How a closed Facebook group became Sweden's public enemy number one
It's far too early to tell what the long-term effects of Covid will be, but what it is doing to our democracies cannot be ignored
The Story Of The Week
One of my most visceral memories of this pandemic is how quickly I was reminded that, even after more than 20 years here, I am and always will be an outsider.
It was in mid-March 2020, when the whole world was locking down and Sweden was ploughing its own lonely furrow that I remarked in a tweet in the Swedish language that things didn’t look too promising.
The backlash was immediate, and I was accused of scaremongering. I did what I always do when people go on the attack - I blocked and moved on. I’m not engaging with people whose first instinct is to come in studs-up, rather than discuss things like adults.
But that was extremely minor compared to what has happened this week, when a group started by a dual citizen of Sweden and Ireland was basically accused of being a threat to national security by public service broadcaster Sveriges Radio.
The person (whom I won’t name here) started and is admin for a private, closed Facebook group with around 200 members that is strongly critical of the Swedish mitigation strategy and the healthcare policies that have grown out of it - these include elderly patients infected with Covid being given palliative care, rather than being brought to hospitals and put on ventilators, in many cases without the possible consequences (i.e. death) being explained to them or their relatives.
These are facts, as is state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell saying that the country had failed its elderly. So too did the prime minister, Stefan Löfven. So did the king, not that that matters.
But dissent is not tolerated in Sweden, especially not in a crisis - it’s not unique (anyone remember George W. Bush’s “you’re either with us or against us” in the aftermath of 9/11?), but it is troubling. Democracy needs dissent, because without it there can be no democracy worth the name.
You can read the bizarre Radio Sweden article here - when I read it first, my immediate reaction was, so what? Literally, who gives a shit what 200 people are saying in a private Facebook group?
Radio Sweden would, however, have us believe that this is much more sinister than that.
The members coordinate activities in the Facebook group and spread its message in comment fields, on Twitter, and in Swedish and international media. Several members have published articles, had appearances in or been quoted in scientific journals and a range of prestigious international media, including Science, Time,Foreign Policy, and the Washington Post. In many international media, the impression is given that everything during the spring of 2020 was business as usual in Sweden, without restrictions or working from home.
Now I can’t be one hundred percent sure, but the last time I checked, expressing a contrary opinion or writing an article that is unflattering about the Swedish response are not, as yet, illegal - because if they are, I’m in a whole heap of trouble.
I spoke to Eamon Dunphy on his podcast “The Stand” on Monday about Sweden - apart from his mild obsession with the people who have had Tegnell tattoos (I still don’t think that he believes me when I say I witnessed one being done), we went over the numbers and the situation in general again. I don’t have a definite opinion on it yet, and I won’t for years to come, but it hasn’t been great - and even Tegnell, the prime minister and the king agree.
But as for the Irish man with the Facebook group, well, he’s now getting hate mail calling him “treasonous” and accusing him of radicalising people against Sweden. I haven’t spoken to him myself yet but I was told this evening that he had mentioned leaving Sweden altogether.
Make no mistake - Covid is having a profound effect on our democracies, and we need to be aware of that if we are not continue the ongoing slide towards authoritarianism.
The Good News
After more than a year of work, an 8000-word report I wrote was finally published on Friday. It’s about how, at a time when sport is becoming more and more closed ot journalists, the Norwegian women’s national team has decided to remain as open as they can - to me, they’re an inspiration.
I got to know them while working as a digital producer for FIFA at the 2019 World Cup, and the way they handled the media fascinated me. They boasted the best player in the world at that time, Ada Hegerberg, but she had chosen not to play, and that alone was one of the biggest talking-points.
The players never once hid or shied away - good, bad or indifferent, they met every story head on with honesty and accountability. The result was some memorable victories, a win on penalties against Australia, a quarter-final exit to England - and a packed stadium in Bergen when they played England a few months later.
Over that time I was lucky enough to build a trust with them that enabled me to get behind why they still took the media so seriously, even as other teams shut themselves off. That trust is extremely valuable to me.
Don’t get me wrong - sometimes they still decline to answer my questions, sometimes they ghost me, and that’s fine. I have a right only to ask questions as a journalist; there is no compulsion on them to answer them. Added to that is the fact that a woman saying anything remotely controversial is going to get a ton of grief on social media and one can begin to understand why they might be a bit reticent about it.
I also don’t spare them just because I get on well with them - that’s part of the deal. If they play badly I’ll call it as I see it, and they understand that too.
As Caroline Graham Hansen says in the report, it’s about mutual respect and understanding each other’s roles in the sporting ecosystem.
Now if we can just convince the rest of the world to do the same, we’ll be getting somewhere.
The Podcast
This week it was about that Swedish Covid dissent story we started with - well worth a listen as I had a public health epidemiologist from Australia called David Steadson with me to talk it over.
The History Lesson
I’m bouncing back and forth between two books at the moment - Dubliners by James Joyce and King Of the World by David Remnick, which is about the rise of Muhammad Ali, who, although maybe not the greatest heavyweight of all time, was certainly one of the most influential.
The Music
I usually lament the fact that music fell out of my life when my children were born - it was right about then that I stopped keeping up with what was new and interesting, and now that my kids are teenagers, that is slowly passing.
During the pandemic I have enjoyed discovering Irish artists like Denise Chaila and Gemma Dunleavy - my family originally lived near the Five Lamps in Dublin, a stone’s throw from Gemma’s Sheriff Street, and it was for basketball and soccer clubs in that area that I played most of my organised sport.
Last week I found myself thinking about the parallels between Gemma and Swedish-Somali artist Cherrie, who has long been a favourite of mine for both her voice and her principles. Cherrie is a strong young woman lifting other young women, and so is Gemma. Both come from places that others look down on (the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby and Sheriff Street have a lot in common), but these are places that I have always felt at home. To see them succeeding and telling their truths to the world is the most awesome thing and if it kills me, I’ll get the two of them to share a stage somewhere in the world, just for one night.
The Signoff
That’s about it for this week - if you enjoyed reading this, please spread the word and suggest to a friend that they might sign up. If you didn’t, let me know why and I’ll see if I can fix it.
And if you can, be good to yourself. Don’t fly off the handle. We’re all doing our best.
Well, most of us anyway.
Take care.