Johan Croneman: speculative raffle – but what does SVT want?

Is it a pity for gang Criminal Pala Omar, the protagonist of Mattias Sandberg’s three-part SVT documentary « Golen »?

That’s probably how we should feel, and think he is a victim, after all. And that our upset should be aimed at the police and the authorities that failed to protect him.

Or how was it again?

The filmmaker and the excavator Mattias Sandberg has followed Pala Omar for over a year. Omar thought he lived his life in relative anonymity, and in the greatest prosperity. He was just a simple honest criminal long -term in Borlänge, sold drugs, pulled in his sixty salmon a week, rolled up in designer clothes, gold and ate seven days a week at the best pub.

One day he would unfortunately get stuck, when the criminal network Foxtrot split between the « Kurdish fox » and « the strawberry » (they probably have to work a little on their cuddly alias). Two of the strawberry’s subordinates now demanded that Omar help them murder a friend to him. He would pick up, take care of and protect the two assassins, he would make sure they got weapons and were in the right place at the right time.

It is unclear if Mattias Sandberg really has a particularly good case, and even more unclear: What is it he wants to tell?

Pala Omar contacted Now (very clumsy and unthinkable) the police to save both their friend and their own skin. In other words, he became a golier – and now he expected a lifelong protection for both himself and his large family, new identity and a good accommodation abroad.

Mattias Sandberg thinks he has a really good case – a gang criminal who wants to leave the crimes and violence behind and seeks protection from the police and the authorities, asks society for help to testify.

It is unclear if Mattias Sandberg really has a particularly good case, and even more unclear: What is it he wants to tell, what is his case?

I am starting to feel uneasy Already in the front texts, the vignette, the music, the pictures, the clip. It looks like fiction, it looks like a great gangster series drama from Netflix or any other streaming service. It looks very little like serious investigative journalism.

I understand that you want to pack it nicely, I understand that you want to be heard in the noise, I understand that you need to be seen. But at what price? And in whose service?

And has SVT clearly thought: Why do you send this?

Omar himself does not often seem to believe in a docus soap, he acts as a reality star. He appears with a picture and name, not just in the SVT documentary, in the meantime he is visible both in Aftonbladet and in TV4.

Has Mattias Sandberg himself wondered what story it is he tells us? And has SVT clearly thought: Why do you send this? Where do we find the public interest? Surely it is just for the sake of the speculative raffle?

It is raffling, undeniablynot least when Pala Omar in the second section calls and talks to the « Kurdish fox » himself, which scoop! He talks to « Benzema » too, not the former Real Madrid star, but the high-ranking Capon in the Foxtrot network, the same « Benzema » who later during the film’s recording is shot dead on the open street in Bagdad, Iraq. (Pala Omar is also originally Iraqis.)

I expect more thoughtful SVT journalism

Pala Omar was, as I said, an established and successful small gangster in Borlänge, but he is not the sharpest knife in the box – and during the year that Mattias Sandberg follows him he makes so many bad, contradictory and disastrous decision that you hardly keep up with all the shifts.

And Mattias Sandberg Hang on in the same turn and in the same tone as Pala Omar, who constantly means that he just wanted to do the right thing, and now he expects a due reward: complete social protection. Amnesty!

He flees abroad, he is relapsed in crime – has he ever left it?

I expect more thoughtful SVT journalism. Maybe a little more thoughtful too.

Read more Chronicles by Johan Cronemanfor example: He is one of the big ones of our time – unfortunately more Danish than Swedish.