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omarera · 6 months

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Below is a long text. The reason I share this is that I think the article below gives a great insight into Swedish culture and debate climate and views of celebrities taking stands in political issues. I think it is a good to read for those who demand the Swedish cast to actively speak out on different political issues.

It also touches upon Sigge and Alex podcast. I am frustrated to see the polarization and cancel culture and also the narrative of Sigge as a Zionist based on that he followed some Insta accounts. And also Edvin and Felicia being labeled Zionists by association. Maybe the article can give some perspectives.

Sigge Eklund is a provocative person, and his and Alex Schulman’s pod is both popular and controversial. You kind of either love them or hate them, or both. They are both authors, both outspoken what I would call leftists, Alex for example write columns that are very leftist. They are also quite full of themselves and can be very condescending to others and also take ideas and concepts to extremes to prove points. Their takes are often debated. There is a bit of irony in that they have received criticism for not standing up for Israel and stated they were against Hamas attack and now Sigge also being accused of being a Zionists. Sigge is criticized from both sides.

With that said, below is a translation of an article from SvD, one of Swedens large morning papers. It discusses Swedes silence. It shows how celebrities that do speak up are treated in Sweden. Let’s just say they are shot down. Swedes don’t have a tradition of appreciating celebrities to speak up on subjects they are not fully educated on. It’s so easy to get lost. But also that we need to talk about but it’s so damn difficult.

The article below is from Nov 25th 2023. It’s also important to consider when reading it. I still think it showcase Swedish culture really well and our debate climate and view on celebs speaking up and how polarized and infected and hard the long ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict (now genocide) is for us to discuss.

link to article it’s probably locked for non-subscribers.

“That's why I keep quiet about the war"

During a dinner Björn Werner (the author of the article) was at recently, the question came up. The one that not only cuts through the public debate but is strong enough to tear apart friendships and social nets and relationships.

Alex Schulman's voice chokes with anxiety. He stabs himself. And stakes himself again.

"It freezes me now when I hear you're going to talk about it."

Now it must be done. Sigge Eklund has taken the plunge. They will talk about the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.

It's fast. Just a few minutes. A gentle ripple in a podcast of over an hour. Like few others in public Sweden, the two men are otherwise always carefree open with what they think and feel. Bridges to important colleagues, friends and acquaintances are burned in every other episode. They do everything for the content. But not now.

It is at the very beginning of the war. Barely a week since Hamas kidnapped women, children and the elderly and brutally murdered 1,200 Israelis. Israel's intense bombing campaign has only been going on for a few days. Nevertheless, the Swedish debate about the Israel-Palestine conflict is so feverish that the two seasoned authors and media men prefer not to talk about it.

"I hardly think it can be done without arousing so much hatred that in the end it won't be worth it," Schulman continues.

Eklund basically agrees:

"I've really felt at a loss for words," he replies and goes on to explain that it's not because he doesn't have anything to say, but that he himself doesn't know exactly what he's going to say once he starts. The feelings are too strong.

It is, of course, easy to call the podduo cowards. That they want to wriggle out of this deeply polarized conflict without clashing with anyone – whether listeners or advertisers. But in that case they are not alone.

There are many who, for social and understandable reasons, avoid the question. The price of taking a stand can be very high. For one thing, what one says can be taken out of one's mouth and reshaped into something grotesque and ugly. For one thing, the risk of losing control over one's own emotions is great. Then it is easy to end up wrong. To say wrong.

An abyss you like to avoid thinking about and talking about, if you can.

During a dinner I attended recently, the question came up. Someone admitted that he "sympathizes with Israel's cause here." Another then raised his hand: "I don't agree with that, and I think we should leave it like that, so it will be nicer." The entire table nodded in agreement. Everyone exhaled. A similar dynamic exists in the group chats I'm in, which have morphed from lively, fun conversations to cautious, polite flirting. Everyone sees the dark clouds towering. Nobody wants to see the rain fall.

A lot of this depends, I think, on the complexity of the situation. The vast majority of people outside the Israel-Palestine conflict are touchingly in agreement that it is terrible for all innocent people to die, regardless of nationality. It is all the more difficult to navigate beyond this single, self-evident opinion. Because one needs to have one after all. In everything else it is more difficult. They are looking for a scapegoat. The violence can't just happen? It must be someone's fault. Demanding a ceasefire also leads to the natural follow-up question: and then?

In both the issue of guilt and in the conversation about the future, dangers lurk wherever you turn: those who rush forward without a map and compass risk quickly running into both anti-Semitic and Islamophobic cuts.

Not that it is necessarily easier for those who actually take the time to read up on the issue. Is it about a multi-thousand-year European oppression of Jews? That Arab leaders have consistently refused to accept Israel's existence since the UN proclaimed the state in 1948? Is it the fault of the many Jewish settlers who drove Palestinians from their homes? Arab countries that in turn expelled Jews from theirs? That Palestinians by both Israel and Arab countries are used as a real political playing cards? Netanyahu? Hamas? It's just a matter of choosing. Everything is right – at the same time.

Whatever you think, however educated you are, there is always a weighty opinion that speaks for the opposite of what you have come to.

The situation is bizarre. Despite the fact that there is a terrible conflict going on where innocent children are killed daily, it is therefore a socially viable, perhaps even wise, strategy to just keep quiet.

the public also has results on how it goes for those who speak first and think later. When 160 celebrities signed a petition to stop the bombing of Gaza, they came under fire for not showing the same commitment during Hamas' massacre of Israelis. Artist Stina Wollter's star now appears to be falling after she mixed up her commitment to Palestinian children with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. And the competence of the Green Party's Märta Stenevis is being questioned because she liked Stina Wollter's (not entirely clear) apology.

It is quite unusual for external events to cut so deeply into interpersonal relationships. Not least in the consensus-seeking country Sweden, which is otherwise known for its lukewarm political temperament. While the 1968 movement in Paris led to street battles between students and police, the student movement in Stockholm occupied its own union building. When Sweden, after 200 years of non-alignment, joins NATO, everyone just sighs amicably. The war in Ukraine has, if anything, acted as a unifying force, where people from left to right could confidently state that the world in this particular case really is black and white.

But there is a force in the Israel-Palestine conflict that is strong enough to tear apart the social net and relationships. Partly because of the horrific images we are all exposed to, but also because of the historically deeply infected nature of the issue. It's all starting to resemble the climate of debate in Britain about Brexit, which went to such levels that the prestigious British etiquette magazine Tatler raised the topic as one of twelve things you absolutely should not talk about at the dinner table.

Anyone who puts their faith in the ability of public discourse to unravel complex events also has nothing to gain from the issue of Israel-Palestine. The ongoing debate has quickly degenerated into a hopeless meta-debate about who thinks the most "wrong". The amount of constructive, well-read and nuanced posts that have been put forward since Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7 and Israel's subsequent bombing of Gaza can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Expressen's Per Wirtén succeeds, through a combination of solid humanism and understanding of the matter, to tackle the subject in a dignified way. Another is SvD's Elaf Ali, who from his personal perspective testifies to the polarization in the Swedish debate.

But - the more texts are about things that could just as easily take place at a dinner with a lost footing. There and in social media, the waves are high. Are leftists anti-Semitic because they react more strongly to Israel's attacks than to Hamas? Are right-wing debaters really Islamophobes, because they so fervently defend Israel while at the same time advocating cooperation with the newly anti-Semitic SD?

Who is foolish enough to stick their head into this hornet's nest willingly?

Maybe Alex and Sigge are doing the only reasonable thing. Despite one's instincts screaming to react when news of dead children sweeps by, there is not much to say – because hardly anything can be said without being taken as revenue for something else. But the question is whether it is even possible to be silent. According to today's twisted logic, there is also something to be said.

Shortly after "Alex and Sigge's podcast" was published, the right-wing comedian Aron Flam responded to X (recently on Twitter): "So Alex Schulman cannot condemn murder, torture and rape? Hard to say anything about murdering women, young, old, pregnant, babies? Speaking. He who is otherwise so full of goodness.”

And it hasn't stopped there. In a later episode, both podcasts return to the consequences of not taking a stand. Their social media inboxes are overflowing with anger.

Swedes are one of the world's most educated peoples, and at least until very recently formally non-aligned. The majority have few personal connections to either the millennial suffering of Jews or the Palestinian people's quest for their own state formation.

If even a remote, frostbitten nation of newly urbanized farmers can't pull themselves together, who can? If even we can't talk to each other, then who can?

#don’t know how to tag this #Swedish. culture ?#why Swedish celebrities are silent?#edvin ryding #felicia truedsson #Sigge Eklund #and also #omar rudberg #yr cast

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