Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 08:14:05 +0100 (MET)
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: A social democratic paradise?part 1


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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
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SWEDISH GRAFITTI

AN A                                                         

TRAVEL GUIDE


Recently the United Nations gave and award to Sweden because of its
work on equality. Obviously the United Nations representatives have
had the wool pulled over their eyes or are blind to the fact that
Sweden has become a racist society.
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That in Sweden, discrimination and segregation in the workplace, in
the living areas, in the schools, has become a serious problem and
in some areas of the country, general praxis. That in other words
means that 20% of the population (non Swedes and families of the
first and second generation of non Swedes) are treated unfairly,
undemocratically and unequaly.
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Furthermore the situation has become so serious that last night on
national TV, on the program Striptease, we had a situation where
Swedes in a little town in the south quite openly defended a racist
youth gang who murdered a black youth in brutal cold blood. Where a
leader of this bloodthirsty mob was allowed on the program to defend
their program of extermination. In fact, a Jewish woman was forced
to leave the program because she refused to be in the same room with
this racist. This Jewish woman stated that she felt that she was
reliving the thirties of Germany once again.
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So naturally one has to question the sanity of those in the United
Nations who have given this award to Sweden. The equality for the
non-Swedes in      Sweden is beginning to look like the equality
black people had in Alabama or    Little Rock, Arkansas in the United
States during the late fifties and early    sixties... Believe me, I
was there.
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When I say racism, I mean the general rise in vicious attacks on
non-Swedes. People murdered in cold blood on public streets or thrown
in to lakes      after being severely beaten, in order to die. I mean
the burning of crosses on the front lawns of people's homes. In fact
even firebombing of homes and stores owned by non-Swedes. These acts
of ever increasing terror are perpetrated on people who's only crime
is not being a Swede or having black skin.
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The courts, the prosecutors and even the minister of justice appear
to be paralysed and do nothing to stop these racist attacks. In fact
there is a death sheet with 300 names on it, people the racist
terrorists say should die. One prosecutor actually recommends people
not to do anything when confronted with his or her name on it.
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Recently the courts sentenced a non-Swede for protecting his home
>from a vicious attack by racists. For months these people were being
persecuted by    the racists and even their house was repeatedly
attacked and windows and  doors smashed. When the man in the family
defended himself, he was tried and convicted for injuring one of the
racists!
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People are literally being burned out of their homes by racist gangs.
Firebombs in the middle of the night and crosses burning on the lawn.
Does this sound like "equality" to the United Nations? To me it sounds
like "Dixie" during the years of the Klu Klux Klan..
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The above is the open racist attacks on non-Swedes. However racism     
which is hidden under the surface is generally widespread throughout
the country. "Nigger" and "Blackskull" has become the general
reference among the general population, in talking about people who's
skin is of another colour. In fact you don't even have to be black,
a Turk, a Iranian, a Latin American with brown skin are treated as
second and third class citizens. In fact if you talk with an accent
in Sweden today, it is enough to get your head bashed in or your
house attacked!
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Everyday practically there are reports of new incidents of open
racist  terror or hidden racist practice. How can the United Nations
turn a blind eye to those events. In fact by giving Sweden a prize
for equality, is basically like giving George Wallace a prize during
the sixties for raising the status of equal rights for white middle
-class women in Alabama!
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Today in Sweden we are talking about 15% of the population that do
not have a job. Over 500,000 people are directly unemployed or are
in some sort of job education program. However that figure does not
give a true picture of reality. In fact in many of the larger cities
80% (!) of the non-Swede population do not have jobs. In fact
non-Swedes, procentually, are the overwhelming majority of unemployed,
those on welfare, or in job training.
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Today it has become common place that if you are not a Swede, then
you don't get a job...People who have worked in the areas which
before relied on non-Swedes, such as cleaning toilets, changing
bedpans or taking care of the mentally undeveloped, have become
nearly total Swedish workplaces. Today a non-Swede has a chance of
getting a job as a snowball in hell. The only area where this has
not become norm, is the picking of strawberries, during the
strawberry season. That area has been reserved for east Europeans
and non-Swedes. Because it is a lot like picking cotton in the
south during slavery or picking grapes in California, which is
usually reserved for the Mexicans who illegally come to the United
States to pick.
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This is discrimination on a broad level. Although you will never
hear a Swedish employer say that "you do not get the job because
your skin is black"   or " because you have an accent" the fact is
that non-Swedes do not get jobs.
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However if your skin is black and you want to go out to a club and
have a beer or go dancing, you will be turned back at the door with
"only members allowed". This means whites only...This white only
policy has become fairly widespread in many areas of nightlife Sweden.
So if your skin is black or brown you stay home or organise parties
with your own kind.
									=09
Discrimination appears in all walks of life and levels of government.
The percentage of non-Swede participation in leading positions in
government is basically zero%. The same goes for government on the
local level. Now really, how could anyone believe that the Swedes
deserve a prize for equality from the United Nations. I mean for
twenty percent of the population, we are a statistic: either
unemployed, on welfare, or deported from Sweden.
									=09
Segregation in the living areas and schools in the large cities and
even        large towns has become a serious problem, if not general
praxis. There are areas        in Stockholm, Malm=F6 or Ume=E5, where
most if not all Swedes have moved out. There are classes in school
where there is not one Swede. In fact these areas are considered the
Swedish ghettos with high unemployment, high welfare, high crime
rates, and 98% non-Swede.
				=09
In fact this segregation is generally recognised both by the
population in general and Swedish politicians. However nothing is
being done that can      change the situation to the better. Instead,
policies by the government, of cutting unemployment and welfare
benefits are in general making economic and living conditions worse
for people. This tends to increase the rate of segregation. What we
are seeing here are the future Watts and Harlem's of Sweden! In fact
the only thing lacking is the cry of "Burn Baby Burn" which perhaps
will come in the next 5 or 10 years.
								=09
Internationally Sweden has been known as a "Social Welfare State"
of the more progressive type. In 1972 when I first came to Sweden
this claim was      perhaps true. However this is the 90ties and
reality is in fact, of a fastly growing racist, discriminating
and segregated society here.

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But to be honest, Sweden has not been a racist, discriminating and
segregated society since the beginning of time. In fact when I came
here in  1972, Sweden really was a nice place to live! This has its
special historical reasons. Sweden was a so called "neutral country"
during both World Wars. In reality that meant that the Swedes got to
sell their enormous reserves of iron ore, timber, and cement to both
sides during the wars.
									=09
Especially the Second World War which laid most of Europe and a good
part of Russia in ruins, the clever Swedes were able to sell their
products to     both sides, the Axis and the Allies, with enormous
profits which laid the foundation of its modern Welfare State under
the leadership of the Social Democracy.
										=09
Naturally a political price had to be paid. Although most Swedes
really believed that they were "neutral" during the war, the
politicians and capitalists, were certainly not. First they were
pro-German, allowing the Germans free transport through the country
in order to occupy the other Scandinavian countries. In fact today
their are reports coming from Finland saying that the Swedish
secret police co-operated and gave lists of names of resistance
people in Denmark and Norway to the Nazis,s! This is from files
now being opened in         Finland 50 years after the war. Some
people are demanding that the Swedish Secret Police now open their
archives to see exactly what they were doing. However there are
others that believe that any comprehending material to the Swedes
has already been destroyed.
										=09

Then as the Allies got to be the winning side, the Swedes became
pro-allied. This meaning also the Russians, who demanded that the
Balts who were fleeing the advancing Red Army by coming to Sweden
be sent back. The Swedes quickly capitulated to the Russians, just
as they did to the Nazi's demands earlier in the war.
										=09
Anyhow, if the Swedes made enormous profits selling iron ore and
Cement for Nazi U-boats and "Festung" Europe during the beginning
of the war. It was nothing!, compared to the enormous profits to be
made in building up a Europe which lay in ruins after the war!
										=09
Just as America came out of the war with its industry production
intact, and which laid the basis for the "American Century" as a
superpower. The Swedes also had a enormous industry intact which
laid the basis for the creation of enormous wealth in order for the
Social Democrats to build its welfare state.
										=09
The position that the Swedish capitalists had at the end of the war
was terrific. An enormous iron ore industry, a huge cement industry,
and endless forests to be exploited for timber in order to rebuild
Europe.
										=09
However, the Swedes had one major problem, its labour force was to     
small, with a population under 8 million,they could not get enough
workers tothe industries to generate even more profits.
										=09
Thus began the beginning of a forced migration of people living in
the  small towns and countries in the north of Sweden to the
industrial centres in the south. When I came here in the seventies
more then half of the Swedish workers I met in the industries had
been forced to move to the southern industrial centres during their
lifetimes.
										=09
Even this forced migration of tens of thousands of families was not    
enough. So the Swedes began importing enormous amounts of workers from 
European countries to man there expanding and profitible industries.
									=09
The Social Democrats created vast building projects like the "million
program"  a million apartments to house the workers moving into the 
industrial centres. Of course this program took on some very funny
architectural proportions.
											=09
I mean Sweden with a cement industry that helped build the "Atlantic
Wall" and Hitler's bunker, in tact after the war. They naturally
started building the housing needed for the armies of workers in
cement! If you look at the houses built in the fifties and early
sixties, its cement walls, floors and ceilings everywhere.
										=09
For the Swedes this had some funny cultural quirks also. I mean if
you empty the countryside of people to fill the industries who were
born and raised in the country. They get homesick for the country.
However the Social Democrats were smart and claimed that everybody
now would have the money   to build a summerhouse in the country.
And the Social Democrats could   basically hold their promise,
because the capitalists were prepared to pay quite well, because
of the superprofits they were making in building up a Europe in
ruins. So most Swedes got to buy a summerhouse in the country!
										=09
While the Swedish capitalists were making billions in super profits,
the Social Democrats were keeping the workers calm with all sorts
of reforms.  Almost free Health care, pension funds, good housing,
good pay, new cars, and summer houses in the country.
													This also led to the gigantic growth of the bureaucracy to
administrate this growing welfare state. It also led to the creation of an
enormous middle-class with its social values and ideology. But the
middle-class was not satisfied with a three room apartment in cement and the
wooden cheese boxes industry began to grow and flourish. Surburbs with
shopping centres and malls and pretty little houses for the middle-class
just started popping up everywhere.
									=09
However even with imported labour industries could not get enough
labour, so childcare centres developed and Swedish women entered
the labour market. The public sector kept growing and growing and
female labour filled these institutions. Life was just great and
the future looked bright. Then the ballong exploded...


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When I came here in 1972 Sweden was at the peak of its development.
I received a humanitarian asylum in Sweden because of my opposition
to the war in Vietnam.                                                      
                                                                            
                             

These were the final years of Social Democratic reforms. The last
great reform I remember quite clearly it was called "the wage
workers fund". This  was a scheme by the Social Democrats of
scooping off the top of the capitalist classes ever growing profits,
(the capitalists called it a confiscation), and putting it in a fund
controlled by the trade unions in order to buy out the capitalists
industries stocks and bonds and ultimately take over.
											=09
In reality this scheme was a product of the reformist trade union
bureaucracy who wanted a part of the capitalist action while letting
the workers decide the colour of the curtains to be hanged in the
windows of the factories. On every board of directors was a Social
democratic trade union bureaucrat and the wage worker fund became
a major actor on the Swedish      stock market. This Social
Democratic invention invested millions, billions of   crowns in
stocks and property. The peaceful way to socialism in a nutshell,
buy the capitalists out by scooping a percentage of the profits from
the top.
											=09
It was the first "great reform" that the bourgeois parties wiped
out after coming to power for the first time,( in over 50 years),
in the eighties.
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Because the good times were over.
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Now that the major economic powers, including the defeated Germany
and Japan, were again playing a major role on the International
scene, the super profits of Swedish Capitalism were decreasing.
										=09
With the major imperialist powers up to full and even better pre-war
economic strength, the Swedish economy became and over inflated
ballong, living far beyond its economical potential. It exploded in
the 80ties when the bottom fell out of the stockmarket and property
investments dived to record lows.
										=09
The Swedish banks who had speculated heavily in property all over
Europe were in trouble, big trouble. Billions in losses could not
be covered and they turned to the welfare state for garantees for
their international losses and debts in the billions. At the same
time Swedish industry production dropped like a bomb because of
the inflated prices. Unlike their Norwegian brothers and sisters
they had no offshore oil to drop back on.So the state controlled by
the bougeois parties started borrowing money internationally. One
hundred crowns, two hundred billion crowns and more to cover their
asses. At the same time trying to hold up the welfare state built up,
under extremely particular circumstances and conditions.
										=09
Money was pooring out like diarir, borrowed money, to save the banks
and hold up the welfare state. An then the Soviet Union collapsed!
										=09
But also the Swedish Crown was set free and collapsed!
										=09
These two events caused the capitalist and political leaders of
Sweden to drastically change political course.
											=09
It also was the end of the Social Democratic pipedream of a peaceful
way        to socialism. It also began the plundering an rape of the
welfare state. It ended the long history of fake "neutrality" for
Sweden, which however was excepted internationally.
										=09
And it also led to the society which I have described in the first
part of this chapter! And finally it led to that foreign capital is
taking over here and the Swedes have less and less to sayor own!


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