Sweden's treatment of, for example, the sami and the roma are clear examples in Swedish history that demonstrate the problems with this view. The fact that
Before writing his Millennium Trilogy, Larsson was an investigative journalist specializing in the far-right. Shortly before his death, he predicted that the Sweden Democrats would be elected to the parliament in 2010, something which is now a fact. He was also concerned about a return to the abuse of women, immigrants, and Jews, as had once been quite strong in
To say my own circumstances are both nightmarish and life-threatening is accurate ... I seriously wonder if I'll be alive in a year. But as startlingly nightmarish as that is, perhaps even more disturbing is that the abuse I and others suffer usually occurs quite casually, in plain sight, as if it is simply 'the right and proper thing'. Beyond this, and paralleling the Millennium saga, to my eyes such abuse seems typically aided by those with a duty to prevent it, assuming they are not perpetrating the abuse in question themselves.
The election of the Sweden Democrats provided an indicator of how much
It was 1963 when political theorist Hannah Arendt exploded into world view with her book "Eichmann in
Arendt's belief was that those responsible for committing nightmarish acts, in the performance of their duties, were often quite ordinary, not the 'madmen' one would like to believe. She revealed these people as mainly simple functionaries that did what they felt 'was expected of them', not bothering to examine the horrific implications of their acts.
As the American thinker Edward S. Herman wrote some years ago ... Doing terrible things in an organized and systematic way rests on "normalization." This is the process whereby ugly, degrading, murderous, and unspeakable acts become routine and are accepted as "the way things are done."
Is it possible that many of
At first, local authorities claimed the Guldstigen problem was merely one of "dust", but after numerous headlines and some heated confrontations with parents, it was months later when a headline noted, "The municipality admits wrong about Guldstigen" (Kommunen medger fel om Guldstigen), with the mold sickening the pre-school finally acknowledged and addressed. But, what about the other official denials of problems where hard evidence states they exist, and what of a bureaucracy that seems to callously enable suffering?
As for how immigrants can be treated, a headline in one of the national papers last January read, "We live worse than animals here" (Vi bor samre an djur har). But what can one expect when the country has come to a point where authorities question if a man whose both legs are amputated is suffering a "permanent" condition (Legless man denied wheelchair -- The Local ), and where nursing home personnel made August headlines for betting on when a patient would die?
There are many good, decent, and fine Swedes that I've met, and some of these are indeed among the finest people I've ever encountered, but there are others. In the Swedish-film version of Dragon Tattoo, there is a scene where a torture/murderer explains himself, noting: "I'm taking whatever I want ... I love the disappointment in their (his victims') eyes -- it doesn't seem to fit with what they planned. They always seem to think that I'll show mercy. It's a fantastic moment when they finally realize they're not getting away".
To recall an 18th century political theorist and statesman, Edmund Burke, "all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing" ... and, perhaps some things never change.
Copyright December 2011
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