The Swedish Nazi movement 1994

Kategori: Antifascism

A Status Report 1994

Since late in the spring of 1994 the nation-wide parliamentary elections of September 18th have dominated the anti-fascist activities in Sweden. Our aquaintances on the extreme right have not let the opportunity go by without making their presence known.

The right wing party Ny Demokrati (New Democracy), which has been in the parliament for the last three years, has, in essence, committed suicide. The list of internal squabbles and slandering is endless with the final result being that the party leadership changed (a few times!) and they took an increasingly harder stance towards immigration. Thanks to that, they are now out of parliament and runnig low opinion polls and even lower election results (1.2 %, down 5.5% since 1991). Good riddance!

The elections resulted in the return of Socialdemokraterna (The Social Democrats) to power in the Swedish parliament after a three year period of conservative rule. They have built a minority goverment relying uponVänsterpartiet (the former communist party) to give them the majority (45.6% and 6.2%) to rule. Miljöpartiet (the Greens) give them an extra 5.0% if it comes down to a clincher.

These results can be translated as a clear statement from the Swedish people endorsing the welfare state and that which it stands for. The Swedish people have the memory of Olof Palme and his version of international solidarity still fresh i their minds. This may have contributed to, in some degree, the eradication of Ny Demokrati as a viable political alternative. Their strong anti-immigration stance was just too much for people to swallow.

More worrisome is the fact that the fascist Sverigedemokraterna (The Sweden Democrats-under national leadership of Anders Klarström) received 0.6% (approximatly 2500 votes) of the local vote in Göteborg. This means that the strong national socialist scene there was, for the first time, able to pull together all of their resources and cooperate for a mutual goal. But their best wasn't good enough and they are still outside of the kommun council. In the Stockholm area, they polled enough votes (around 200) to come into the kommun council of the small Eckerö, a traditionally conservative area (the Swedish King lives there!) with one mandate. In Höör kommun, Sverigedemokraterna (under the local leadership of Tina Hallgren-Bengtsson) increased the number of mandates in the council from 1 to 2 with 5.4%. In the back-woods kommun Dals-Ed their number of mandates increased with one to a total of two. They nearly recieved a first mandate in Trollhättan (the site of a mosque arson last summer) with 2.1% and reached 1.3% in Lilla Edet.

Sverigedemokraterna, began their election campaign on the appropriate Friday the 13th of May. It ended with unluck and a catastrophe for the nazis. In the town of Vaxjö (where by the way, the now famous picture of the purse swinging lady was taken in 1985) the 150 AntiFascistisk Aktion, AFA activists present were joined by nearly 1000 local citizens literally driving the nazis from the city under a rain of hard slogans and hard objects! As always, this type of event results in a few arrests. As bad as that is, it was even worse for some nazis who accidedntly landed in cells with anti-fascists! Friday the 13th, need we say more?

The next stop on the Sverigedemokraterna tour was Jönköping on the 28th of May. Here, the 300 riot police present were better prepared, preventing any direct confrontation between anti-fascists and the nazis. However, their iron ring of riot shields around Sverigedemokraterna made it impossible for anyone on the outside to hear anything of what was said! An election rally for the already "chosen!"

On the 3rd of June 40 AFA activists stopped a planned nazi rally in Höör. There was no police presence and the short-haired mongrels were sent running with their tails tucked between their legs. Three days later in Ystad,the nazis showed up again, this time with the local party leader, Tina Hallgren-Bengtsson, sporting a moped helemt as protection. The minimal police presence couldn't stop a repeat of the happenings of the 3rd, although they did nick a couple of anti-fascists.

On the Swedish national day, the 6th of June, Sverigedemokraterna held a picknick-rally in a park in Stockholm. The event went unnoticed as anti-fascists were organised in a positive Glädjetåget (Happy Train) under the paroll for a multi-cultural Sweden.

The final post-summer election rush for Sverigedemokraterna resulted in even more election rallies being disturbed or outright cancelled. Malmö, Uppsala, Göteborg and Stockholm saw the defeat of the nazi's attepts to demonstrate.

During the long hot summer other sect-like fascist groups as well as unorganised skinheads came out to play. On the 5th of May 5 nazi skinheads ended up in the hospital after provoking a fight with a group of immigrant youths in a Stockholm subway station. A week later 50 nazi skinheads ran amuck in another subway station claiming the "action" as a reprisal for their fallen comrades. Karlstad was the scence for repeated clashes between nazi skinheads and immigrant youths during the months of May and June. Nazis from Falun, Trollhättan and Filipstad took part. As a direct result, AFA groups have organised in both Falun and Karlstad.

In Göteborg 100 members of the nazi sect Riksfronten (The Reich Front) held a "spontaneous" march through the city center on the 2nd of June. The apparation disappeared as swiftly as it had materialized. The militant group, Vitt Ariskt Motstånd, VAM (White Aryan Resistance) were able to hold a concert in Stockholm on August 27th. The Swedish band Svastiska and English Squadron played for 500 uniformed nazis. On the lighter side, Per Engdahl, Swedish fascist organiser from the 30's died at 85 years of age on the 18th of May. May he rot in Valhalla.

On May 20th AFA organized an anti-fascist concert with Infinite Mass, a militant rap band in Linköping (a known foothold for Riksfronten) which, despite technical problems, went over quite well with 200 kids turning out to dig the vibes. A positive blast from the past was the Swedish Spanish Civil War volunteers getting together to say goodbye and wish us good luck in the continued struggle. Inspiring. We were 200 who gathered on June 11th at the statue erected in memory to the fallen comrades in Stockholm know as La Mano.

AFA-Sweden have participated in a campaign against Swedish membership in EU and the upcoming referendum vote. Under the parole "For open borders-against Fort Europe" actions have occured since early spring over the entire country. At the country-wide AFA-Sweden meeting of September 1994 a country wide day of action was proposed.

AFA Sweden