Fjordman’s latest essay concerns the ghastly realities of culture-enriching violence in Modern Multicultural Sweden.
The Peaceful Sweden Has Been Abolished
by Fjordman
In seven hours between March 4 and March 5, 2024, bombs detonated at two different apartment buildings in the Stockholm region, in Lidingö and Farsta.[1] Individuals suspected of being linked to rival factions in the country’s bloody gang wars are said to be living at these locations.[2]
Two bombs in one day in Sweden’s capital and Scandinavia’s largest city would at one time have been truly unexpected and shocking. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. Now, it is just another Monday or Tuesday. This is the brutal reality of Swedish society today.
Over the years I have written many essays about crime in Sweden. If I no longer do so as frequently as before, this is not because crime has gotten less. It is simply more difficult to mobilize sufficient mental energy to write about unpleasant subjects such as gang rapes or gang crimes.
You know that there will be more bombings, shootings, or arson attacks in Sweden next week, and the week after that, and the week after that. Why write about all of them? This is hardly news anymore. It is simply part of everyday life.
Perhaps this can be described as a form of war fatigue.
I was a child in the 1980s and understood little of Islam or ethnic conflicts. Nevertheless, I remember sometimes mentally tuning out when hearing news from the war in Lebanon. There is only so much human suffering one can stomach. Yes, it was sad to hear about people being killed in attacks, but one expected more deadly attacks in Lebanon the next day.
I had similar reactions to the wars in the Balkans in the 1990s, after the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Hearing about human beings being shot or bombed was always horrible. But again, one fully expected more of the same next week, and was often proven right.
Partly to my dread, I realize that I now have similar mental reactions to atrocities in Sweden and other countries in Western Europe. I suffer from war fatigue. Not from attacks in Lebanon or the Balkans, but in France, Germany, Italy, Britain, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
It may sound strange to develop war fatigue from countries that are nominally at peace. Yet Sweden suffers from violent attacks of some kind almost daily. Is that truly what peace looks like?
In 2008, the Swedish writer Anders Lugn wrote an article titled “Sweden’s road to disaster.” Somewhat unusually, he even had this text published in the major newspaper Aftonbladet. In the 1980s, Lugn served as a captain in UN-led peacekeeping forces in Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War. While living there, he asked himself how it was possible for such a wonderful country with so many good people to commit national suicide and self-destruct? Among several reasons for the collapse of Lebanese society he mentions a weak sense of national identity and common values, weak national armed forces, a weak police force, easy access to weapons (legal or illegal), and easy access to drugs. There was also a general sense of powerlessness among average citizens.[3]
Anders Lugn was deeply concerned to observe that many of the factors that contributed to a brutal civil war in Lebanon are now also at work in his native Sweden.