Racists
down but
not out
IMMIGRANT labor is still needed in Sweden, and open racism is weaker than in most other West European countries. Nonetheless, there has been plenty of work for the anti-racist movement, which has fought some major battles with racists. MARIANNE HJORT
JÖBO, a small town of 15,000 in-
S
habitants in southern Sweden, made it into all the papers. In September, alongside the general elections, it held a referendum on accepting refugees. Anti-racists, politicians, and immigrant organizations made a pilgrimage to this previously unknown rural town governed by the center Farmers' Party and the right-wing Moderates. The whole world press got into the act, writing articles about the "Sjöbo syndrome." Small neo-Nazi organizations tried to get votes, fishing in the troubled waters of growing xenophobia.
The vote went overwhelmingly against accepting refugees. Many people are still shocked after the vote, and are asking themselves whether racism has taken root in broad layers of Swedish society.
The background to the referendum was that the government Immigration Bureau annually makes agreements with the country's 300 or so municipalities by which they agree to accept a certain number of re32 fugees in return for state subsidies. If the • municipalities say no, the refugees can still
### SVER go and live where they choose, even though according to a new law they can be deprived of all subsidies. The Immigration Bureau asked the Sjöbo town government to accept just 15 refugees! But it refused, and got overwhelming support in the referendum.
### History of Nazism in Sweden
Just before the referendum, there was an exposé in the press. Two leading figures from the fascist Nysvenska Rörelsen [New Swedish Movement] had drawn up an anti-refugee leaflet, and it had been printed and distributed by the Center Party in Sjöbo. At the same time, it was revealed that some of the Center Party leaders had been members of the Sveriges Nationella Förbund [National League of Sweden] in their youth.
The Sveriges Nationella Förbund were on the rampage in areas around Sjöbo in the 1930s and 1940s. They appeared in full uniform at town square rallies, and had a large number of members from the old Farmers' Party. At the same time, in "national home Sweden" there was the Nysvenska Rörelse, with roots going back into the 1920s; and the Nordiska Riksparti [Scandinavian State Party]. These three older fascist and Nazi organizations still survive, but have never been a real force, despite the fact that over the years they have put out a number of periodicals. The membership of these small sects is no more than a hundred. Moreover, there is an overlap in membership. About 500 small Nazi and fascist organizations have raised their flags in Sweden since the 1920s, many of them with a handful or less members.
While the Nazi organizations have been relatively unimportant, that does not mean that their views have not had considerable support, going far up into the top echelons of the society. During the second world war, pro-Germanism was widespread among military officers, police and big business. University students demonstrated against Jewish refugees coming to Sweden and "taking away jobs." The Swedish authorities demanded that the refugees' passports show that they were Jews. Plays critical of Hitler were stopped. The clearest example of the establishment's real attitude was when German troops on their way to were allowed transit through
The Nordiska Riksparti has managed to gain attention in recent years by several terrorist actions against immigrants and communists. Already all its cadres have served prison terms, for crimes ranging from arson and assault to illegal possession of weapons. Its bastion in recent years was in Växjö in south central Sweden. After constant harassment of immigrants, local people got fed up. At a rally it organized, the Nordiska Riksparti's members were chased away by a large crowd of angry people. The best news photo of 1985 shows a well-dressed elderly lady of Jewish origin. With an umbrella in her right hand, she is chasing a terrified young skinhead.
It was not just in Växjö, that people reacted. An organized anti-racist movement began to develop in Sweden back in 1982. Cross-burnings against foreigners in a suburb of Stockholm led to the formation of a Working Group Against Racism. In that year, Finnish workers were fired by the Swedish-owned Finland ferry company, Svea Corona. A strong outcry among trade-unionists, immigrants and solidarity organizations forced the owners to reinstate the Finnish workers and pay them about a million Swedish crowns [about $150,000] in compensation. International collaboration with anti-racist groups
Out of the first Working Group grew the Riksförbund Stoppa Rasismen [National League to Stop Racism]. After barely three years, this organization has thousands of members in various localities and independent groups throughout the country.
Big demonstrations and direct actions, such as against racist police brutality in Stockholm, have been characteristic of this movement. Conscious international collaboration with anti-racist movements in Britain, France and Denmark, among other countries, started last spring in connection with the French elections and Le Pen's gains.
Stoppa Rasismen first got going as a recognized organization in a big protest action a year ago against the Sverigeparti [Sweden Party] in Stockholm's subway stations, where the Sverigeparti and its gang of skin-
January 23, 1989 • #155 International Viewpoint heads had been selling neo-Nazi publications and distributing leaflets quite undisturbed for a whole period.
The Sverigeparti had been created by a fusion of a broadly racist Stockholm local party (the Framstegsparti, or Progress Party) and a harder nosed neo-Nazi group (Bevara Sverige Svenskt, Keep Sweden Swedish). This last group had taken its ideas from the English National Front. According to information from the British anti-fascist magazine, Searchlight, Swedish members of the Sverigeparti went to Ireland for military training. Some members
This was also a development that could have international repercussions. The week after the referendum in Sweden, the leaders of the ultra-right-oriented Progress parties in Norway and Denmark announced that they were also for referendums in their
For anti-racists, it is all the more important to develop international contacts and to see to it that the experience from the
SWEDEN • WEST GERMANY
Swedish antiracist movement and from the struggle against the referendum can be fruitful in other countries. *