Conflicted

Interesting piece this on the lack of coming to terms with the Second World War period in Sweden, where real but patchy actions to push back against the Nazis were matched or more by compromises with them. I have a degree of sympathy for the Swedish. Like this island, it was by dint of geography placed in a very difficult situation – perhaps an impossible one. That said some of the compromises made appear self-serving or excessive.

Yet the author makes a very clear point that:

…most important of all – when Denmark and Norway had their postwar legal and moral purges dealing with collaborators and local Nazis, Sweden did nothing of the kind. No self-examination or moral debate took place. Those who had sympathised with Hitler simply went silent, and continued their lives as if nothing had happened.

That is an issue never encountered in this state – simply put pro-German sentiment was fairly diffuse and politically near enough conspicuous by its absence at state level and relatively, though not entirely, low in the broader polity.

Whether that dynamic described by the author is key to the rise of the far-right in Sweden is another matter entirely. Other states which did have at least some reckoning also have far-right movements of varying sizes, and it seems to me that more recent developments internationally have, arguably, had a greater impact in terms of shifting the political ground on which matters are contested. But, that said perhaps the lack of self-reflection did allow the seeds of the far-right to persist more strongly than might have been otherwise.