A-Infos (en) Italy, FdCA, IL CANTIERE #40 - SAC and the Rising Violence in Swedish Society - CGT - International Relations Committee (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

* This article was published in issue 404 (October 2025) of «Rojo y 
Negro». ---- The International Relations Committee of the CGT is 
interested in the social changes taking place in different countries and 
how the organizations with which we maintain close ties interpret and 
address them. On this occasion, we interviewed Gabriel Kuhn, Secretary 
General of the Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation (SAC) , to 
understand why Swedish society, which we considered a model of 
nonviolence, has now become one of the countries with the highest crime 
rates in Europe.

There's a 2021 television series, Thin Blue Line , set in Malmö. The 
first season still focuses on community policing, with extremely limited 
use of violence and weapons. In the third season, however, the problems 
of drug trafficking and sexual violence come to the fore. In 1986, Olof 
Palme was murdered by a gunshot in the street; in October 1999, the 
Nazis killed your comrade Björn Söderberg. Do you think there's a causal 
link between Palme's murder, that of Söderberg, and the current 
situation? Can we speak of a progressive "depacification" of Swedish 
society?

Yes, perhaps that's exactly what happened. But Sweden has always had a 
very profitable arms industry, so problems were probably simply 
externalized when the welfare state was at its peak and Swedish society 
was prospering. There has always been political violence, especially 
from the far right, so I don't think the Palme and Söderberg murders 
have much to do with the current gun violence.

Gang violence, shootings, and bombings are a real problem in Sweden; 
it's not something the political right invented. However, the right is 
taking advantage of it. The Moderate Party, which leads the current 
governing coalition, has based its entire 2022 election campaign on gang 
violence, promising more police, tougher laws, and harsher sentences.

The current situation has attracted a lot of international attention, 
and it's no coincidence that television series like Tunna blå linjen are 
so popular. Most people outside Sweden are surprised by these 
developments, as the country's image as a progressive and peaceful place 
is still deeply rooted. It's difficult to say what the exact causes of 
the current situation are.

Among the so-called experts here in Sweden, there is a wide variety of 
opinions. Several factors are intertwined:

Since the 1990s, the shift toward neoliberalism has been much more 
pronounced in Sweden than most people abroad imagine. Income inequality 
and social divisions have increased dramatically, numerous 
privatizations have taken place, social services have been dismantled, 
and the pursuit of profit has become the dominant norm.

Swedish society today is highly segregated, one of the most segregated 
in Europe: many immigrants live in suburbs where there are almost no 
ethnic Swedes, apart from civil servants, teachers, and police officers. 
These neighborhoods rank high in unemployment, crime, school dropouts, 
and so on. The sense of marginalization in these areas is very strong;

Sweden has a rather permissive legislation regarding weapons, and there 
is a large arms trade, both legal and illegal;

With Malmö being the gateway to the European continent and Stockholm the 
largest city in Scandinavia, Sweden serves as a central hub for 
organized crime in Northern Europe, especially when it comes to drug 
trafficking.

Gang violence is an undeniable reality, and the political left has yet 
to find convincing solutions to address it. Unfortunately, the right 
dominates the discourse.

Years ago, the police in Sweden were mostly seen as providing social 
assistance, not repression. Today, I read on a website something that 
could be equated with any European country: "They drink coffee and eat 
sweets, then go out to hunt and mistreat people with dark skin, the 
homeless, the undocumented, or the mentally challenged. Wherever they 
go, freedom diminishes and life withers like dry leaves on the ground on 
a late autumn day... They are racist, sexist, homophobic, and 
transphobic. They are arrogant, incompetent, self-righteous, corrupt, 
and addicted to the power they receive when they attack." Has the SAC 
had a debate about its relationship with the armed forces of the state?

Trade unionists in Sweden have always faced repression, especially 
during World War II, when they were among the few to criticize the 
Swedish emergency government's policy of appeasement towards Nazi 
Germany. Today, I don't know any SAC members who work in the security 
forces. Many in the union consider police officers to be class traitors. 
If any of them attempted to join the union, serious tensions would arise.

On February 28, 1986, Prime Minister Olof Palme was shot in the street 
as he was leaving a cinema without an escort, as was the custom at the 
time. Can you tell us if that event marked a shift in SAC's activism?

I don't think the assassination had a major impact on the organization. 
At the same time, it was a traumatic event for the entire country, and 
in that sense, it also affected the SAC. Palme was a controversial 
figure in Sweden: many on the right hated him. The assassination was 
never solved; security became a much more important issue, and Palme's 
death almost became synonymous with the end of the golden age of the 
welfare state.

Society changed, and the SAC had to reevaluate its role and find its 
place. Those times weren't necessarily favorable to the union.

On October 12, 1999, you were directly affected by the vile 
assassination, by a group of Nazis, of comrade Björn Söderberg, a 
well-known anti-fascist activist. The rise of the far right has 
undoubtedly continued; perhaps not so much in its most violent 
expression on the streets, but in its penetration into the social fabric 
and into people's daily lives. Is that true?

The far right was quite violent in Sweden in the 1980s and 1990s, and 
the murder of Björn Söderberg was a particularly hateful expression of 
this. Violence continued into the early 2000s, but both militant 
anti-fascist resistance and new far-right tactics made it less visible 
on the streets. However, it never completely disappeared. Arson attacks 
against the offices and private homes of anti-fascist activists, 
including members of the SAC, still occur today.

But yes, with the entry of the Sweden Democrats, a party with roots in 
the neo-Nazi circles of the 1980s, the far right has successfully 
entered parliamentary politics. The Sweden Democrats were elected to 
Parliament for the first time in 2010 and are now the second-largest 
party, just behind the Social Democrats.

There is thus a direct line connecting the fascists responsible for the 
assassination of Björn Söderberg in the 1990s and the far-right 
ideologues who roam the corridors of power today.

I'm well aware that the SAC organized pickets, strikes, and 
demonstrations... it wasn't a conciliatory union at all; yet, to a large 
portion of the Swedish population, including many veteran comrades and 
militants of the SAC itself, actions like gluing company doors, 
plastering the entrepreneur's neighborhood with graffiti labeling him as 
a repressive force, or writing on his house seemed like acts of violence.

The SAC is currently carrying out numerous blockades, but without 
violence. During the period you describe, there was certainly more 
militancy. With only a few thousand members, it's not surprising that 
there are differing opinions on this matter: some members think the 
union action we're carrying out today is appropriate, others want a more 
militant approach.

Whatever our decisions, we face an increasingly aggressive enemy. The 
ruling class is emboldened by the rightward shift in politics. A few 
years ago, a very restrictive strike law was introduced, and repression 
against union activists has reached new levels.

A few months ago, Erik Helgeson, vice president of the Dockworkers' 
Union, the only Swedish union with which SAC occasionally collaborates, 
was suspended from work in the port of Gothenburg because union members 
had decided to stop loading and unloading war material used by the 
Israeli army in Gaza. Helgeson had merely made the decision public, 
fulfilling his role as spokesperson for the union. This is an 
unprecedented event, to which we must find an answer.

What's coming through the media today are reports of increasingly 
violent incidents in Gothenburg, Örebro, Malmö... linked to 
migrant-origin criminal gangs and drug trafficking... A disastrous 
scenario, which had already been fueled in part by the so-called "Nordic 
Noir" media. Is all this real, or is it just information aimed at 
destabilizing?

There's some truth to all this; it's not just media propaganda. Many 
people are affected by these events, especially in the most 
disadvantaged neighborhoods, and something must be done. It has little 
to do with the idealization of crime that is part of the "Nordic Noir" 
movement; there's nothing romantic about marginalized communities 
experiencing widespread crime. But the solution can only come from the 
emancipation of these communities, enabling them to address the problems 
themselves and develop alternatives for those affected. External 
attempts to regulate gangs will not succeed, nor will the antics of 
right-wing parties.

We'd like to know how SAC is experiencing the exponential increase in 
sexual violence against women, considering that your organization has 
represented and continues to represent a space where the banner of 
sexual freedom and feminism has been organically rooted for years.

We are repelled by the anti-feminist and misogynistic attitudes that are 
part of the rightward shift we are witnessing. As a feminist union, we 
must resolutely oppose it. That said, we still have much to do 
internally: we are fighting against the patriarchal structures that 
still persist. However, there is progress: the majority of the members 
of the current central committee are women.

From the International Group of the CGT, we would like to praise the 
perspective conveyed by the SAC: the best way to address violent 
attitudes, whether from gangs or individuals, is through culture, 
training, dialogue, and an egalitarian social program, which the trade 
union organization can disseminate through its daily activity.

https://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/
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