Last Saturday was a big day for the Malmö police—so big, they had to call in reinforcements from Stockholm, Gothenburg, and the rest of the country’s riot police squads. Part of the reason was a rematch between two soccer teams: Malmö FF and Djurgården, a Stockholm team. The match was originally supposed to be a month or so ago, but it had to be called off only a few minutes into the game because people were throwing firecrackers onto the field. Not good.
The other reason was that the Sverigedemokraterna (Sweden Democrats, or SD for short) were holding a march in central Malmö. It’s a “nationalistic” (read: far right) party which, sadly, has a stronghold in southern Sweden, right where I live. You know Anders Breivik, the terrorist behind the attacks in Oslo and Utøya? If you understand where he’s coming from, you’ve already got a basic grip on the Sweden Democrats’ political platform. (One notable exception to this comparison: Breivik believes that many of the weaknesses of modern Western society are related to the advancement of women, while Sweden Democrats base some of their anti-Arab/anti-Muslim rhetoric on claims that they degrade women’s rights. )
In any case, the Sweden Democrats got more than 4% of the vote in the 2010 elections, which gave them a seat in Parliament and some political legitimacy. Their main goal is to greatly limit immigration policies, including the ones that this girl has benefited from (see The Skinny on the Sambo Visa, The Low Down on the Love Visa, etc.) because, you know, immigrants are bad. And dangerous. And very, very scary.
Saturday’s demonstration was, however, more notable for the protests of the Malmö inhabitants against the Sweden Democrats. There were far, far more people behind the barriers than there were marching within them, and their boos drowned out the Sweden Democrats’ chanting.
Demonstrations in Malmö: Gustav Adolfs Torg, protesters, and high-speed riot police caravans.
On one hand, I found the protests inspiring. Living in Lund, I knew that they were going on but had forgotten about them. I just happened to be walking by at the right time. I was glad to see people caring so much about their ideals (especially ideals I agree with) to protest a group they find hateful.
At the same time, the protests were kind of scary. There were explosions going off, and at one point, people were just running away from the square and then turning back. It felt like things could easily get out of hand and become chaos. I’ve never seen protests like this in my life. People waving signs and sleeping outside the White House, yes. People screaming and shouting and pushing and firecrackers going off? That I haven’t seen before.
I didn’t spend much time in the midst of the demonstrations, but I watched from above through the windows of a nearby building. I was with my boyfriend and his mom, who just broke her elbow and still has it in a cast and a sling, so we weren’t taking any chances that she would get pushed or shoved. It was a very interesting thing to see in what is normally a quite calm city.
One funny thing is that as we were driving out, I was saying that they should have outsourced the riot cops’ jobs to the Danish police. Simon and I watch a TV show that is basically like Danish cops, and let me tell you: Danish cops are way tougher than Swedish cops. About thirty seconds later, we drove by this van:
Politi!
Sure enough, it was a Danish police van of some sort! (Swedes say “Polis,” Danes say “Politi.”) Awesoooome.
For more pictures of the demonstration and the protests against it, check out the slideshow in Sydsvenskan. The text is in Swedish, but there are lots of good, big, high-quality pictures that’ll give you a better sense of what it looked like.
