My task in a extreme right-wing organization

During my early teens I spent four year as an active member of a so-called National Socialist organization. For me it was a natural step since I had been raised by a stepfather with views of thatkind.

Personally I tried to take on the role of thinker within the organization. It was the only way for me to assert myself. I wasn’t big so I couldn’t be a fighter and I was too young to try to be a leader. The way that I expressed my so called thinking was via propaganda. I wrote and distributed propaganda In our local society. The propaganda that I wrote focused on all kinds of issues, everything from the floods of refugees coming to Sweden to the cost of taking them in. I also wrote about the betrayal of our race. For most of the time my articles were distributed as local fliers, but sometimes they were published in the paper that the organization gave out all over the country.

The articles that met with most support from people in our organization and so-called ordinary people were about the flood of refugees, the cost of the refugees and criminal acts committed by refugees.

The political climate during “my time”
It took me almost four years to realize that I wasn’t a racist or nationalist at all. My four years on the wrong side of the truth took place during the end of the eighties and the beginning of the nineties. In the political climate at the time there was a strong upsurge of racist views, or as they were called at the time “critical views on Sweden’s refugee policy”. This was both in the traditional conservative parties and among the general public, not to speak of the mainstream media.

A nationally known record company executive and some others started a right-wing populist party. They used the wave of criticism towards refugees to launch themselves as a political alternative. The new party and their popularity spurred the mainstream media to publish articles about the crime a foreigner had committed and to tell the story as if the behavior was to be explained in his or her culture. They reported on small communities and how the government had built large housing estates for refugees in their small town or village and what a problem it was to the community in whole. The new party also published statistics about the cost of refugees. The mainstream media gave them an unspeakable amount of space to air their views and propaganda. Mainstream media wrote a lot of the propaganda for us at the time. I personally used a lot of what was in the evening papers in my propaganda. And it worked, people believed it because they had read it in the papers. Even though I exaggerated the figures and the numbers even more than the new party, people believed it and loved my articles.

The new party entered parliament in 1991. They weren’t long-lived. The new party didn’t make in at the next election but they will be remembered for a long time to come. After the new party had lost their seats in the parliament the mainstream media reported on the fact that the new party had forged figures and statistics about the number of refugees coming to Sweden and the costs for It.

The false information they talked about was information that they had gladly published without examining the level of truth in it. A lot of people that was young at the time grew up learning that Sweden’s refugee policy was nothing but bad. Of course It wasn’t only young people who made up their mind about foreign cultures, religions and people during that dark period of time.

During that period of time racist youth organizations in Sweden reached their peak in terms of number of members and supporters. Their number has only declined since then but I’m not so sure when it comes to supporters of their hostility towards certain foreigners. The mainstream media may have learned a lesson about not publishing without checking for facts but they still have much to learn about creating prejudice, a point which I shall return to later.

Racism / Intolerance today
1. Right-wing organizations of today
According to the Swedish security police (SÄPO) there are about 60 municipalities in Sweden with active youth-racist organizations. The local organizations most of the time consist of one or a few active organizers that have a tail of maybe 5 – 10 people, often in their teens. The skinhead culture only lives on in the biggest cities and the smallest communities. Most of today’s active racist youngsters look like ordinary young people. The youth organizations are right now working very hard on recruiting new members and new support.

Right-wing populist parties hold seats in eight of Sweden’s city councils. In one of the county councils a right-wing populist party holds the chair in partnership with the bourgeois. The more socially accepted ( house-trained ) right-wing parties are working very hard to appear as a light version of racism in the political climate. Most of the old National Socialist parties nowadays call themselves racial-separate parties. They put their emphasis on costs of accepting refugees and the importance of preserving the “Swedish” heritage as opposed to claiming that refugees and foreigners are inferior to Swedes. ´

Apart from the traditional groups or political parties we have a large amount of unofficial networks of criminals with the white power idea more as an excuse than a purpose for their crimes. The prisons are were they recruit. These unofficial networks are the ones behind some of the most hideous racism-related crimes the last couple of years.

2. Racism-related violence
There is no special geographic pattern to observe when it comes to racially motivated violence. It exists in the whole of Sweden. But there are some who claim that the southernmost region of Sweden has a higher rate than other regions. That would not be surprising because there seems to be more of a negative public opinion towards refugees and foreigners in that part of the country. A lot of the eight city councils where right-wing parties hold seats are in that part of the country.

The racist acts of violence towards homosexuals have increased in the larger cities like Stockholm and Gothenburg. The gay community is today more open and official about their parties and clubs and enables racists to find them much easier than before.
The greater part of the racism-related violence is acts of assault and battery resulting in slight injury. But, as in society generally, violence is constantly increasing and the level of cruelty only seems to be rising. Some of the more recent years that will be remembered for brutal racist violence are 1995 and 1999. The year when the racist violence was on everybody’s lips was 1999. The year started with an attempt to murder a journalist who worked at a paper called expo. The purpose of the paper is to expose the truth about the right-wing organizations and people in Sweden. They do very active work against the Swedish racist organizations. They planted a car bomb and in the car were the journalist and his little boy. Both survived but still suffer from the injuries which the bomb inflicted. Two police officers were murdered by three men committing a bank robbery. All three were active in the struggle for white power.

A man who was active in a workers’ union was murdered by very young neo-nazis. Rest their souls. The murders weren’t really anything new, but the victims were the kind that made it in the news. 1999 showed an enormous amount of negative media coverage for the right-wing movements. I will come back to 1999 later.

3. The internet
By far one of the hottest recruiting channels for the racist youth organizations of today is the Internet. Without a large numbers of followers, the Internet is an extremely easy way to appear to be more numerous than you are. The youth organizations use the Internet as the main way to distribute the message and enlighten the supporters about their point of view. The web pages are easy to update and they find simple ways of spreading their posters, material and message.

A lot of the neo-nazi web pages have the function of an Internet based newspaper where the supporters can find both arguments for their cause and a portrait of the truth which can keep convincing them that their struggle is the struggle for truth. Via the Internet the supporters have unlimited access to White Power Music, books and traditional newspapers.

The internet has become the most powerful tool in the racist groups’ struggle. It is disturbing to know that in our Swedish schools young people download extreme right-wing propaganda on a daily basis.

4. White Power Music
White Power music isn’t a way of spreading the message in Sweden nowadays. Since the media began discussing White Power music in strong terms during the beginning of the nineties, that music has been banned in ordinary radio and schools and after-school centers are well-informed as to which music is racist and which is not.
But White Power music is in fact a very special source of encouragement for those who already have the conviction. The music is about martyrs and heroes and its main message is violence as a way to bring about change.

5. Youth culture
The extreme right-wing youth culture is a socially unaccepted culture. It is very unhip at the moment. Schools work hard with banning symbols and accessories. The MTV influence of young kids of today has a very positive result in working against racist youth culture. The skinhead culture only exists in a few places in Sweden today. But the culture of having those ideas predominates in some small communities. During some of my lectures in smaller communities in Sweden I have found places were no one dares to think differently. Even thou they don’t dress like it anymore. I have even met young people of foreign origin that are active racists, most certainly not because they believe in it but because it’s their only option.

The intolerance level among young people is declining. Every recent study shows that young people are getting more and more open towards refugees, foreigners, homosexuals and so on. But those who are not tolerant feel a bigger need to join a struggle maybe because they can’t be open about their views.

New groups of intolerant youth are growing. Biggest of them all is probably the group of young people living in a hip-hop/gangster rap culture. Their intolerance towards homosexuals is in most circles something no one questions. That culture’s view on gender equality issue is scary. A positive thing about that culture, on the other hand, is that most of them don’t care about the color of your skin.

But the trend is going in a positive direction, young people are getting more and more tolerant and open towards differences among us.

5. Social classes
The social class identities of the people active in right-wing organizations aren’t really a common denominator. In many other countries it is easier to see that young people in racist organizations come from a lower social class. Areas with high unemployment often have a higher rate of hostility towards foreigners.

In Sweden it is easier to see that most young people who are active racists come from an environment that lacks the presence of foreigners or refugees. A lot of the time that means upper class areas in the larger cities and from rural areas. Certainly there are a lot of lower class youngsters who are racists, but not so many of them that you can point out a pattern.

But the ideal that the right wing promotes is a working class ideal. But since that is still the most prominent ideals of the Swedish majority it is easy for them too find supporters in all social classes.

6. No easy explanations
During my years lecturing in schools and universities about my past and my own experiences, I have met a lot of young people who are racists. Some of them are active, most of them are not.

The explanations to why young people choose to become active racists within a organization are many. But one thing they all have in common, they want to assert themselves and find a group to belong to.

Many of them have been or are being abused in their home. A father or a stepfather who beats them up. A mother who has problems with alcohol and drugs.
Many of them have good family relations but their parents are racists and have been growing up with those ideas.

Some of them are only looking for a group belonging and want to be apart of something. Many are confused teenagers and their rebellion is of a racist kind. But they are all attracted by the brutality of the message, its simplicity. In the racist or National Socialist environment everything is either wrong or right. There are no confusions and never a debate about issues.

It is all black and white and a lot of kids are attracted by the simplicity of the ideology. Some kids expressing racist views in school discussions have been condemned by teachers and other kids for their ideas. That has in many cases been a decisive reason for them to become active or members of an organization.

They all look upon themselves as an oppressed part of society, and that is why the racist movement fits them like a glove.

But there are no easy explanations why young people become active. The racist environment can attract almost all young and insecure white kids. And if they stay in the movement for a long time they most certainly will become people who are ready to commit crimes in the name of the cause.