harborshore (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
harborshore) wrote2011-07-23 04:19 pm
harborshore) wrote2011-07-23 04:19 pm
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On being a Social Democrat
Today, when at least 84 teenagers and young adults have been killed because they were at the Norwegian Labor Party's youth camp, I'm thinking about what Social Democracy in Scandinavia means, historically and now. Because what we have, Sweden and Norway (and Denmark, though these days they've given in to a right-wing bent in their immigration politics) so often gets cited as unbelievably liberal. And there are people who hate it. I'm going to write about Sweden for some of this, not because I want to "claim" this grief for us in any way, but because we share a historical background and approach. This will probably not be especially coherent, but I needed to write it.
The post includes mentions of two political assassinations as well as this weekend's mass murder, but just mentions, that is, statements of fact: they happened. This isn't a post about political assassinations or murders, this is a post about what inspires the fear and the hate: the unbending belief in a world where everyone has the same rights and the possibility of working towards that world through political change.
Utöya is an island where, every year, the youth section Norwegian Social Democratic Party hosts a youth camp. Jens Stoltenberg, the Norwegian PM, has spent time there every summer since 1974. This year, 700 teenagers and young adults in their early twenties came from all over Scandinavia. For the gunman to go here is very very deliberate. So what does it symbolize? Why would it inspire so much hatred?
The Labor movement fought for social equality, better pay, better work conditions, for a society where people had a right to health care and a right to be safe and a right to come and live. Olof Palme was a Swedish PM who was assassinated in 1986 and who worked strenuously against apartheid, against the Franco regime, and for equality between men and women. The right-wing extremists (and the regular conservatives) hated him: the threats were manifold and the demonstrations and campaigns against him were vicious. And yet he kept working.
He called Franco's regime "Goddamn murderers" and he spoke out against the US in Vietnam and against a number of authoritarian regimes and terrorist movements. And then he was murdered. At his funeral, the then-chairwoman of the Social Democratic Party's Youth League, Anna Lindh, said:
Anna Lindh died on September 11th, 2003, murdered. She was our Secretary of Foreign Affairs, then, and had accomplished so much. Her record is such that I can't really summarize it here. Like Palme, she was never afraid to speak out.
Now Norway. Gro Harlem Brundtland who spoke at Utöya hours before the massacre, is a former Norwegian PM who was especially hated by the attacker. She has headed the WHO, working towards a world where everyone has access to health care because, as she put it, that is how the world should work. She is a part of the Elders, a group consisting of Desmond Tutu, Mary Robinson, Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter, and others. But that is not why this man hates her so much. He hates her because she said this: "Everyone with a Norwegian passport is a true Norwegian." It's that simple, sometimes. That simple and that terrifying.
That's what it is, Nordic Social Democracy. A perspective on society where solidarity is central to everything, where rights mean something because that's everything they worked for, the Labor movement: rights should be the same for everyone. And they aren't, of course, because we don't live in a Utopia (those words have never been more painfully true), but I am so proud of this history that we have. That IS Utöya: a place for young people to come together, work together, to figure out the world they live in and how they want to change it. All the survivors are saying they want to take it back, to reclaim it. As Jens Stoltenberg said (today or yesterday): "The answer to this violence is more openness, more democracy. We will not give in to fear."
The post includes mentions of two political assassinations as well as this weekend's mass murder, but just mentions, that is, statements of fact: they happened. This isn't a post about political assassinations or murders, this is a post about what inspires the fear and the hate: the unbending belief in a world where everyone has the same rights and the possibility of working towards that world through political change.
Utöya is an island where, every year, the youth section Norwegian Social Democratic Party hosts a youth camp. Jens Stoltenberg, the Norwegian PM, has spent time there every summer since 1974. This year, 700 teenagers and young adults in their early twenties came from all over Scandinavia. For the gunman to go here is very very deliberate. So what does it symbolize? Why would it inspire so much hatred?
The Labor movement fought for social equality, better pay, better work conditions, for a society where people had a right to health care and a right to be safe and a right to come and live. Olof Palme was a Swedish PM who was assassinated in 1986 and who worked strenuously against apartheid, against the Franco regime, and for equality between men and women. The right-wing extremists (and the regular conservatives) hated him: the threats were manifold and the demonstrations and campaigns against him were vicious. And yet he kept working.
Idéerna är döda säger somliga. Ungdomen går till dukat bord säger andra, till ett samhälle som byggts färdigt. Vårt svar är: vi står ännu bara i begynnelsen. Den demokratiska socialismen har aldrig tett sig mera nödvändig, aldrig haft större uppgifter än i den framväxande solidaritetens värld. Å ena sidan känner vi problemens svårighet, å andra sidan är vi medvetna om våra möjligheter. Vi går mot framtiden med kunskapen som instrument och övertygelsen som drivkraft. Och uppgiften kan aldrig bli för stor. Ty politik, kamrater, det är att vilja något.
My translation: Some say that the great ideas are dead. Others say that young people have nothing to fight for, that we are done building a society. Our answer is: we have only just begun. Social democracy has never seemed more necessary, never had greater things to do than today... On the one hand, we know the problems are difficult, but on the other, we are aware of our opportunities. We face the future with knowledge as our tool and conviction as our motivation. And the task can never be too great. Because politics, friends, means wanting something to happen.
He called Franco's regime "Goddamn murderers" and he spoke out against the US in Vietnam and against a number of authoritarian regimes and terrorist movements. And then he was murdered. At his funeral, the then-chairwoman of the Social Democratic Party's Youth League, Anna Lindh, said:
En människa kan mördas men inte idéer. Dina idéer lever vidare genom oss. Efter vår förmåga ska vi föra din kamp vidare, kampen för freden, för internationell solidaritet, kampen för ett fritt och öppet Sverige utan rasism och främlingsfientlighet. Vårt tack till dig blir att föra ditt budskap vidare.
My translation: You can kill a person, but you can't kill an idea. Your ideas live on in us. We will continue your struggle as best as we can, the struggle for peace, for international solidarity, the struggle for a free and open Sweden without racism and xenophobia. We will try to show our gratitude to you by continuing to spread your message.
Anna Lindh died on September 11th, 2003, murdered. She was our Secretary of Foreign Affairs, then, and had accomplished so much. Her record is such that I can't really summarize it here. Like Palme, she was never afraid to speak out.
Now Norway. Gro Harlem Brundtland who spoke at Utöya hours before the massacre, is a former Norwegian PM who was especially hated by the attacker. She has headed the WHO, working towards a world where everyone has access to health care because, as she put it, that is how the world should work. She is a part of the Elders, a group consisting of Desmond Tutu, Mary Robinson, Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter, and others. But that is not why this man hates her so much. He hates her because she said this: "Everyone with a Norwegian passport is a true Norwegian." It's that simple, sometimes. That simple and that terrifying.
That's what it is, Nordic Social Democracy. A perspective on society where solidarity is central to everything, where rights mean something because that's everything they worked for, the Labor movement: rights should be the same for everyone. And they aren't, of course, because we don't live in a Utopia (those words have never been more painfully true), but I am so proud of this history that we have. That IS Utöya: a place for young people to come together, work together, to figure out the world they live in and how they want to change it. All the survivors are saying they want to take it back, to reclaim it. As Jens Stoltenberg said (today or yesterday): "The answer to this violence is more openness, more democracy. We will not give in to fear."