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Six key takeaways from 'white book' that confirms Sweden Democrats' Nazi past
The Sweden Democrats presented their so-called 'white book' on Thursday, a nearly 900-page document following the party through its nationalist origins in 1989 to its entry into parliament in 2010. What are the key takeaways and reactions?
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Bevara Sverige Svenskt was a precursor to the Sweden Democrats
According to the report, many of the original leaders of the Sweden Democrats came from Bevara Sverige Svenskt (Keep Sweden Swedish), a racist, right-wing extremist and nationalist campaign organisation.
It managed to map thirty different members of the party at the time of its foundation in 1989, of which a third had links to Swedish fascist movements.
Ethnonationalist until the mid-90s
The Sweden Democrats' ideology was distinctly ethnonationalist, the report says, with political adversaries often described as fienden or "the enemy".
These were primarily split into three groups: Internationalists (which essentially referred to Jewish people), traitors (political adversaries) and immigrants who, according to Tony Gustafsson, the historian behind the report 'threatened cultural and ethnic homogeneity purely by existing'.
Contact with right-wing extremist organisations
In 1993, members of the Sweden Democrats were told to stop talking about race, while the party at the same time still had contact and links to right-wing extremist organisations.
In the 1990s, the party published antisemitic material, and many of its members were part of organisations like Vitt ariskt motstånd (White Arian Resistance) and Nordiska rikspartiet (The Nordic Realm Party, a Nazi party originally founded in the 1950s as the National Socialist Combat League of Sweden).
Vitt ariskt motstånd also acted as 'unofficial guards' at some of the Sweden Democrats' largest demonstrations.
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Youth organisation founded in 1992
The party's youth organisation SDU was founded in 1992. According to the document, the organisation had 'militant tendencies' and engaged in 'confrontational street activism'. Members described themselves as 'political soldiers', listened openly to antisemitic white power music, dreamed of a racial war, detested homosexuality and praised the Ku Klux Klan and the Holocaust.
Party starts to discuss clearing out the 'Nazi dregs'
In 1995, party leader Anders Klarström – who had a background in the Nordiska rikspartiet – was replaced by Mikael Jansson, and the Sweden Democrats started to undergo a change, according to the report.
The party banned symbols and uniforms related to the Nazis during demonstrations, and started internal discussions on how to clear out the "Nazi dregs".
The youth organisation was also cleaned up, reformed and made an official part of the Sweden Democrats.
In 2000, Jansson openly spoke about his hatred of Nazism.
Current party leader Jimmie Åkesson joined the party in the mid-1990s – it's not clear exactly when – and, according to Gustafsson, the change within the party is still ongoing.
Between 1992 and 2010, 130 people were expelled from the party, with expulsions from 1995 also taking place on ideological grounds. People who heiled or made clear racist or antisemitic statements were expelled, as well as members who had contact with antidemocratic groups.
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What has the response been to the white book?
Jimmie Åkesson apologised for the party's history in a speech at the Almedalen political festival the day before the white book was published, saying that he 'apologises deeply'.
This was criticised among other things by researcher Morgan Finnsiö from anti-racist magazine Expo who argued in Dagens Nyheter (DN) that the Sweden Democrats still have issues with antisemitism in the current party.
"There are many Jews in Sweden who still see their links to right-wing extremism as something frightening," he said. "In essentially every election the Sweden Democrats have stood in since their foundation, candidates have been revealed who still have links to the Swedish white power movement."
Gothenburg University researcher Christer Mattsson, who has read the entire report, told SVT that it was "a genuine academic document", adding that there was information in the report that he wasn't sure would be included. Mattsson works for the university's Segerstedt Institute, which engages in preventative work against antisemitism and racist organisations, among other things.
He explained that it wasn't just about the founding of the party, but also the fact that national socialism, antisemitism and race ideology all remained part of the party for several years, influencing its people, activities and institutions.
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"There were sediments of racial ideology, nazism and antisemitism in the early party, which were expressed by different people and affected the party's internal and external activities. It was, in other words, possible to express extreme views despite the fact that these were not anchored in the party's official stance," he told SVT.
In an interview with the TT newswire, Mattsson said that the document was detailed but lacked analysis.
'The interesting thing is what you do with this information, what has come forth,' he said.
Mattsson also rejected top Sweden Democrat Mattias Karlsson's claims that he could not be personally responsible for any of the party's history as he joined the party in 1999, years after it had started the process of change.
'There are few people in the Sweden Democrats today who were active during the early years,' Mattsson said. 'But that doesn't really matter. You can't individualise responsibility or the inherited history. It's not a question of which individuals are to blame. If you're part of the leadership of an organisation which has that history, you carry a collective responsibility for it.'
'I think a lot of people would find it reassuring if they said 'yes, we have this history and there is an aspect of guilt, and we want to apologise for that',' Mattsson said.
