson has been sentenced to 100 fine-units a total of SEK 18,000, for agitation against an ethnic group. The Malmö district court has determined that Dahn Pettersson, who represents the Alliance Party on the Burlöv municipal council, was spreading contempt against Kosovar Albanians in a petition in which he linked the availability of heroin to the immigration of Kosovar Albanians into Sweden.

Kent Wollmér, the municipal council chairmen in Burlöv, does not intend to demand Dahn Pettersson’s withdrawal in the present situation.

“His party has to take its stand to this question,” Kent Wollmér says.

Bexhet Kelmeni is of Kosovar Albanian origin and lives in Malmö. He thinks that it is important that it has now been established that Dahn Pettersson’s assertions were criminal.

“Dahn Pettersson has thrown dirt on an entire people. I have lived in Sweden for fifteen years and have been a Swedish citizen for ten years. I am ashamed that there are such politicians in Skåne,” he says.

Bexhet Kelmeni also says that he has been in contact with some two hundred Kosovar Albanians and all of them have taken offense. It is not only Kosovar Albanians in Sweden who feel injured, but also fellow countrymen in, for example, Germany and the USA, who via email messages have heard about the petition.

In fact, Bexhet Kelmeni is of the opinion that it would have been better to sentence Dahn Pettersson to take part in a course about other cultures instead of being fined.

“He needs to learn more about the Albanian culture, for example,” Bexhet Kelmeni says.

So the Kosovars would like to see the perp spend a little time in a re-education camp, eh? That’s what they do in Kosovo to people who insult Christians and Swedes, right?

Well, maybe not.

LN also reports that Aftonbladet, quoting the prosecutor in the case, says that Mr. Pettersson was “deliberately spreading offensive information”. In other words, if facts are offensive to immigrants, then facts be damned!

Dahn Pettersson has stated what many people in Sweden and elsewhere consider to be the plain truth, namely that the vast bulk of the heroin trade in Scandinavia is controlled by Kosovar Albanians. The Kosovars comprise one of the many exotic pieces in Sweden’s gorgeous multicultural mosaic, and, being Muslims, they are above criticism. Mr. Pettersson went beyond the pale, and now he must pay.

Even if the defamatory words are true, they cannot be spoken, because according to the prosecutor, ethnic groups cannot be described as engaging in any particular activity:
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“It is never ethnic groups that commit crimes. It is always individuals or groups of individuals,” said the prosecutor Mats Svensson to the Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå news agency.

Well, we all know that good qualities may be ascribed to certain protected ethnic groups. They are people of peace; they bring a different cultural perspective to our society; they have an excellent cuisine; their music and literature are of the highest quality; etc., etc.

But if it turns out that more carjackings are carried out by Somalis than by any other group, or that Pakistanis are overrepresented among those convicted of rape — why, then, these facts simply do not exist.

The same standards do not apply to descriptions of white people, or Christians, or Jews. These groups may be denigrated collectively by anyone, at any time. Their overrepresentation in any deplorable activity may be documented in detail. You may defame “persons of Swedish background” to your heart’s content.

If a white person commits a crime, his or her race is usually noted in news reports. But if race is not mentioned, then the perpetrator is almost certainly a member of a protected minority.

The particular unmentioned ethnic group varies, depending on the region and the circumstances. Here in Virginia, when the Charlottesville newspaper carries a crime report, if the race of the suspect is not mentioned then the tacit assumption is that he is black. Everyone knows that. No one has to say it out loud. Like any other taboo, it is unspoken but understood by all.

The secret rule becomes clear when you read a sentence like this in the newspaper: “The suspect is described as white, 25 to 30 years old, about six feet tall, and wearing a baseball cap.” That’s the only time you’ll see the race of a suspect mentioned.

Newspaper reporters are familiar with these rules. They know better than to describe any alleged assailant as “African American”. If they forget, their editors are certain to strike the offending words.

And God help anyone who uses the dreaded phrase, “of Middle Eastern appearance”, for upon those vicious Islamophobes the wrath of CAIR will invariably fall.

But back to Sweden. Not every person of Swedish background is willing to simply bend over and take it without complaint. According to LN, Ulf Petäjä, an expert on political science at the Univerity of Lund, is critical of the verdict. “The ideal way to treat preposterous ideas is to criticize and refute them,” he says. “In this particular case, where a group is accused of something criminal, it should be easy to discuss and possibly refute the statement with the help of statistics.”

And here’s an interview with a former Swedish journalist, as reported in the Swedish English-language news site The Local:

Svante Nycander, former editor of Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, gives his view after local politician Dahn Pettersson is fined for hate speech. Pettersson claimed in a motion that 95 percent of all heroin that comes into Sweden comes via Kosovo.

“The ruling in Malmö District Court is damaging to freedom of expression. Many will take it as proof that the authorities are afraid of uncomfortable truths, and that lacking reasoned counter-arguments they punish those who speak plainly.

“When a member of the council asked the police whether Dahn Pettersson’s claims were true, he was told simply that the claims constituted Agitation Against a National or Ethnic Group. The law is becoming a hindrance for providing information about actual situations. Questions which have their basis in disparagement of a particular group cannot be answered.

“This is the result of changes at various points in the clause on Agitation against a National or Ethnic Group. The ban has developed in such a way that it inhibits not only prejudiced statements, but also nearly all discussion of sensitive issues that interest a large proportion of the public. Such a law thwarts its own purpose.

“Dahn Pettersson’s motion, and both the opinions and the claims contained within it, should be tackled in open political discussion — not with prosecution and punishment.”

Sweden is an extreme example, but it is not unique. The crackdown on hets mot folkgrupp has taken a grotesque and outlandish form there, but the process is essentially the same in the other countries of the West. Sweden simply has the most advanced case of the multicultural disease.

It is permissible to use statistics to establish evidence for discrimination against a protected ethnic group, or to highlight its disadvantaged state in our racist and Islamophobic culture. But any statistic that reflects badly on any such group must be suppressed.

The problem for the élites who would control us all is that suppressing information cannot change what people see with their own eyes. The “persons of Swedish background” who live in Malmö know the truth of their situation. They know what the Kosovars and Somalis in their communities are doing; they see it in action every day, among their neighbors and the members of their families. The rapes and thefts and murders committed by the immigrants are common knowledge.

The only effect that official denial can have is to keep the average person ignorant about how many of his fellow citizens feel the same way he does. When the organs of public communication are closed to honest discussion, and when the feelings of the populace have been criminalized, society becomes atomized. People go about their daily business bearing the secret truth of their own knowledge and opinions, but do not dare to give it voice.

It is small consolation that such an artificially constrained situation cannot last. The truth will out, but by the time it does the accumulated rage and resentment will cause an explosion, with a result that is difficult to foresee.

The Berlin Wall came down, and so will the Wall of Multiculturalism. But don’t expect it to be a gentle and joyful occasion like the one experienced by Berliners in 1989. Ugly and violent circumstances imposed upon an unwilling people will yield ugly and violent consequences.

A Lie cannot live forever. But when it dies, what will happen next?

I’ll let Jonathan Swift have the last word:

I said there was a Society of Men among us, bred up from their Youth in the Art of proving by words multiplied for the Purpose, that White is Black, and Black is White, according as they are paid. To this Society all the rest of the People are Slaves.