"When Evil is your neighbor, it is insufficient to stay silent"

I have just read the book Att Bo Granne med Onskan, or 'to live as a neighbor with evil', from 2010 by Klas Åmark, a professor of History at Stockholm University. The title of this post is Åmark's final words in the book.

In 2001 Göran Persson, then prime minister and a social democrat, commissioned 20m SEK to a grant project of six subjects over five years where Åmark was to write a summary which became the above book. The project concerned the relationship of Sweden with Nazi-Germany during 1933 to 1945. According to Åmark, Persson does not think it is necessary to apologize for being neutral during World War II. Apologize is perhaps a strong word but personally I think we should have sided immediately with Britain against Nazi-Germany.

The book is written without much discussion of the concomitant relationship with Anglo-America. You get a feeling that Sweden was surrounded by Germany and the Soviet Union without any hope of remaining in their civilization but instead having to succumb to the novel alien Nazi-world. Sweden did not take up arms to fight for what they say they stand for today and which was the alternative then.

When the social democrats now force the rightwing coalition to accept that the rebels can't be helped by ground attacks with the Swedish air force contingent that is to participate in the Libya war, they call upon this ghost of letting the heavy fighting to Anglo-America. It is of course good that Sweden joins the battle with NATO, even if I'm personally against these particular attacks for reasons that I have given in earlier posts, but it would be interesting to know if the Swedish people really is for this adventure since they are against joining NATO.

I'm not saying that entering the Libya fight would be the same thing as joining World War II. The Libya mission is one of these policing activities. But together with Afghanistan and Iraq it represents a conflict between democracy and dictatorship, something Torgny Segerstedt wrote a book about after having stated in 1933 that Hitler was an insult to the world. I don't know but the fact that Libya held the chairmanship of the UN Human Rights Committee qualifies as such but Gaddafi does of course not represent a military threat although there should not be any funds available for fighting at present, economically speaking.

It is not only the Arab and Persian worlds that are dictatorial. We also have China. Strangely, pragmatism and economic realities then also become our enemies to a certain degree. However, I am being constantly reminded that the economy rules which together with problems of disclosures of what the realities of power actually is today, which sometimes makes me worried.

In 1939 the situation was more clear. Anglo-America was democracy. They are more lonely though. So much greater reason for clearly side with enlightenment. It is good to see that Sweden is perhaps a little more on democracy's side today.