Review of Mike Enoksson’s « The Swedish Radical Right » « 

It’s a family tradition, says Jason Stanley. In 1939, the researcher’s grandmother left Berlin for the United States. Now Stanley is moving himself from the United States to Canada. He does not want to see his children grow up in a country that is leaning towards becoming a « fascist dictatorship ». Big words. Doesn’t the professor exaggerate now?

Stanley – who last published the book « Erasing History. How Fascist’s Rewrite the Past To Control The Future » – has itself found that accusations of fascism will always be considered an overreaction, such as shouting on the wolf. Normalization of the moral exceptional means that « the limit for the correct use of » extreme « terminology is constantly moving on », which he writes in « Fascism’s methods » (Daidalos, 2019). That is exactly why we must recognize these methods. Permanent lies, mythologization of the past and propaganda that points out « the others » as a threat are central components. Likewise, an obsession with law and order – in your opinion. The one who rescues his country does not violate any lawas it is apparently called.

About it as Right now in the United States is not an expression of incipient fascism, what is fascism? The answer from the author Mike Enocksson is that the F-word should only be used to describe the regime in Mussolini’s Italy, and nothing else. Not Trump, Bolsonaro or Putin – then there is a great risk of missing the « real fascists » and « really ugly fish ». It actually says so.

In his new book, Enocksson follows a dark blue thread through the last hundred years of Swedish political history – from the courtyard crisis through contacts with Nazi Germany, post -war anti -communism to our day’s heat against immigration and multiculturalism. The story is done through figures such as Rudolf Kjellén, Sven Hedin, Per Engdahl, Leif Zeilon and Ian Wachtmeister – with the end point that the Swedish Democrats now have full influence over the Swedish government power.

This exposé, with generous quotes from articles, speeches and letters, is a large stock of the book, although most of it is known. It is with a familiar shiver that you read from a parliamentary president that Kjellén held on the population problem in 1907, where the kingdom is likened to a house with « all doors open ». Through a « hike the country’s own sons, » and through another « sneak up the children of foreign countries » with their dirty blood. A little over a century later, we see mass expulsions of young people while politicians tear their hair for the Swedes to give birth to more children.

Enocksson does initially A number of the fact that he himself is an old defunct Sweden Democrat, although it is unclear what this ethos will have on the book itself. Another question mark concerns the frequently quoted political scientist Stig-Björn Ljunggren, who also wrote the preface. How come it is not mentioned that he has long devoted himself to dramatizing cooperation with SD?

The second longer section of the book is about how the radical right as a « ideology family » should be defined. One starting point is « The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right » (2018) where sociologist Jens Rydgren states that in the radical right there is a common core of « ethnonationalist xenophobia and anti -establishment populism » which is often combined with sociocultural authoritarian thinking.

However, Enocksson wants to broaden the definition, and believes that the radical right actually contains three main ideologies – « right -wing populist conservatism, radical conservatism and ethnonationalism ». This is how it is mixed and obvious with home -made models and theories; There is nothing wrong with creativity. The risk when trying to launch your own concepts and definitions is just that you can be perceived as trivial, and that the reader gets sick. Sometimes it all becomes an incomprehensible word salad, which when Enocksson calls ethnonationalism a « encrypted national socialism » or refers to « spiritual racism ». Witty, That is, a quick and a clever type of racism?

How to look at Kent Ekeroth’s notorious speech in Trelleborg in October 2015? « Now it melts, » he spit out – while the party laid out lists of planned refugee locations. That fall it burned around Sweden

A discussion that is Worth taking seriously is where the boundary between radical right and extreme right should really be drawn. Enocksson leans towards a division where they are both considered to have overthrowing ambitions, but where the radical right « accepts the principle framework for democracy » and distances violence as a political method. It is an intuitive model, which still has weaknesses. Even within formal democracy, rights can be dismantled, especially if the people in question are identified as strangers.

In Sweden, for example, the government wants to make some citizenship less worthy than others. SD, for its part, wants to be able to lock in people indefinitely, without concrete criminal suspicion. And the violence? We may very well make democratic decisions that only affect certain groups, and allow the monopoly of violence to handle the handling. Isn’t it a type of political violence? In addition, the boundaries appear to be fluid. How to look at Kent Ekeroth’s notorious speech in Trelleborg in October 2015? « Now it melts, » he spit out – while the party laid out lists of planned refugee locations. That fall, it burned around Sweden.

When the dividing lines are about process and method, there is also the possibility to choose what works for the moment. Enocksson himself believes that Trump has moved from the radical right to the alternative right or « even the extreme right », with the storming of the congress as a crucial moment. However, he is definitely not fascist – right?

Recently, the United States brought Government hundreds of alleged gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador, without evidence and in violation of court decisions. Historian Timothy Snyder noted in a post on social media that if non-citizens lack the right to correct legal processes, the same applies to everyone else. « All the government needs to do is claim that you are not a citizen – and without a correct process you cannot prove the opposite. »

When will the violence come on a large scale? Like Jason Stanley, Snyder has chosen to move to Canada. The great unanswered question is, as Aftonbladets Karin Pettersson Formulate it whether Trump will use the military against his own population if they go out into the streets. « And will the army in turn obey orders when ordered to intervene against their countrymen? » (23/3).

Perhaps more people will experience that the boundary between the right -wing radical and the fascist in practice is not about ideological barriers – but about what the opportunities and resistance look like.

Read more texts by Kristina Lindquist And more reviews of current books