In Borlänge there will actually be a discussion
It’s the day before National Day. It’s election year summer and the sun is high in the sky. One of my most listened to songs right now is one by Le Tigre. The song’s central message is one I feel deep in my stem cells. The chorus reads Get off the Internet / I’ll meet u in the street / Get off the Internet / Destroy the wing.
A personal rule I have is that questions that begin “Do you want to go and report from….?” I always answer yes to – even if what you are asked to report from seems to be some kind of ambivalent right-left-neoliberal political rally tour. As the saying goes, “know your enemy” is not something I have been able to put energy into in my life. Therefore, I don’t have much of a grasp of what “100% Live on the Road” is. I tell my friends that I’m going up to Borlänge an afternoon to go to a square meeting about being 100% Swedish.
But when I did maybe five minutes of research on the train up to Dalarna, I learned that 100% is a newly started right-wing media channel started by the entrepreneur Henrik Jonsson. It has received its funding from five anonymous business leaders and wants to create an alternative to the conventional and, in their opinion, left-wing media.
In the same spirit and in connection with the election year, Henrik Jönsson, together with John Emanuel and Aaron Flam embark on a tour of Sweden to discuss the problems that Sweden is currently facing. In Borlänge, where the tour begins, they have have been cancelled from the city’s People’s House due to the fact that Aron Flam is now charged with threats and harassment against an environmentalist. Therefore, instead, they hold a square meeting sitting at a table, in front of a logo-clad tent, with a microphone for the audience at a comfortable distance, à la Charlie Kirk. They should, so to speak, meet u in the street, answer questions from the audience and create conversations. The street in Borlänge, Forum Borlängium in all its glory.
I myself grew up on a farm on the northern edge of Kolmårdsskogen and am therefore a passionate countryside and medium-sized city lover. When I arrive, Borlänge is warm from the sun and wet from the rain that has just passed. On the street that will lead me to the square, I am met by a group of forty-somethings who shout “which one of you will get it in your ass” at two men walking in front of them. Everything is exactly as it usually is.
In the square where the meeting is taking place, I am met by a sight I have basically never met before. The audience is entirely white, and largely male. I immediately feel insecure but sit down on a bench and listen to the three men chanting their truths. Around the crowd are a number of police and various plainclothes people with airpods scanning the crowd. Some wear t-shirts that say “socialism is evil”. One party, the Sweden Democrats, is present with a portable booth and merch. The whole spectacle feels like a sponsored vehicle to bring the debate closer to the party’s values.
I feel instinctively that I want to hide. I get scared that someone would recognize me from my byline picture on Aftonbladet, identify me as an outspoken transgender person and start arguing. I keep quiet and still and clap along when the others do. I make eye contact with a woman who rolls her eyes at the whole thing and still feels a little safe.
Henrik Jönsson, Jan Emanuel and Aron Flam stress that they are completely different in their political stance. That they completely differ in opinion about how Swedish society should be governed and organized. To me, who is above the kind of discourse that is carried on in the square, however, they appear as three sides of the same coin. Although they have different views on taxes and the state’s interference in the individual’s life, they all emphasize their conservative values as priority one.
The audience, who are asking the questions, are upset. They are upset about how Sweden looks today. A core issue for many of them is migration policy, and they worry about things like the Swedish culture being watered down and that they will have to be dictated to be integrated with the foreign-born part of the population.
The trio behind the table also agree that the public debate favors left-wing politics and left-wing values. Henrik Jönsson explains that he is tired of the fact that the left can present its policy without receiving criticism, but that as soon as the right does it, they are met with enormous backlash. He believes that the public conversation is not democratic because his side is not given the same space to speak.
I agree about very little of what they say, but I still kind of appreciate the form of the conversation. Meeting, so to speak, IRL and discussing the things that Swedish voters think about is quite productive. Because even their opponents get a chance to stand at the microphone and ask questions. The square actually becomes a forum for debate. Because even if I had to wedge myself into the square’s system company and buy myself a Tuborg in order to be able to listen to people who I thought expressed downright harmful opinions, I still sat there and listened, tried to understand.
I think this format might be what we need right now. As the internet and thus our discussion space has become monopolized by large American companies that turn our feeds into reflections of our own opinions, we probably need to meet for real and discuss with each other, even with those we disagree with. It was almost a good thing that they weren’t allowed to be at Folkets Hus here in Borlänge, because inside there, with paying guests, it might also have become a type of opinion-confirming echo chamber. In the square, everyone is welcome, everyone can say something and everyone can listen.
When it is half an hour before the appointed time, the trio interrupts the audience’s questions and explains that it is now time for sales and signing of books, selfies and short greetings. I had hoped to be able to stay and talk to some Borlänge residents, but those who are not in line at the trio’s book table quickly disperse. Suddenly the square becomes a regular one with outdoor seating and aw-hungry sun worshippers. I put on my most listened to song right now and walk towards the train station.
Maybe this is what the left needs to focus on? To go around Sweden and talk to the people on the spot, in a square, about the issues that concern us right now. Maybe that’s how we can make the debate a little less hostile and infected. Maybe we need to say Get off the Internet / I’ll meet u in the street / Get off the Internet / Destroy the wing. Maybe that’s how we manage to stop fascism.
