Den Onödiga Flyktingkrisen (The Unnecessary Refugee Crisis) (Migra förlag) has come from the printer!
My contribution to this book is that I made some interior illustrations and they used a color version of one of them for the back cover. So I havenät been very involved in it, but it feels like an extremely important book right now.
I do have some reservations to the perspective of parts of it, that it focuses on the years since 2015 which may misrepresent the situation before that, but they also acknowledge that in some chapters of the book, so that’s ok. It’s nothing that should dissuade anyone from reading it.
Release events are coming up. I may go to the one in Lund if I can make it. Check out the event scheduleand ordering information at onodigaflyktingkrisen.se.
Here are a couple of my illustrations:
And a bonus one that didn’t make it into the book:
My latest published work is an illustration in Ordfront Magasin #3/2021, a special issue about the current state of migration policies in Sweden.
(Click image to see bigger version)
The title of the article translates as “Six years of cruelty”, which refers to the changed policies since the “Syrian refugee crisis” back in 2015. Earlier that year, the Swedish prime minister said that he wants to live in a Europe that is open and helpful when people are in need. In the fall, after a few months of massive refugee immigration, he chose to close the borders. They also “temporarily” stopped most permanent permits of residence, while temporary permits are the norm, along with other restrictions making it harder to pass an application for asylum. “Temporarily” in quotations, because that rule is still active 6 years later and we’re not expected to be going back to normal for a while, if ever. A new law that was passed June 22 of 2021, they made things even harsher. For example, they now have a list of “safe countries” from which asylum applications can be denied with a minimum of deliberation. Which would be hard to combine with the rule that you need individual cause when you apply, but I guess it’s easy if the main goal is to deny asylum for as many as possible and everything else is secondary.
So let’s talk about the normal. Because I’ve seen this 6 year thing mentioned a few times now, and it always bugs me. The text goes on to describe how the whole asylum process has become worse. How asylum decisions are arbitrary, how translators sometime don’t even know the language they’re supposed to interpret but the interviews carry on anyway, how cases are decided without even being thoroughly researched, how lawyers who are supposed to represent the interests of asylum seekers don’t take their jobs seriously etc etc. And I’m sure things have become much worse after the laws were changed BUT all these things were true even before 2015.
I understand the need to really look at the current situation and look at how the laws and practices have become much worse in the last few years. But I also think there is a danger in pretending that if we just go back to the situation as it was in 2014, things would be good again. Because they weren’t.
The illustration I made, representing the migration process as a sort of lottery, was inspired not by what’s happened recently but by how it’s been as far back as I’ve had any kind of insight into the whole thing.
Twenty years ago, we protested against the “refugee storage facilities” (flyktingförvar), as detention centres for asylum seekers are dehumanizingly called in Swedish. People had to hide refugees who weren’t allowed to stay but were desperate not to go back to where they came from. Refugee children were apathetic and mentally unreachable from hopelessness and fear. We were protesting what was called Fortress Europe. Sweden sent money and personnel to Frontex, the EU joint border patrol project designed to keep the unwanted out of Europe. Scientifically dubious age assessments were used to deem children to be older than 18 in order to be able to deport them easier without having to (on paper) violate any UN conventions. Ten years ago, we were protesting mass deportations to Iraq and Afghanistan, basically active warzones. Palestinians who has been without a country to return to, in some cases for their entire lives, were hungerstriking outside the Swedish Migration Agency in hopes that they would be listened to and finally be allowed to have a place to call home. Various government agencies were cooperating with the Police to hunt for undocumented immigrants in special projects that used racial profiling to find the ones they were looking for. And none of these things are over. None of them are things of the past, even if the names and methods change slightly, but they are also not things of only these last seven years of even more monstrous policies. And if this is how we treat refugees, it’s gonna be even worse for non-refugee migrants.
The neofascist/ultra conservative/nationalist party Sverigedemokraterna haven’t grown to become Sweden’s third biggest party as a response to Sweden being overrun by hordes of foreign rapists, as they would describe it. They’ve grown in a climate where the “normal” parties have pursued increasingly restrictive migration policies for the last 30 years or so, lending normalcy to anti-immigrant sentiments simply by realizing those sentiments through laws and governmental praxis.
Arbitrary and legally insecure are definitely words to describe the current state of the migration system, and it needs to change. As it has been for a long time, it’s just extra worse right now.
Anyway, if you want to know more (and if you read Swedish), go get the latest issue of Ordfront Magasin. Even if the “six years” rhetoric makes me angry, it is something that needs to be talked about from perspectives other than the currently dominating “immigrants are the cause of all crime and terrorism and all the other bad things” delusion.
Another one in Swedish, mostly becaue I’ll be linking to articles in Swedish. Sorry for that, but I promise the next one will be in English as usual…
Just nu vet jag inte vad som händer, för jag såg precis att Centerpartiet har backat om marknadshyrorna. Eller jag menar den fria hyressättningen för nyproducerade lägenheter. Och för nyrenoverade lägenheter (och så småningom för alla, men det får vi inte prata högt om för det skulle bli en överraskning).
Det finns också andra som kan de här frågorna bättre än jag, så jag tänkte låta dem prata lite, men även om det är så verkar det finnas en del riktigt stora plot holes i den offentliga debatten kring detta. Kan det kanske vara för att många som skriver/pratar om det själva har en hög eller åtminstone ganska bekväm inkomst och bor i bostadsrätter och därför inte har koll på verkligheten för många av oss som skulle drabbas? Kanske är det för att det finns en utbredd fobi mot allt som luktar vänster?
För visst känns det som att det finns nästan en desperation i hur Vänsterpartiet hela tiden måste nedvärderas, misstänkliggöras och oskadliggöras i all offentlig debatt? Nästan som att deras ideologi skulle kunna utgöra ett verkligt hot mot den enda vägens nyliberala politik om folk börjar ta dem på allvar.
Men om vi bortser från partipolitiken en stund… Här är några saker som många verkar glömma/ha svårt att förstå/inte bry sig om: – Det är inte “betalningsvilja” som hindrar folk från att betala en hyra som kanske går upp med 40% jämfört med hur det ser ut idag. Många av oss har helt enkelt inte råd. Vi har inte tillräcklig hög inkomst, inget undanlagt kapital, ingen möjlighet att plötsligt välja att tjäna mycket mer pengar. Har man ett par tusen kvar varje månad efter att hyra och andra nödvändiga räkningar är betalda så är det inte så lätt, och de som verkar tro det har antagligen inte behövt räkna i huvudet när de går och handlar mat för att veta vad de har råd med. – Samma sak spelar in i “valet” att bo i hyresrätt istället för bostadsrätt, för den som tror att det kunde vara en utväg. För att kunna ta lån behöver man en viss nivå av inkomst. Och äger man en lägenhet stängs man ute från en del sociala skyddsnät. Om man ser det som en sista men kanske nödvändig utväg att söka försörjningsstöd så får man inte äga en lägenhet. – Det verkar också finnas någon utopisk tro på att om man inte kan betala hyran så kan man flytta till något billigare, men det är svårt nog att hitta redan nu, och kommer inte direkt bli lättare om alla hyror går upp. – Att tvingas flytta från sitt hem är inget som någon vill. Det gäller även de som tvingas på grund av ekonomiska orsaker.
Nu när jag skriver detta förstår jag inte riktigt varför jag behöver säga sådana här självklarheter, men jag har också träffat folk som inte verkar kunna förstå att det finns de som har ekonomiska problem helt enkelt bara genom att försöka leva.
Dan Hallemar skrev en rätt bra text i Expressen om den historiska kampen kring hyresrätterna. Nu är den artikeln typiskt nog låst, men här är några citat:
En av de viktigaste sociala rörelserna i Sverige i början på 1900-talet var den som kom från hyresgäster som blev vräkta från sina hem. I församlingarna på Södermalm i Stockholm vräktes vid den här tiden i genomsnitt 600 människor från sina bostäder varje år. Detta på grund av att hyressättningssystemet var helt fritt, utsattheten enorm. 1917 röstade riksdagen med bred majoritet fram hyrestegringslagen och besittningsrätten. Beslutet garanterade hyresgästerna en högsta hyra samt att den som hade en bostad skulle få behålla den. Alla hyreshöjningar skulle godkännas och alla uppsägningar skulle kontrolleras av kommunala hyresnämnder. Hyresregleringen upphörde 1923 mitt under en kraftig lågkonjunktur. De hade setts som tillfälliga krisåtgärder. Hyresgästerna var åter lämnade till fastighetsägarnas godtycke.
(…)
Hyresrätten blev det viktigaste medlet för att uppnå [en generell bostadspolitik som skulle höja alla medborgares bostadsstandard, även de med dålig ekonomi], genom de allmännyttiga bostadsbolagen. Tillsammans med den unika – och fram till 1969 priskontrollerade – bostadsrätten började den sociala bostadspolitiken formas. De senaste trettio åren har man gjort vad man har kunnat för att vrida klockan tillbaka till den glödande askans år 1923.
För det finns också en oerhörd kraft – ja ilska – i att bostadsfrågan börjat formuleras, precis som då. Den har ofta tagit form som aktivism, som den rörelse mot utförsäljningen av hyresrätter som Nooshi Dadgostar drog i gång 2012 under parollen ”Alby är inte till salu”. Det här är en kamp som förs över hela Europa.
(…)
Tänk om alla vi som bor i hyresrätt inte är det statarboskap som ni trodde att vi var, tänk om vi också har hem som vi vill bo kvar i, tänk om vi inte är en del i en möjlig flyttkedja som ni funderat ut utan länkade till den plats som vi bor på. Trots att vi inte äger det hem som vi varje dag låser upp dörren till? Tänk om det hemmet, den nyckeln – den idén om ett hem för oss som aldrig hade råd att vara kvar på den där marknaden – också är ett samhälles idé om att de som inte har råd, de unga, de nyskilda, de som just kommit hit, de som pensionerats med låg pension ska ha råd med en bostad.
Sedan har vi de partipolitiska turerna i riksdagen de här senaste dagarna. Tror det finns en rätt bra sammanfattning på Erik Wiklunds blog. Han pratar om partipolitiska kompromisser och ännu några blinda fläckar som kan bero på hur olika politiker ser på sin yrkesroll:
Den här eliten har så klart också sina företrädare i Sveriges riksdag. Partier för vilka politiken inte finns till för alla oss som lever i samhället, utan för att upprätthålla vissa ekonomiska logiker och transaktioner. Det är det här som gång på gång kallas “förnuftigt” och “balanserat”, det är det här som är “mitten” och att vara emot det är att vara en orealistisk drömmare. Ingen socialdemokrat skulle formulera sin politiska vision på det här viset, men de kan samtidigt inte föreställa sig någonting annat. Striden om marknadshyror sker mot bakgrund av nya skandaler och avslöjanden kopplade till den djupt impopulära men i hög utsträckning politiskt döda frågan om rätten för privata företag att tjäna pengar på vård, skola och omsorg. Den här rätten för en liten elit att ta för sig av resurser som tillhör det gemensamma och samhällets mest resurssvaga är så klart den centrala komponenten både i vad liberaler försvarar med vinster i välfärden, och i vad de kämpar för med marknadshyror. Med stor möda förmåddes Socialdemokraterna förra mandatperioden att presentera ett förslag på hur vinsterna skulle kunna begränsas, men efter Januariavtalet står Vänsterpartiet ensamt i den striden.
Frågan nu är väl vad det innebär att januariavtalet ska omförhandlas, för C lär ju vilja ha något annat i utbyte nu när de inte fick detta. Som typ inskränkt strejkrätt eller slopad LAS eller något annat sätt att spotta oss i ansiktet. Tur att S aldrig skulle gå med på något av det. För det skulle de väl inte? Eller?
Last week was the 20 year anniversary of the Gothenburg riots. Thought I should say something about it. Sorry for the Swedish. Sometimes I just need to write in my native language…
Som barn fick vi lära oss att demokrati var bra. Allteftersom vi växte upp märkte vi att det fanns luckor i den etablerade demokratin. De som hade att göra med Migrationsverket, Försäkringskassan eller för den delen arbetsmarknaden i stort, såg att demokratin, tanken om att folket skulle styra, inte nådde alla delar av samhället, inte nådde alla som befann sig i samhället. Det gick att se ganska tydligt att EU inte var ett helt demokratiskt projekt, att Polisen inte styrdes av folket, att storföretagen inte svarade till några väljare utan bara till ett fåtal väl bemedlade ägare och att valutainstitutioner som IMF, Världsbanken etc inte var delaktiga i demokratin trots det stora inflytande de har över våra liv.
Men det fanns ändå de av oss som trodde på demokratin som koncept. Som ville utöka den till något som på riktigt började likna ett folkligt medbestämmande. Rörelsen kan sammanfattas som den utomparlamentariska vänstern och kunde inbegripa allt från anarkister och autonoma kommunister till fackföreningar och Attac (vars egentligen enda fråga rörde något så ödmjukt som att valutahandeln kanske borde beskattas).
Den rörelsen kom till Göteborg i juni 2001 för att protestera mot ett EU-toppmöte (som dessutom besöktes av George W Bush), en del av en global proteströrelse som tröttnat på det demokratiska underskottet och som trodde på att en annan värld var möjlig.
Jag var en av dem. Jag stod utanför Hvitfeldtska som var barrikaderat av Polisens containrar. Jag kom till Reclaim-gatufesten på Vasagatan i tid för att höra att Polisen hade skjutit någon. Jag var med i en av svensk historias största demonstrationer som stoppades av Polisen på vägen ner mot Svenska mässan där toppmötet hölls och tvingades tillbaka upp på Avenyn där jag strax efter såg gatstenar falla som jämna skurar över poliserna och tänkte på alla gånger jag sett eller hört om den motsatta situationen, där Polisen (så sent som bara några veckor tidigare i Malmö) brukade skära av demonstranter från varandra, definiera en grupp som ”farlig” för att sedan gå lös med sina batonger, stoppa in folk i bussar och köra dem ut ur stan eller låsa in dem på polisstation. Eller de senaste dagarna när de hade gått loss på folk både på Hvitfeldtska och på Reclaimet, när de satte tonen för hela situationen. Jag tänkte på de gångerna och kände en stor lättnad när jag såg att de för en gångs skull blev tvungna att backa.
Jag var på Järntorget som spontant hade fyllts med folk i protest mot att Polisen skjutit och misshandlat människor som vid det laget kanske hade dött eller åtminstone var nära döden. Vi var ganska noga med att skilja på rykten och bekräftad fakta, men bland det som klassades som rykten var det lite osäkert vad som var sant, vad som var desinformation eller överdrifter och vilka fakta som undanhölls. När jag och min vän som jag spenderade de flesta av dagarna med lämnade torget möttes vi av poliser som spärrade av gatan precis bakom oss, och just där och då var jag helt säker på att nu skulle de gå in och spöa på alla som var fast inne på torget. En helt logisk känsla med tanke på vad vi sett dagarna innan, men just den här gången blev det inte så. De höll torget flera timmar tills något av befälen helt enkelt tröttnade och gav order om att de skulle släppa torget och gå därifrån. Strax efter det hörde vi via telefon hur de istället (fast inte Polisen utan Nationella Insatsstyrkan) attackerade Schillerska gymnasiet där en del av aktivisterna skulle sova sista natten innan de åkte hem. De gick in maskerade och med automatvapen, drog ut folk halvnakna och tvingade ner dem på asfalten i regnet. Hade de börjat avrätta folk där och då hade jag i den situationen inte blivit förvånad.
När allt detta hände blev jag inte lika chockad som många andra blev. Mitt förtroende för ordningsmakten var så lågt vid det laget, efter flera dagar av massiv repression, och ett par år av att ha varit politiskt medveten innan detta hände och ha hört om hur Polisen ganska regelbundet misshandlade vänsteraktivister i samband med demonstrationer, gatufester och liknande. Jag hade sett det med egna ögon även om jag vid det laget inte blivit drabbad av det personligen (mer än i andra hand när vänner råkade illa ut). Jag visste att sånt hände i andra länder och hade släppt tanken om att det aldrig skulle kunna hända här.
Och sedan kom jag hem från Göteborg. Pratade med personer som inte varit där. Och såg den bild de hade sett av vad som hänt. De kommande veckorna spelade jag in allt jag kom över av TV-rapporteringen på video. Timma efter timma av nyhetsinslag, analyser och debatt, där jag inte kände igen mig i något alls av det, förutom ett inslag i Uppdrag Granskning (och några deltagare som släppts in i något debattprogram och fick utrymme att säga något vettigt). Allt annat var katastrofrubriker, misstänkliggörande, påhejande av polisen, socialdemokrater som gav dem blommor för deras insats, finvänstern som tog avstånd från kravallerna, högern som krävde av alla som hade minsta koppling till vänstern att de också skulle ta avstånd, rena lögner om vem som gjort vad och varför. Köksredskap som beskrevs som vapen i brist på riktiga vapen för att rättfärdiga polisinsater, den mytologiska tyska terroristen som polisen låtsades leta efter men som aldrig fanns, det totala demoniserandet av demonstranter, skönmålandet av poliser och tystnaden om alla delar av protesterna som inte handlade om våld. För där fanns massor av föredrag, symboliska manifestationer, organiserande, diskussioner, folkkök. Saker som antagligen skulle upplevas som positivt av de flesta men som inte fick någon uppmärksamhet alls för att det inte passade in i narrativet.
Det fanns de som trodde att de osynliggjordes på grund av kravallerna, men jag är rätt säker på att de inte hade synts annars heller. Medialogiken säger att vänstern är våldsam och kastar sten och om det inte händer finns inget nyhetsvärde. Det fanns också de som fortfarande hade en tro på ett Sverige som inte betedde sig som en polisstat, där den tredje statsmakten var objektiv och socialdemokraterna var partiet på folkets sida. De kände inte igen sig i hur de skildrades och de kände inte igen samhällets reaktioner. Men även om jag inte kände mig lika förvånad så har de där händelserna, inte helt enskilt men tillsammans med sin större kontext, ändå till stor del format mitt konstnärskap och mitt författande som serieskapare. Ansiktslösa horder av våldsamma poliser är inte bara vanligt förekommande utan finns ofta där som ett självklart inslag. Det är helt enkelt så det är. Ibland kommer jag att tänka på att det kanske inte framstår som lika självklart för dem som inte var där, i Göteborg i juni 2001.
Den sommaren var det vi som var Terroristerna, och det är frustrerande nog svårt att klandra dem som inte var där om de gick på det, för det var i stort sett den enda bilden som fanns. Det backades upp av osedvanligt långa fängelsestraff för de som åkte fast. Lite som att budskapet var: om du beter dig som att Sverige vore något annat än världens mest framstående och demokratiska land, då måste du straffas extra hårt så du lär dig att så är det faktiskt inte. Polisen i andra länder kanske gör fel och använder övervåld, till och med Polisen i Sverige förr i tiden kan eventuellt ha gjort det, men inte här och inte nu. Vet hut, gå till ditt rum i fem år och tänk över vad du gjort.
Sommaren 2001 slutade den 11 september. Efter det var det inte längre vi som var Terroristerna, men inte för att vi fått upprättelse eller för att mediebilden skulle ha hunnit nyanseras nämnvärt utan bara för att uppmärksamheten drogs åt ett annat håll.
Here’s the text that accompanies it in the book. I wrote it earlier this year, but it’s of course still current since some change comes reeeaaally slow, if at all.
ALL CATS ARE BEAUTIFUL (or ACAB)
So it happened again, on May 25 of 2020. Another name added to the list of people who were murdered by Police. I won’t mention his name here because I won’t mention any names because there are too many. I won’t mention his skin color because he was a human being first and foremost, but also because you already know. We still remember him and his last moments.
I should perhaps mention here that I am White and I live in a segregated little country called Sweden. I may not be completely segregated personally, not completely socially unconnected to the groups of people who are usually the victims of Police violence, but I don’t think I personally know anyone who has been killed by cops.
Abused in some way by police? Sure, lots of people, including friends, friends of friends, family, loose aquaintances and myself at one point. Most of it political, some of it in enforcement of what I’d call racist legislation concerning migration (which is also political) and some for other reasons.
But murdered by Swedish Police? Not as much. I think the closest one was a relative of an ex of mine. They don’t do that as much in Sweden as in some other countries, even though it’s not unheard of. But the thing is that US culture is also our culture in many ways. The current US president may wage an internal culture war against anything left of the Republicans at the moment, but internationally, they won years ago. We in the rest of the world watch US TV and movies, eat food from US food chains, play US games, read US books and comics, it’s everywhere. I even use mostly US English even though the one I learned in school was the British one. Sure we miss a lot of nuance and we only get the surface of it. Most of us don’t know what it’s like to live in the US, we haven’t felt it in our bodies. But we identify with US culture, and part of that comes in the form of transferred race relations.
I’m not saying this to exonerate us in any way. We have contributed lots to the ingrained racism ourselves, we can’t blame Hollywood for that. But when we see cops murder Black people in the US in the news and social networks, we feel kind of like it’s happening here. In part because the same things are also happening here on a smaller scale, but also because we’re all affected by US politics. Through wars and the tentacles of their capitalist practices and reproduction of the class system they’re so good at maintaining (even though we at least still have comparatively free health care).
So it happened again. And again. And again. And it felt like it happened to us, because Sweden isn’t all White, you know, just largely segregated, and our history classes probably taught us more about slavery in the US than US children learn in school. And this time the name and the reactions got bigger. This time it was the drop that made the glass spill over, just like it was those other times. The name and the reaction got so big this time that maybe. Just maybe. Maybe this time was going to be different. Maybe something would actually change. Even though it didn’t in any of those other cases.
But even after that last big name, there were more people killed. Some of it was political, people getting shot to death at protests. Some of it were traffic stops or other misdemeanors. Driving while Black. Breathing while Black. The names kept piling up and for each one the newsworthiness diminished and most of them probably went completely under the radar for the people whose local communities weren’t directly affected.
Because All Cops Are Bastards. And by that I mean that they largely get away with whatever they do. They can use excessive force with no repercussions. They can harass innocent people with no repercussions. They can kill with no repercussions. The exceptions to this rule are too few to make a difference.
As I started writing this text there was an incident in Sweden where some truck driver got a cop’s baton shoved up his ass, and it was ruled that it had to have been either an accident or a warranted police action. The court didn’t determine which one it was but it didn’t matter as long as the cop and his commanding officer were innocent. Which only seems likely in a world where anything a cop does is automatically defensible. Too bad that’s the world we live in.
All Cops Are Bastards. It may sound like a harsh statement, but let me explain:
Even if the bad ones really are just a number of individual cops, that means that the rest of them are either quietly approving or, in at least a few cases I hope, actively resisting. And the ones that are approving of racist or violent behavior, or even quietly disagreeing, are part of the problem. The ones that are resisting (though I hear that’s really hard to do from within the corps) will be aware enough that it’s a systemic problem that they will know what we mean when we say that All Cops Are Bastards. As the saying goes: a few bad apples spoil the bunch.
Because it is a systemic problem, which means that it’s not enough to punish a couple of cops who went too far. No amount of measures are enough until Black people don’t need to be afraid of being killed by cops for existing on the streets, at work or even in their homes. It’s not enough until some nedlessly upset White people can no longer use a 911 call as a potential murder weapon. Which goes for both the US and for Sweden.
Some people seem to believe that there is no racism anymore, because slavery was officially abolished in the US, because the Nazis lost the second world war or because most countries (looking at you, Israel) don’t have any official laws demanding racial segregation. But it’s only possible to still believe that while looking at, for example, the statistics for incarceration and police killings in the US if you see those numbers through a lens that says that Black people by nature are more likely to commit crimes. Same goes for the unequal distribution of wealth. And I’m sorry to break it to you, but that is by definition a racist lens.
Combine racism, a disdain for the poor and widespread misogyny with a police force that not only is immune to repercussions but in many ways has the same mentality as a criminal gang or a bunch of bullies, and what do you get? A situation where All Cops Are Bastards and where Black Lives don’t Matter. Which means that All Lives don’t Matter. Which is something that everyone should care about, even those who aren’t personally directly affected in their daily lives.
White people aren’t of course immune to violence from the police. White people are just not subjected to violence or suspicion BECAUSE they are White. Which is an important distinction that does not contradict that we all have everything to gain from joining forces to make changes, because maybe another world is possible. One without class differences, without racism and without police brutality. One where that list of names doesn’t keep growing.
Reposting this as kind of a contribution to the current discussion about racism and police violence.
It’s a chapter from my graphic novel Me & my Daddy & Zlatan. I started working on this story back in 2009, trying to capture the feeling in some parts of Sweden (which is NOT a perfect country where Police are great and serviceminded to everyone and racism is a thing of the past if it ever even existed here, no matter what some people seem to think). Hope you enjoy it. I really wish it would have been outdated by now, but sadly it isn’t.
Click images to make them bigger/more readable:
You can order the book, ins Swedish or English version, from the Hybriden webshop.
75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz. Will we make it to 100 without a repetition of the Holocaust? This year, for some reason, someone somehow allowed the Sweden Democrats (our biggest racist party) be in charge of a remembrance ceremony. Oh, did I call them racist? I’m not sure that’s allowed anymore, because it would mean that a great segment of the Swedish population would also be racist for supporting them. And we can’t have that, can we? They did use to be nazis, and they do blame every bad thing they can think of on immigrants, muslims, leftists, descendants of immigrants, feminists etc. But that’s not enough anymore, it seems, as long as they don’t openly call themselves racist.
Anyway, I made these two comics (I only have Swedish versions, sorry for that) for the exhibition Mus, Mouse, Maus in 2010/2011, an exhibition to honor Art Spiegelman’s excellent comic Maus, and also in remembramce of the Holocaust:
And the follow-up, since they asked for a new, less provocative version for a later edition of the exhibition:
I really should translate these, shouldn’t I? I’ll try to do that at some point…
What used to be nerd trivia is now common knowledge. When I was a kid, it wasn’t ok to know things like: who is Aunt May, what are the superpowers of the X-men, what’s the name of Superman’s adoptive mother and Batman’s birth mother? Ok, the last two have no justification for their exaggerated status as common knowledge, if you get my drift, but still. Who would have guessed that there would ever be a Black Panther movie that people in general (even in Sweden) would look forward to? Who would have thought that a Punisher TV series would even be possible?
That’s fiction gaining ground in the general consciousness. Superhero fiction it may be, and I’m not saying it’s a lower form because it’s superheroes because I know there are some good stories coming out of the genre, but you know, who would have thought that this underestimated genre could become so successful in the mainstream? And, maybe more importantly, what will come from it? Because out of a superhero-dominated North American comics culture came lots of interesting stuff, within the genre and from other parts of a culture whose lifeblood was those menand women in tights. Now I’m talking about a period that spans the 1980s and forward that is still evolving.
Speaking of women in tights… Did you know that, for example, the X-men comics were doing things with gender equality in the late 70s/early 80s that the movie industry is still working to catch up with. Could you imagine that the Wonder Woman movie, as progressive as it is in some respects, is actually a step backwards in many ways. It’s shameful to have to wait until now for this kind of big female superhero main character. At the same time it’s great that it finally came. It’s great that it opened the door for more. At the same time it’s shameful in the execution. How Wonderful wouldn’t it have been to have this Amazon woman come into the early 1900s world of men and simply not accept any of it. To have her look at the guys running the world, be they “good” or “bad”, and simply decide to fix it. Instead we got a character who decided to go shopping for clothes and play along as if she’d been indoctrinated into the role of the “fairer sex” all her life. Logically she would see Ares in all of Patriarchal society rather than one single man. I’m just saying. It could have been a great movie.
Anyway. While the nerd in me is hopeful, there’s also a darker side to this development. The city I live in has been depicted as a warzone, invaded by bearded men from foreign countries. And it doesn’t matter that it’s not true if real-life laws and policies are based on that image.
Similarly, if regular news is being treated as fake news and fake news is being treated as the hidden truth that the “elite” has tried to hide from us, sooned or later this new “truth” will be the basis of real-life policies (as if that wasn’t already enough of the case). The “elite” clearly not being people like the US president or the third biggest party in Sweden, but someone else. It’s not the Jews anymore, so probably the secret Leftist/Muslim conspiracy. You know, the ones who really rule the place, which explains why we all live in a Socialist Sharia dystopia. The ones who keep enforcing the belief that the Earth is round and other such nonsense…
So yeah, the future is going to be… interesting…
Here’s some of what I plan to be doing this year:
The theme for the AltCom 2018 comics festival, in late August, will be: HOW TO SURVIVE A DICTATORSHIP. There will be exhibitions and talks from people who have already lived through dictatorships as well as people who plan to survive future ones (you may have already guessed that 2018 is election year in Sweden).
I have a bunch of plans for new books, some of which involving the concept of the fictionalization of reality, but I don’t want to jinx anything so I won’t tell you what they are. Except I’ll have a comic in the upcoming CBA vol 38|39: Fragments that will be released really soon.
I will probably also have some part in the upcoming exhibitions FRAGMENTS and BEST OF CBK in the first half of the year. Both exhibited at Hybriden in Malmö.
Other than that, most of my time will be spent working with the zine workshop, FANZINEVERKSTADEN, a new project run by Tusen Serier with financing from Arvsfonden, which will be a space for selfpublishing of comics. I won’t talk about it more just yet, but when we get closer to actually opening, there will be announcements, so look for them.
Up next: What other fictions did I live in during 2017? A special blog post dedicated to the games and books and comics and movies and so on that I ingested last year as inoculation for all the bullshit. Also about some of the things I produced, though it was a slightly less productive year than usual…
You may or may not have noticed that we won’t be at the Gothenburg book fair* this year.
WORMGOD, TUSEN SERIER and CBK decided collectively not to participate at the book fair after learning that Fria Tider** are once again welcomed by the organisers.
Some months have passed since this news came, and several voices have been raised against the book fair, but it doesn’t look like they have listened to the criticism.
We know what Fria Tider stand for. They have connections to national socialist organisations (the kind that actually calls/recently called themselves nazis) and they want to remove people like us.
Among us are immigrants, homosexuals, anarchists etc, and we have an international perspective in most of what we do. We do not accept the idea that Swedish culture would be superior to others or even big enough to be able to stand on its own. So when the Book fair open their doors to Fria Tider, we take it as a sign that we are not welcome.
Shutting someone out who wants to silence others would not be a crime against the freedom of speech, as some people claim. Rather, it’s self defense. The Book fair should be about culture and communication. So it wouldn’t be wrong to make it a free from those who want to reduce the cultural sphere to only include what they see as “Swedish” culture.
We hope that the Book fair in the future will take their part of the responsibility for preventing the fascist and nazi regimes of old to happen again. In the name of free speech.
Translation: -Hello, we’ve come to ruin everything. -Of course, everyone have the right to their opinion. Welcome! Everyone is basically white here anyway, except some of the cleaners…
*The annual book fair in Gothenburg is the biggest one and one of the biggest cultural events in Sweden.
**A web-based “news” site with strong ties to the Swedish nazi movement.
So I came back from CRACK! a couple days ago and tomorrow is the first day with no meeting or things I have to do, so I will set the phone to silent and stay away from any other means of contact with the outside world.
But before I go into my 24h hibernation, here are some things from recent times that you may find interesting:
New books:
En Andra Chans (Tusen Serier) was written by me and drawn by Shko Askari. It’s written in Swedish & Arabic and consists of two interconnected stories, read in different directions, that meet in the middle. About war, racism, integrity and migration.
You can order it here.
CBA vol 36|37 (CBK) was edited by me, with stories by Akab, Spyros Verykios, Elena Guidolin and Serena Schinaia, with a cover by Radovan Popovic. I’m very happy with this latest volume of the international art comics anthology. This one is all in English.
You can order it here. Here’s another pic of the cover, this one modified during CRACK!:
Speaking of CRACK!… One of the things that happened there was a gig with Noise Against Fascism, for which I made this backdrop (which turned into a kind of cape during the gig):
And while I’m writing this I’m answering Facebook comments on this text. Some people seem to be unable to think outside the boundaries of the law, even if the law is immoral, which is kind of worrying. Others seem to have problems with texts longer than a tweet, so here’s a short summary:
When I grew up, in the 1980s/90s in a small town in Sweden, anything out of the “normal” was weird and something to stay away from (reading comics/listening to techno/being gay/being born somewhere else/watching foreign movies/being female etc).
Parallel to this, it was hard for immigrants to get asylum here (and it’s worse now, no matter what right-wing propaganda you hear). And anarchism was unheard of as a viable ideology. The mainstream ruled.
It’s all connected so what we do in CBK/CBA is antiracist by providing a printed space for what isn’t seen as normal.
Of course, it’s more elaborate in the blog post, so maybe read that…
Here’s an excerpt, which I think may be the most controversial part:
Once, a bunch of years ago, I was with a large group of people outside the refugee detention centre in Malmö. We were there to stop a deportation of a man from… I don’t even remember from where. The police came to get him. We stood in the way, blocking all entrances. After a while, the cops said: “All right, now you’ve made your statement. You’ve expressed your opinion. Now stand aside and let us do our job”. That hit me on a deep level. We were there to save someone’s life, and they thought we just wanted to express out opinion and then things could go back to repressive normality. Of course we didn’t move. We stayed there all day, hungry, getting burned by the sun, until the guy managed to break a window from the outside and get out. Within minutes he was in a car being driven away from there, to a life in hiding. Maybe eight months later, he got his permit of residency, proving us right.
People here seem to think that opinions is something everyone can have, as long as they don’t interfere with reality. Conversely, they also see them as something harmless, which is why we’re supposed to be so lenient towards racism. Because it’s just an opinion, which anyone is entitled to, and it has nothing to do with real life (and, incidentally, they won’t hurt you as long as you belong to the white mainstream (but who worth considering isn’t white mainstream?)). Except it does. Anything that today is ‘just an opinion’, may tomorrow be the new mainstream, with real-life consequences.
In other news… A while ago I made this book cover for Malvarma Bufedo (SLEA) the Esperanto version of Jenny Wrangborg‘s Kallskänken. Got my copies of the book the other day (and you can (soon anyway) order it here):
Also, if you drop by Hybriden these days (it’ll probably be closed but if you’re lucky or look through the window), you can see the Berättelser från Yunnan (Tusen Serier) exhibition by Emei Burell. Or you can order the book here.
And you will also see our banner in support of the XM24 squat in Bologna:
I’ll finish this off with two pages from Transgressions (Wormgod) that I think illustrate part of the point I wanted to make in that CBK blog post (click for bigger version):
