Archive for category General

AFA [antifa] Sweden: In Turkey’s eyes we are all terrorists.

Posted by b9AcE in General on 2022-07-05

Turkey’s fascistic dictator Erdogan is committing genocide against the Kurdish people. The Swedish government wants to become a member of NATO at any cost. The Social Democrats with Magdalena Andersson and Ann Linde at the forefront does not just want to drag Sweden into the war-machine NATO. They also want to jump into bed with Erdogan. A deal with Turkey is a contract written in blood.

NATO is a war-project run by USA – the country wherein the most children worldwide are born in prison and where the right to abortion no longer is a constitutionally protected right. Sweden’s NATO-membership would mean derogations of our constitutionally protected rights.

For Turkey to let Sweden into NATO Sweden must extradite Swedish Kurds. Furthermore Sweden must promise to stop support for PKK in Sweden. But Turkey also demands that Sweden terror-labels PYD, YPJ and YPG. As an extension one violates our obvious right to organize. The Rojava Committees struggle for the revolution in Rojava and we stand with them in the fight against fascism.

The network Antifascist Action [Sweden] was founded in 1993 to fight sexism, fascism, capitalism and homophobia. We have for generations taken the fight on the streets. Within our struggle national borders and ethnicity does not matter. The working class has no nation and antifascism is always self-defense.

International solidarity is one of our most important weapons for a revolutionary transition. When the Kurds’ defense-forces took the fight against ISIS and won practiced solidarity was a deciding factor. Comrades from the entire world put words into action and fought side by side in the struggle against fascism. Military and humanitarian aid resulted in them being able to move the front line forward while our movement could be inspired and strengthened.

Now Sweden’s government backstabs our comrades. That the Social Democracy sells out our comrades was unfortunately not unexpected.

– We condemn the Social Democrats’ cowardice, when they sell out our comrades to the Turkish fascist-state!
– We defend the revolution in Rojava and the revolutionary movement in Kurdistan!
– We encourage everyone to show their support for the Kurdish liberation movement!

PKK – Kurdistan Workers’ Party

PYD – Democratic Union Party

YPJ – Women’s Defense Units

YPG – People’s Defense Units

Antifascist Action Sweden 2022-07-04

 

 

Translated by b9AcE to the best of my ability, from the original text in Swedish. Any errors are to be presumed mine, not antifa’s.

 

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Statement regarding the riots – against this world of cops

Posted by b9AcE in General on 2022-04-19

Three days of militancy has shaken at its foundation the bourgeois society. From the farthest right to groups calling themselves “leftist” everyone stand behind behind the police: a police force shooting at youth, who hit people with vehicles, who is ready to kill. A police force who finds the “ruthless people” amongst those at demos but can not find words for those provoking and spewing islamophobia and racism. A police force who threatens and “finds” ties to criminal gangs, but who has no problems protecting fascists. The only criminal gang is the police force and their political boss.

The cops are an occupying force in the suburbs. They strive for territorial domination. REVA [programme hounding immigrants for deportation], Rimfrost, Norrsken [tactics for more harsh policing], etc are some of the names the police use to legitimize their harassment against those living under the state’s and the capital’s oppression. As everyone knows the riots have stopped being about a banal racist like Paludan and started being about larger things. Even to the cops it is clear that it is their racism and brutality that caused the rebellion. The police is the long arm of the state. Cops have nothing to do with the working class, they are the faithful guard dogs of the system and the bourgeois society.

For the state and the upper class, expressed in newspaper editorial pieces, on Twitter, at press conferences and on the news, it is about the violence monopoly. If the police lose control the bourgeoisie order falls, the national normality maintaining racism, sexism and not least of all the class society. The cops are needed to protect the bourgeoisie’s privileges, to ensure everyone stays in their place – not least of all people of a different skin color. The bourgeoisie media is the other side of the same coin. Where the cops’ baton and weapons don’t reach, the media’s propaganda reach. The media who likes to reproduce the state’s smearing of the struggling subject that disrupted the Swedish normalcy during the easter days.

It is exactly that it was about for the state and it started being about immediately, a political challenge against their entire society, against the capitalist order per se. A couple of hundred people’s riots have in a few days shook the entire bourgeoisie society. There is much to learn from that. The political challenge is to build something out of it, to get farther. There is a potential for creating new political subjects, to turn directly against this world of cops both in practice and theory.

Now we must act, build relationships, develop movements. We must find our way back to spontaneity, activity, to build affinity groups again to coordinate and structuralize to be able to generalize the rebellion. We must spread solidarity amongst struggling subjects. We must refuse the state’s and capital’s distinctions. In a world of bosses and professional politicians we are all strangers. In a world dominated by racism, exploitation, profits, sexism, oppression and islamophobia we must all become criminal gangs questioning their normalcy, their power and their authority.

In the end the struggle against the cops and the state is about the struggle to create a different world. We must disarm the cops and abolish. This is praxis. We must arm our dreams with solidarity, justice and sealf-organizization.

ACAB! For a world without cops, without state and capital!

– Autonom Organisering & Södra Klubben [Autonomous Organizing & The Southern Club]

 

Translated by b9AcE to the best of my ability, from the original text in Swedish. Any errors are to be presumed mine, not the original authors’.

 

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AFA [antifa] Research: Two and a half years with Nordic Force – a review

Posted by b9AcE in antifa, General, Sweden, Translations on 2022-01-29

Two and a half years have passed since leading activists broke out of the Nordic Resistance Movement [Nordiska motståndsrörelsen, NMR] after having failed to grab power from the inside and instead started Nordic Force [Nordisk Styrka, NS]. The ambitions were grand and the self-confidence inflated by Nazis considering themselves more orthodox, sharp and well trained than the lower rung they left behind in NMR. AFA [antifa] Research gives an account of how it went later: the premises in Kolsva and Nyköping, external activities that died out, activities that did not occur, the construction company that crashed and internal conflicts.

Remark: We will shortly publish a separate article with a summary of persons active in or tied to Nordic Force. This article contains many names but in most cases no pictures or detailed information, for that we refer to the upcoming article.

Failed coup attempt in NMR – Nordic Force created

Summer of 2019 the Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR) splits, which we in AFA Research have written about earlier [in Swedish]. Several leading figures and a large part of the most active activists chose to with much drama leave NMR and start a new organization. All of the splitters have dedicated years of their lives, ruined family relationships and taken prison sentences for the organization. One of the splitters, Klas Lund (19680214-0274), founded NMR in 1997, then under the name Swedish Resistance Movement [Svenska motståndsrörelsen, SMR]. He was deposed in 2015 and replaced by NMR’s current leader Simon Lindberg (19830810-3533).

The rationale for the split was major discontent with the leadership in NMR. During spring of 2019 a list was spread to activists within the Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR) to depose the leader Simon Lindberg and Pär Öberg (19710728-4379) and reinstate Klas Lund as leader. The coup attempt failed. Those that spread the list chose to instead leave NMR to start a new group – Nordic Force (NS).

NS was formed August 4 at Anundshög outside Västerås [central Sweden, about 100km west of Stockholm] where they gathered about forty people. It was mostly Swedes but also a couple of Norwegians participated. A couple of Danish activists joined later. Leader of the new organization is the convicted murderer Klas Lund. He is in the organization’s national council together with Niklas Yngwe (19890213-0015), Haakon Forwald (19780914-1299), Emil Hagberg (19840724-0178) and deputy leader Anders Rydberg (19840305-2957).

From the left: Emil Hagberg, Niklas Yngwe, Klas Lund, Haakon Forwald and Anders Rydberg.

To distance themselves from NMR and their failure the NS changed political focus. Instead of as NMR put their resources at external activities such as leafleting, demos and podcasts and failed election campaigns, the NS chose to instead turns inwards with demands from the leadership on orthodoxy. Exercise, study, outdoor life and personal development were all central parts in the goal of living as genuine Nazis. The goals that NS put up for their members do however not diverge significantly from those that are in NMR.

It can not have been an easy decision to collectively leave NMR, an organization they had sacrificed so much for and which they knew would be severely weakened by so many active activists leaving. The belief that NS would become something better must have been large. The disappointment at the result should be larger.

In this article we will give an account of the development in Nordic Force since the creation. Among other things the organization’s house in Kolsva, the gym in Nyköping, the failed attempt at running a construction company, the external projects that died out, defectors, court proceedings and internal conflicts.

The premises in Kolsva

In September 2019, a bit over a month after the split from NMR, the NS buys a previous parish house outside Kolsva [about 150km west of Stockholm, 2378 population in 2020] in the Västmanland province The NS pay SEK140000 [about $15000] for the house and as sole owner was appointed the previous NMR-activist Patrick Christensson (19960309-2652). During March 2021 the ownership is transferred to Oscar Bergström (19940901-8570).

Näverkärret 41
730 30 Kolsva

The deficient condition of the house forces NS to extensive renovations directly after the purchase. The renovations become a way of gathering the activists and give the organization a goal to fulfill. After the renovation is completed activities do however decrease rapidly. The house is way to remote for people to go there without a clear intent.

Anders Rydberg has stated the address in Kolsva as place of residency in contacts with authorities. That does however not mean he lives at the address but more likely is because Rydberg during long periods have been homeless and instead lived in his car. He has since long had an apartment in the vicinity of Medborgarplatsen [south-central Stockholm] which he has rented out, most recently to the former NMR-member Amanda Thun (19960726-3622). Since December 1, 2020 Rydberg is registered at an address in Norrköping [a town about 160km SW of Stockholm].

The gym Idavallen in Nyköping

The NS since 2020 rent premises in an industrial area outside Nyköping [a town about 100km SW of Stockholm, 33916 population in 2020]. NS call the premises Idavallen and it is used for martial arts and weight training. Idavallen is of strategical importance to NS as physical activities is one of their main focuses, and lacking external activities exercise becomes an opportunity for members to meet. In there are also several previous NMR-activists that have left to join NS.

The premises are in an industrial area of Nyköping. It is a garage in a larger building that houses several corporations. The building the premises are in is owned by SBB Raspen 1 AB [AB=stock company/incorporated] (organization number: 556010-4415), which has a well known Social Democrat as major owner and chairperson of the board. The premises that are let to NS belong to Erik Fernström’s Entrepenad [construction contractor] (organization number: 556837-5363). The company has appeared in previous articles about NS as it has several Nazis employed. E.g. Niklas Yngwe and Julius Blomberg (19881109-4997) from NS, as well as previous NMR active Kristoffer Odin (19760910-0495). Erik Fernström’s Entrepenad is owned and run by the couple Erik Fernström (19890312-7598) and Cynthia Sjöberg (19930207-0744). They some time ago moved from Nyköping to Bergsjö, north of Hudiksvall [a town about 300km north of Stockholm, 16570 population in 2020].

Erik Fernström who, through Erik Fernström’s Entrepenad AB, employs Nazis and provides gym for Nordic Force.

Cynthia Sjöberg who, through Erik Fernström’s Entrepenad AB, employs Nazis and provides gym for Nordic Force.

Blommenhovsvägen 26 port 16
611 39 Nyköping

On April 9, 2020 Nordic Force launces a Facebook page for the Idavallen gym. On April 26 a clip was posted of when Niklas Yngwe gives a tour of the premises. On May 7 they announce that they hold three instructor lead martial parts sessions a week. That is also the latest published post. Oscar Bromander (19990505-3071) and Niklas Yngwe pose in the picture and are two of the 42 people that like the page. Most of the others are members of the group and of the few that are not active in NS there are among others Jan Bergman (19890122-0460), dad of Yngwe’s wife Maria Bergman (19890122-0460).

Maria’s dad Jan Bergman actively supports NS and the Idavallen gym.

Outdoors exercises Tyresö

In Stockholm NS’ members have primarily exercised outdoors but also rented space in gyms. NS has for example trained outdoors at Trollbäckens sports ground in Tyresö south of Stockholm. The social-media account “NS träning” [training/exercise] posted relatively regularly during the spring and summer 2020, then stopped updating and entirely removed their accounts in the beginning of 2022. NS and NMR’s martial arts look the same. The only difference is that NS published fewer posts. Apart from NS’ official accounts the members also posted modest messages to lure non-organized to the exercise sessions to then recruit those that lived up to the membership criteria. Below we post two people that were enticed to participate at training sessions with NS.

September 2020: From left: Theodor Nordenadler (19910808-5672), Alex Lindgren (20010413-3293), Eric Svensson (19970909-4578) [in Swedish], Elias Lidström (19831030-0176) and Oscar Strömstedt, in hat to the right in picture, participate at exercise with NS.

Oscar Strömstedt (19991024-8716), previous  member of now disbanded Nordic Youth [Nordisk ungdom], is one of those that have participated at NS’ exercises. The picture from the exercise session above was taken down shortly after it had been posted and was replaced with a picture where Oscar is not present.

21 februari 2021: Picture from indoors training with NS in Stockholm. In the middle among the standing Jakob Tegström is seen to the left and to the right the underage recruit which we for now keep anonymous.

Another Nazi who has trained with NS is Jakob Tegström (19980205-2374) from Enskede [s southern suburb of Stockholm]. He has hopped around between several Fascist contexts the latest years and been visible at demos, cinema shows and training sessions. In the picture is also seen a new addiction, whom we with consideration of the person’s low age, won’t publish but choose to contact the parents.

March 20, 2021: Jakob Tegström participates together with other Fascists at demo against corona-restrictions.

Up like a sun, down like a pancake – NS disinterest in social media

The NS first launched their podcast, called NS Radio, shortly after their homepage went up. They essentially copied NMR’s podcast “More than words” [More than words]. Both Oscar Bergström and Niklas Yngwe had been on “More than words” and continued their podcasting in NS Radio. NS’ other podcast, Polaris, was launched in an article published on November 8, 2021. The podcast should as opposed to the talk-podcast NS Radio focus on ideology and the organization’s goals. They copied NMR’s podcast “Leader perspective” [Ledarperspektiv] and exchanged Simon Lindberg and Fredrik Vejdeland (19781003-8237) for Klas Lund and Haakon Forwald, previous leader of the Norwegian branch of NMR.

Initially NS Radio’s episodes were about NMR’s failures. In part about the resources that went to their failed work for the election 2018, in part about pointing out the leadership’s decision to lower the requirements for activists as a major mistake. They criticized NMR’s demos in general and the demo participants in particular for being fatsos, ugly and subculturals. The NS paint a picture of their members keeping an entirely different level of standards than other Nazis.

At the launch of Polaris the NS stated that Polaris would be transmitted once a month and that NS Radio would be transmitted once a week. NS Radio was transmitted in eight episodes from September 11, 2019 up to December 15, 2019. Polaris was transmitted in three episodes from December 29, 2019 up to May 11, 2020. After the last episode of Polaris the homepage has been updated once with a movie clip wherein Gustaf Behr (20030515-3694) tells that his case about violating the Knife Act will be brought up in the Supreme Court. The NS however did not manage to reach the goals they set. During December 2021 Kristian Niss and Peter Kjøller Bak whom are parts of the Danish group transmitted three episodes with Klas Lund where they go through his life.

Absent publishing activities

NS started the company Certatus Media AB (559253-5529) on April 2020. Anders Rydberg owns the company and is lone member of the board. Klas Lund is deputy board member. The delivery address is a well known address which NMR has used several times previously. An ongoing project is a translation from a German book on the subject of mythology.

Certatus Media AB
559253-5529
Box 412
Renstiernas gata 23
116 31 Stockholm

The failed venture in construction business

During summer 2018 a company is started by Anders Rydberg. It shall after the split 2019 become an important part of the making of NS. The company primarily becomes a way to finance NS’ activities and to give their own members and sympathizers employment and livelihood, something openly Nazi often can have a difficult time to find due to their political convictions. When NS’ members call for employees for the company they publicly express that they look for people sharing their political convictions. Later it will turn out that the company’s political profile will become its downfall.

Jimmy Andersson (19960619-8654) poses for NS’ construction company Profero bygg.

The company was initially named Profero Bygg [construction](organization number: 559167-0707), which we published on in a previous article [in Swedish]. On the corporate board were then Anders Rydberg, Niklas Yngwe’s cohabitant partner Maria Bergman and Fredrik Kosonen (19960827-3778). Profero bygg is given early attention by us and also by Arbetaren [“The Worker”, owned by the syndicalist trade union federation SAC]. That leads to NS starting a complicated process of renamings and switching around of corporate positions. The company was for a while known as Lindqvist Tak & Fasad [roofs and facades]AB but landet later at the name Södermalms bygg och måleri AB [south-central Stockholm’s construction and painting]. Under that name the company’s board consisted of two criminal business persons, with Anders Rydberg and Fredrik Kosonen as owners. A bit later the company is signed over to a suspected front person and all formal ties to NS disappear.

In spring 2021 the deputy Rydberg admits in a submission to Nyköping’s District Court (B 1559-21) [court system case number], to get lowered day fines, that NS’s construction company failed. He states that he previously ran a construction company but that after the company’s Nazi aims had been made called attention to he could no longer buy materials, and neither insurance companies not banks want to have anything to do with the company. He states that he has no income.

What started as a project to generate money for NS’ political activities and give Nazis income, thereby ends in a defeat and it is specifically the political aspect that forces them to abandon the company.

 

The court proceedings

Many members of NS have a long history of politically motivated crimes. It’s everything from Lund’s murder of Ronny Landin to money laundry, various cases of battery, arms violations and racial agitation, to mention a few. Since NS was formed several members have gotten themselves further convictions or are parties to ongoing court proceedings. It is mainly lesser crimes, such as traffic violations, drunk driving, lesser arms violations (knives and pepper spray) and cases at the Swedish Enforcement Authority [“Kronofogdemyndigheten”=The Crown Bailiff Authority, the State’s debt collection, evictions and court order enforcement agency].

Two of the ongoing criminal cases are however of more interest in this article and we will give if brief summary of them. The first is a prosecution at the Stockholm District Court (B 3702-19) against 11 Nazis, out of which 7 are in NS, which AFA Stockholm reported [in Swedish] about already spring 2020. Because of the Nazis’ huge effort at avoiding being served and being at court proceedings the case has been protracted. This has lead to several of the prosecution points being written off because they have reached the statute of limitation during the process. Some partial rulings have been issued, where Anders Rydberg is the only one so far to be sentenced to prison, for 14 days. The most serious prosecution points remain. It concerns arms violations (possession of 41 cans of pepper spray and 189 cartridges), preparation for serious arms violation (materials for homemade shotgun) and money laundry, and the prosecuted are Anders Rydberg, Julius Blomberg (19881109-4997) and Elin Johansson (19970313-6144).

The other case is regarding a serious battery at a midvinterblot in December 2019 where several from NS participated (B 8417-19 Uppsala District Court). The prosecuted are Patrick Christensson and Victor Nieminen (19961205-8470) and the battery had a homophobic motive and sexual aspect. The court proceedings are planned for February 10.

Christensson was together with Oscar Bergström suspected of another serious battery (B 1787-20 Nacka District Court). The victim was their friend of several years, organization- and work-comrade Linus Edberg Vosthenko (19940403-6676), now Linus Hammarqvist. Battery took place in connection to a party at the place of Bergström’ then girlfriend in Tyresö [just south-east of Stockholm]. The preliminary investigation [usually called “police investigation” elsewhere] was terminated due to lack of evidence as Linus did not want to participate in the investigation.

Nordic Foce – in constant decline

Nordic Force has existed for two and a half years but has of yet not had any public activities in spite of proclaiming that they will do smarter, more spectacular and more effective activities than NMR. They have instead tried to focus on becoming an example by living as genuine Nazis and self-development. There were many in NMR, especially in Nest 1 and Nest 8 where most of the splitters were active, who were not asked to come along to NS. The NS have in their podcasts at several occasions expressed contempt against the organization’s stance, their members and their sympathizers. Training and education has been the explicit, central parts of NS’ political practice. The training is what has been the continuity in NS and it has been maintained through the exercise group in Stockholm, which has lured a couple of new persons to approach the organization, and the premises in Nyköping which has been let to NS by Erik Fernström and Cynthia Sjöberg. The frequency of training sessions has declined with time and the question is why NS has a gym if it is not used. The education has mainly been performed individually, as far as it has occurred at all.

NS has requirements for abstention when it comes to alcohol, drugs and medications but the two serious batteries while drunk mentioned above shows otherwise. Both we and NS furthermore know that several leading members of NS are drug abusers.

Haakon Forwald has expressed that NS should be run like a corporation, which according to him means that they shall be efficient and goals-oriented. The big problem for NS is that their members are incapable of living up to the requirements for orthodoxy, dedication and discipline. The members in NS are simply not made for, or does not want, this kind of organization, which is made obvious by the numerous defections from NS. They are mainly the same old Nazis, beating people while drunk, sleeping with each other’s girlfriends and taking drugs. We’ll have to see when this dawns on Klas Lund and what he will do then after having power-played himself out of NMR.

***

Do you feel hit by our article, or do you want to avoid future attention, then just contact us on our e-mail. Here is a good summary of what our stance is regarding contact with defectors: information to defectors [in Swedish].

Do you know anyone personally, or do you see anyone in your everyday or at work? Do you have information regarding Fascist activity? Or are you interested in organizing in AFA? Then don’t hesitate contacting us!

Mail: afa-doku@riseup.net

/ AFA Research

 

 

Translated by b9AcE to the best of my ability, from the original text in Swedish. Any errors are to be presumed mine, not antifa’s.

 

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A pamphlet with tips and tricks for squatting

Posted by b9AcE in General on 2020-08-17

The anarchist group “Ministry of Occupying” [a.k.a. squatting] created a handwritten pamphlet with tips and tricks for people interested in squatting empty buildings in Stockholm in 2009, which was mass duplicated and intended to leave behind to be found by others on subway seats, in cafés, etc.
It was made from half an A4-sized sheet of paper, cut lengthwise and folded accordion-style into a square.
Below is a translation of the pamphlet and a photograph of one of the pamphlets which has been hanging among the family portraits on my dad’s kitchen wall.

Disclaimer: You are responsible for your actions. This is just information and what you do with it is your own decision. Some of the content is specific to the geographic area it was created for.

 

OCCUPY MORE TIPS & TRIX

[The first “O” is styled as the squatting symbol. The “A” in the Swedish word for “more” is styled as the anarchism symbol.]

If you’re nabbed by the cops

You will be probably suspected of unlawful entry and of inflicting damages. If you’re sentenced it will probably be fines. The cops can detain you for 12h if you’re suspected of crime, then they have to arrest you. Remember to never talk to the cops or sign papers even if they say you have to. You never have to cooperate. They can never detain you for longer because you refuse. The only things you have to state are name, personal identity number & the address you’re registered at. Talking to the police hurts you and your comrades.
more info: anarkisterna.com [other content there now, don’t go there]

Good to think of

• What will we do when the cops come?
• What strategy do we want to use to defend ourselves?
• How does that affect potential sentencing?
• How long do we want to stay & how do we organize that?
• How do we make decisions so that everyone are participating?
• Stick together with people you trust, take care of each other!
• If you want to spread information to media, prepare a press release.

Are you without a place of residence?

Do you want to create a social centre? A freespace? or just a chill place to hang out at?
There are lots of empty houses that just stand there & wait!
Empty houses are everyone’s houses!
ockupantscenen.se [not updated since 2010, but still original site]

Barricades

If you occupy in Sweden you will probably be evicted shortly. To make it difficult for the cops, build phatt barricades! Be creative. Hammer, drill, saw, weld. If the house has been empty for long there usually is a lot of clutter. If not recon building sites during the nights, there can be a lot of materials and tools easily accessible there. Decide which route you want to exit through in an emergency so that your construction doesn’t shut you in.

Electricity & water

• If there isn’t water in the house there may be a faucet nearby. Water-keys can be gotten at construction stores and at claes ohlsson [online hardware store].
At gas stations one can always fetch water.
• If you’re good at electricity you definitely can manage it through the fuse/electricity-cabinet which usually is in the basement.
It is also possible to steal electricity from streetlights, but in that case talk to a knowledgeable person can be dangerous if ones doesn’t know.

Good stuff to bring along

• Tools – Hammers, saw, nails, screws, crowbar, screwdriver, and so on.
• Masks, gloves, good clothes.
• Music, colors, brushes, things to have fun with!
• Water, food.
• Flashlights.
• First aid like band aids, bandages, hand sanitizer.
• Fire extinguisher
• Bucket (if there is no toilet)

Find a house

• At City of Stockholm’s website there is a list of all municipal houses/premises that stand empty
• At objektvision.se there is a list of empty houses that are owned by private owners.
• Tip: Call the owner pretending to be interested & find out as much as possible about the house (how long it has been standing empty, is there electricity/water and so on)
• Go and look at the house a few times, check if there is an alarm, what kind of neighbors there are, how will you get into the house?

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AFA (antifa) Fyrbodal: The Day of Civil Courage

Posted by b9AcE in General on 2019-10-12

Today it is 20 years since the syndicalist and antifascist Björn Söderberg was shot do death outside his home by nazis on October 12, 1999. Söderberg was murdered after he had revealed a colleague and executive member of the local labor union as an active nazi.

Even though Söderberg wasn’t primarily an antifascist his clear action was an antifascist action.

Söderberg is unfortunately neither the first nor the last to be killed by nazis after resolutely having stood up against them. Neither Björn’s nor all others that have had to pay with their lives for their civil courage can be forgotten.

They show us the need for countering fascism wherever it shows up and why fascism never can be allowed to grow.

No area in Sweden has been safe from nazi violence, as long as they are allowed to organize and act in peace nobody is safe from their violent ideology.

Within and around our area of activities nazis have both killed and attempted to kill several times through the years, to mention a few examples:
• 2015 a young man with racist motives attack a school in the city district Kronogården in Trollhättan, 3 people are murdered and several seriously wounded.
• 2014 a group of nazis of the then Party of the Swedes tries to cut the throat of a man in Vänersborg after a small fracas.
• 1993 a refugee is severely battered by nazis in Trollhättan, where a man among other things jumped with his feet together on the head.
• 1991 an Assyrian refugee is battered to death by three nazis in Uddevalla.

Not to be forgotten is John Hron which 1995 was battered to death in Kode after he had refused leaving his friend, and had refused to neither accept nor tolerate nazis in spite of repeated threats of violence. John only became 14 years old.

Beyond these acts in our absolute vicinity there are enormous amounts of examples of nazi violence, among those in the forms of murder, threats, serious weapons crimes and battery.

A large part of the active nazis today are sentenced for one or several of the crimes mentioned above, which shows what they are capable of and what we have to expect if we don’t act sharply against them.

We see fascism as a violent ideology with a violent practice which we under no circumstances can compromise with. The targets of nazis are LGBTQ+-persons, racialized, of opposing opinions and all others with civil courage enough to stand up against them.

We can never give up in the fight to together obstruct, act, disturb and finally eradicate the organized fascism from our streets.

It is an obvious foundation for a safer and better society that fascists are not allowed to get a foothold and space to act.

Honor the memory of Björn together with us in Stockholm today, get organized for a world free of oppression tomorrow.

Antifascism is civil courage!
We never forget – we never forgive!

Translated by b9AcE to the best of my ability, from the original text in Swedish. Any errors are to be presumed mine, not antifa’s.

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Current methods/tools against States’ Internet-blocking/slowdowns for censorship (2020-08-15)

Posted by b9AcE in General on 2019-10-07

Over the recent years there has been a resurgence of draconian State blocking/slowdowns of Internet across the world as a method to prevent the people from public debate, sharing information on the situation where they are both with other locals and the world, as well as to prevent locals from organizing protests against unjust rule and similar.
On some occasions States have for those purposes blocked all or parts of the Internet for months or even several years. Thousands of independent news media organizations that refused to let their journalism become tightly ruled propaganda outlets for the current rulers have permanently had all access blocked from within the country they’re located in and do provide their crucial society function of journalism regarding.
Sometimes these State communication sabotage policies take not just the form of complete communications blackout, but may include less obvious methods such as throttling the traffic so that it still exists, but becomes practically unusable.

It is therefore of utmost importance to share information on how to circumvent these harmful censorship policies as widely as possible.

These free of cost options have been verified with people IN areas subjected to State censorship as working recently:

• ProtonVPN has a free of cost mode that should be more than enough for any average user and is motivated by anti-censorship. Works on Linux/Windows/Android/Routers/MacOS/iPhone/iPad.
• RiseupVPN, the newish Bitmask-based VPN which was previously named Riseup Black.
• Calyx VPN is similar to RiseupVPN, with same technologies but different addresses, so may be useful if Riseup has already been blocked.
• Tor Browser. Also other Tor-based solutions like Tails and Whonix of course, but Tor Browser is a good cross-platform start. Tor is however a bit slow and triggers so many CAPTCHAs that use may even become practically impossible.
• WARP, the new VPN from CloudFlare. May be difficult for dictatorships to block, as CloudFlare is (unfortunately) a core component of extremely many major commercial/government web-based services nowadays.

For local messaging when/if Internet Service Providers (ISPs) shut down networking completely:
• Briar has been shown to work.
• FireChat claims to fill a similar function, but I have not had it verified as working there, now.

Instant-messaging tools with high level of general trust, but which require centralized infrastructure to work:
• Signal. Works on most computers and phones, but uses mobile phone numbers as user identifiers, which are easily traceable by any State and relies on centralized servers for message delivery. Open source.
• Wire. Like above, based on same protocol, but uses e-mail addresses as user identifiers and therefore is much more difficult to trace, as temporary/dedicated e-mail accounts can be used. Open source.
• Wickr. Similar to above. Very limited open source.
• Silence. Completely SMS-based encryption, as Signal was, developed from Signal’s old source code. Useful when there is no mobile data-traffic, but only SMS. Open source.

Other Internet-blocking/slowdown circumvention tools that I have not verified to be working right now, but may be good to keep in mind if the previous stop working (Not an endorsement. Make sure to check anonymization, logging, State-collaboration, etc as needed before use):
• VPNBook
• The “cryptofree” or “cryptofree WireGuard” by the generally well regarded cryptostorm.
• Lantern
• Psiphon
• Hola
• Mada19 Outline [in Arabic]

As the State combines the blockings/slowdowns with arbitrary physical searches of people in the streets and in homes, wherein finding one of the above mentioned tools leads to arrest, it is probably a good idea to hide their presence.
For Android, the two first methods here for example may work well.

Documents, videos, software installers, etc can be hidden in encrypted container-files and then placing those files in some obscure place that would not likely be inspected during a regular search, such as in a different program’s data-directories and similar.
Encrypted container-files can be created and opened using VeraCrypt (almost all desktop/laptop computers) or EDS (Android).

Using well known functions like “Samsung Secure Folder” or similar from other major manufacturers is probably NOT a good idea, as they are well known enough to have had passwords demanded under threat of fines or worse during arbitrary searches.

As a probably last resort, there is an analog modem number still available in Sweden, which I have not verified myself due to lack of hardware, but a modem answers and using it did work last I heard.
Sweden modem phone number: +46708671911 (username “toto”, password “toto”)

Two more analog modem phone numbers that I have not verified at all if they still work are:
The Netherlands modem phone number: +31205350535 (username “xs4all”, password “xs4all”)
France modem phone number: +33172890150 (username “toto”, password “toto”)

Last, to state the obvious:
Absolutely do NOT rely on Facebook (which is also e.g. WhatsApp and Instagram) for dictatorship-banned communications, as they have cooperated with dictatorships’ “lawful court orders” in the past leading to capture, torture and/or executions and furthermore publicly admitted to being co-responsible for genocide and enabling imprisonment of people for being homosexual through silent automated “interests” categorization being used as court evidence.
Better platforms to consider are for example Riseup’s Crabgrass, Mastodon and PeerTube.

• Revision 2019-11-03: Added CalyxVPN and cryptostorm’s cryptofree VPN, because they should already have been in there.
• Revision 2020-07-01: Added ProtonVPN, as I’ve now tested them for several months and approve.
• Revision 2020-08-15: Rewrite to make the text more generalized. No changes in actual methods, etc.

 

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The origin and formation of the countrywide network Anti-Fascist Action [AFA/antifa, Sweden]

Posted by b9AcE in General on 2019-09-08

Translated by b9AcE to the best of my ability, from the original text in Swedish as of 2019-09-07. Any errors are to be presumed mine, not antifa’s.
As made apparent by the text, it represents the state of matters at the fifth anniversary in 1998, which is now over 20 years ago.
A similar text was published for the 25th anniversary, but while it contains pictures, it is much shorter and therefore the older text was chosen for translation.

Introduction

One of the younger social movements in Sweden is the anti-racist movement. As a social movement it began to emerge in the early 80s, as an extension of the waning leftist- and solidarity-movement of the 70s. The anti-racist movement thus emerged in a new era, to meet a different kind of problem than those the leftism of the seventies had countered. The left and the social movements were weakened, a right-wing surge began to make itself noticeable, unemployment increased and immigration from outside Europe had begun for real. Racism surfaced as a new problem in society on the political agenda.

1980-1987

Around 1980 racist graffiti and racist deeds caused strong reactions. Out of the protests against an arson attack against an immigrant-owned convenience store in a suburb of Stockholm was founded Stoppa Rasismen [“Stop the Racism”], which grew as a genuine grassroots movement. The organization came to tie together different immigrant groups and leftist organizations in a broad and diverse rainbow-coalition. Apart from raising awareness about racism in Sweden, Stoppa Rasismen also worked against deteriorations in the right to asylum and against the State’s racism. The foundational idea of Stoppa Rasismen – an idea they carried on from the leftism of the seventies’ united front-strategy – was to create a broad union to counter and isolate racism in society. As Stoppa Rasismen managed to gather a number of organizations under their umbrella and also didn’t hesitate criticizing the State asylum- and refugee-policies they were treated as a threat by the Social Democrats, which responded by starting its own State-supported anti-racist organization, “Rör inte min kompis” [“Don’t touch my buddy”]. From Stoppa Rasismen’s sister-organization in France, the grassroots initiative SOS Racisme, the Social Democrats took the “Rör inte min kompis”-symbol (a hand making the stop-signal). By the “Rör inte min kompis”-campaign the State tried to take over the initiative in the new anti-racist struggle and lead it away from tracks critical of the system onto a safer and more liberal “everyone should be nice to each other”-track. The State’s anti-racist campaign created a large interest for anti-racism in society and gathered a number of names of interested but when the campaign year was over the lid was shut and the new anti-racist interest was thereby smothered in its cradle. The “Rör inte min kompis”-campaign took ground from Stoppa Rasismen. But meanwhile Stoppa Rasismen themselves had a difficult time handling grassroots involvement: through the forming of a national association the focus was moved from the local initiatives and came to tie up a large part of the force in a countrywide organization and bureaucracy. In retrospect one could conclude that the transformation to a national association occurred way too early and came to be more a burden than a boon for Stoppa Rasismen.

The street as forum

The right-turn went through at many levels of society. It broke a leftist-liberal hegemony at the start of the 80s and did not only take place in the political discourse and in public but also substantially in society through a mobilization, an organizing of reactionary rightist forces which worked against the positive changes which the left had achieved. From during most of the post-war years having been isolated into small nazi sects or anti-communist groups the extreme-right in the early 80s began trying to make themselves visible in the streets. The street is a substantial physical space which must be conquered to be able to create a political movement. Primarily it is about creating “spaces”, free zones, where the movement’s opinions can be tolerated without being attacked, to then advance the positions and push out others. But every step the extreme-right took out onto the street met resistance. Meanwhile they started slowly moving to the right the limits as to which opinions were considered as acceptable. An early free zone where the extreme-right could seek “tolerance” was the apolitical “screw everything”-part of the punk movement which existed next to the larger leftist strain. From the apolitical oi/skins-scene nazism surfaced in the early 80s, in direct political conflict with the leftist-punks. Another free space became the football firms, a “violent” male world where nationalist symbols could be combined with racist opinions. But also among the firms the racists met resistance, from those that wanted to keep the firms apolitical or open for everyone, regardless of skin color. Through the nazi-skins the racist extreme-right got protection, which was necessary to take the real step out onto the streets. From the very beginning they met tangible resistance. The first BSS [“Bevara Sverige Svenskt”, racist “Keep Sweden Swedish”] meeting 1980 in Södertälje [city in south of Stockholm County] ended in chaos and in Stockholm an entire city block was blocked around a BSS-demonstration, when the fascists attempted to demonstrate on May Day 1984. The demonstration by NRP [“Nordiska rikspartiet”, nazi “Nordic Realm Party”] in Växjö 1985 was aborted by VPK [“Vänsterpartiet Kommunisterna”, “Left Party – the Communists”] members, which chased off the nazi-skins. (Everyone have probably seen the photo of the lady which slams a bag in the head of a flag-carrying Nazi.) In Gothenburg a fascist meeting in the People’s House was aborted by a broad counter-demonstration. The part of the left which was first affected by and feel the neo-nazism was the anarcho-punk scene. Here both the physical proximity and the political conflict was present. Nazi attacks took place against festivals such as Glädjetåget, premises like the book café “Svarta Månen” on Götgatan [street] in Stockholm and house squats like Skaraborgsgatan [street]. The attacks against the anarcho-punk scene, which during the early 80s was pacifist, forced self-defence, and anti-fascism became militant and confrontational. As an example of the change is the Gärdesfesten [festival in Stockholm] 1986/87, when nazis which came to beat punks themselves got beaten and chased off by festival visitors. The anarcho-punk scene hit back. In 1986/87 Bevara Sverige Blandat, BSB [“Keep Sweden Mixed”, anti-racist] was formed as a loose action-group by anarcho-punks as response to BSS and Framstegspartiet’s [the “Progress Party”, right populist turned xenophobe] stickers and graffiti campaigns. BSB came to sometimes function as a radical youth organization of Stoppa Rasismen.

1987-1990

Around 1986/87 a minor surge in the nazi-skin scene occurred. With more nazi-skins the violence on the streets increased and the fascist parties started getting more cocky. The summer of 1986 Ronny Landin was battered to death by nazi-skins at the Nickstabadet [bath] in Nynäshamn [town, Stockholm County] and in society the neo-nazi and racist violence began being discussed for the first time. When Sverigepartiet [the “Sweden Party”, right-extremist] in 1987 started handing out fliers at the tunnel in T-Centralen [Stockholm subway’s Central Station] every weekend, Stoppa Rasismen responded by organizing blockades, which mostly were peaceful but sometimes lead to more tangible confrontations. The climax was reached on November 30th of that year, when upwards a thousand people succeeded in blocking and stopping Sverigepartiet’s torch march at Östermalmstorg [city square, Stockholm]. November 30th, the day of Charles XII’s death, had through the years become the day when the fascist sects dared crawling out of the sewers. Since the beginning of the 80s there had been confrontations between nazis and leftist demonstrators on that day. With November 30, 1987, the nazi boom was broken. Antifascist demonstrations and an opinion against the racist acts of violence (for example the Ronny Landin murder) had contributed. After 1987 Stoppa Rasismen let go of much of the antifascist work and instead prioritized the struggle in defence of asylum and against discrimination. Meanwhile an organized anarchist movement started growing in Sweden. This happened around demonstrations, house squats, women’s cafés and music festivals. In the antifascist struggle Stoppa Rasismen still had the main responsibility for organizing events like November 30th, but in practice the anarchist movement filled an increasingly important role when it came to mobilizing for the events.

A unifying struggle in the country for the anarchist/autonomous movement became the Shell-resistance, aimed at Shell’s involvement with the apartheid-regime in South Africa. In May 1989 nazis which had traveled to Stockholm made a failed attempt to stop an anarchist demonstration against apartheid. The house squats, which increasingly had developed into a conflict with the police, had given us practice in defending ourselves if it was needed.

1990-1995

Around 1990 there was movement again in the brown swamp. After the fall of the Berlin Wall the room for the left had decreased. For the election 1991 Ny demokrati [“New Democracy”, populist/xenophobe party] made its debut and around the country we were shook by deeds against refugee housings, mass media “heavily launched” Vitt Ariskt Motstånd, VAM, [“White Aryan Resistance”, WAR] and the so-called Laser-man harried and spread fear. The new thing with VAM was not the racist violence, we had seen that previously, but the launching of a neo-nazi ideology. Instead of the Sverigepartiet-skinheads TV and newspapers pumped out pictures of theatrical nazi-demonstrations with masked and uniformed explicit nazis. For half a year, from autumn 1991 to spring 1992 a brief but broad antifascist movement grew forth. It became half a year packed with antifascist demonstrations, an immigrant-strike and as a peak of all this 10000 people participated in three different demonstrations in Stockholm on February 8, 1992. It felt as if people started speaking up. The right-wing wave had gone too far.

The founding of AFA

When it became clear that Stoppa Rasismen did not intend to arrange any counter-demonstrations against the fascists’ march on November 30th 1991 an antifascist working group was formed in Stockholm at the initiative of a group of anarchists. The spontaneously formed group had as a goal to prevent the march through a massive blockade of Charles XII’s square [central Stockholm], which also was successful. The working group for the first time used the name Antifascistisk Aktion [Anti-Fascist Action, antifa, AFA]. In Lund [southern Sweden] militant antifascists on the same day hindered the nazi Charles XII-manifestation with the aid of stones and barricades. November 30th 1991 came to be a date known countrywide as a symbol for struggle against racism and fascism. In spring 1992 it became apparent that the antifascist mobilization had been effective, the nazi movement had been hit by a severe setback. Meanwhile the cops had apprehended the Laser-man and the VAM bank robbers. By the antifascist success the antifascist movement started deescalating its activities. Stoppa Rasismen had lost its steam, and the national association slowly deflated. The left’s antifascist interest declined and media’s spotlight on the extreme-right went out. The winter 1991-1992 was characterized by spontaneous coalitions and it was difficult to establish a continuous cooperation. During a countrywide anarchist meeting in March 1992 we met and formed ties with other radical antifascists from various parts of Sweden. Several antifascist working groups were formed among anarchists and autonomous in various places around the country. Working groups which eventually turned into practice as action groups. In March 1992 we together with local residents chased off the French history-revisionist Faurisson and his VAM-bodyguards and ruined their meeting which was planned to be held in Enskededalen just south of Stockholm. On November 30th 1992 militant antifascists clashed with the police in Stockholm in an attempt at reaching the nazi-demo and managed to chase a group of nazis over half the town. In Lund a peaceful blockade with a militant image was held, which once again stopped the nazis’ demonstration.

Increasingly many around the country started adopting a militant method of confrontation to stop the nazis. It was made apparent for example at the Hultsfred festival summer of 1993 when the new wave of Ultima Thule-skins which had shown up, were chased off. After that antifascists ensured to keep the summer rock festivals free zones where nazis were not welcome.

In September 1993 around twenty different antifascist groups from all of Sweden gathered and decided to form the countrywide network Antifascistisk Aktion. The name AFA was partially borrowed from the English radical left’s antifascist organization AntiFascist Action and partially from the German proletarian self-defence organization Antifascistische Aktion which existed in the 1930s. In parallel with the formation of AFA in Sweden, arose AFA in Denmark and Norway.

The discussions within the left

The development of events between 1991-93 has become a very much discussed conflict issue within the left and came to shape and affect the newly formed AFA-network’s political practice. Why did the broad short term antifascist movement which emerged 1991/92 collapse? For a few months “rainbow coalitions”, broad anti-racist alliances between leftist groups, immigrant organizations and general humanist initiatives were organized, which held manifestations in several towns in Sweden. But all the coalitions became short term and the number of participants was declining at anti-racist demonstrations. Among a large part of the left and anti-racist groups the blame for this was placed at the militant and confrontational antifascism. It was claimed that violence and hot headlines about fascists and antifascists being “essentially the same” scared off the common people from demonstrations and manifestations. AFA gave another explanation. In our opinion what happened 1991/92 was a response to the fascists’ own escalation. That there was a fracture between the more broad “rainbow coalitions” and a militant context was not so strange. Since the militant groups organized themselves the antifascist movement had broadened its field of work. There were various forms of antifascism/anti-racism and people could choose to participate in the events that suited them. The coalitions that have been formed have always been short term, and often only gathered around one issue or prepared one demonstration and then ceased work. Often a broader antifascist mobilization has emerged after various events, such as neo-nazi murders, when many wanted to express their anger at the racist violence. These demonstrations have gathered a lot of people, like the demonstrations after the murders of Jimmy Ranjbar, Peter Karlsson, John Hron or the attacks against homosexuals in Linköping 1997. But it has always ended at a few large demonstrations, no continuous organizing has been born from these quickly called together coalitions. It has been an antifascism which only is brought up around November 30th or when media puts its spotlight on the extreme-right. There was also another discussion within the antifascist movement about coalitions as a strategy and how one should form an antifascist political line. A large part of the leftist and anti-racist movement has claimed that the goal is to create widest possible breadth in the coalitions in order to isolate the extreme-right. As a leftist group this has meant putting aside one’s own politics and joining up behind liberal and system-preserving slogans.

AFA and other extra-parliamentarian leftist groups have instead emphasized the importance of building an antifascist opposition. It is lethally dangerous to – while the extreme-right tries to put on being a radical society-opposition – ally with the “establishment” and let the extreme-right gather the discontent against the society we live in. An antifascist movement must be built upon critical society-opposition and try to give answers to the social questions that are asked in society. Practically speaking however, AFA has been rather pragmatic in the matter. Most of the time AFA has spent at creating a profile for an antifascist opposition, but has at various occasions under own (or other) name gone into and been the driving force in the organizing of broad antifascist coalitions.

1993-1995

AFA was formed to create a cooperation for the militant action groups which worked continuously with antifascism and AFA’s position became to construct a substantial resistance throughout the country,to confront fascism both ideologically and physically.

Successful campaigns

The countrywide cooperation took the expression of shared campaigns and traveling around to each others’ events.

The autumn 1993 and spring 1994 came to be a baptism of fire for the AFA-groups (which mostly were completely newly formed). One of the first campaigns came to be aimed at the nazi-demonstrations in general and the Sweden Democrats’ election campaign in particular. In a number of towns the AFA-groups were confronted with police and fascists, which gave both direct and indirect results. The direct result was that several fascist demonstrations were stopped and fewer fascists dared to participate. But indirect results were that the costs for the State to protect fascist demonstrations increased and that the Sweden Democrats lost their respectable facade. AFA’s actions also showed that it was possible to resist and they broke the demonizing image within the left of the fascists as being unconquerable fighters. The campaign “Nazifritt Södermalm” [Nazi-free Södermalm, south-central Stockholm] can be given as an example of AFA Stockholm’s more successful campaigns. During 1995 we started a campaign against the nazi-shops Asgård and Last Resort and the Fryshuset’s skinhead-barrack [YMCA founded activity center which housed skinheads in south-central Stockholm]. The campaign broke a defensive position of the wider antifascist movement in Stockholm. The campaign made concrete goals, to close the premises, and we then worked pragmatically and broadly to reach this goal. Larger demonstrations aside town square meetings were organized, posters were put up, lectures were held for other organizations, information about the premises were given to media, the nazi-premises were constantly sprayed, the locks to the shops were glued and action groups smashed them. The campaign coincided with an increased debate around Fryshuset’s skinhead-activities. The Nazi-free Söder campaign is a clear example that our idea, that a diversity of tactics complement each other, work in practice. The work produced results and today all those premises are closed. Another campaign which AFA initiated early was aimed against Ultima Thule, the viking rock, and the nazi “white supremacist-music”. The white supremacist-music, following the success of Ultima Thule, resurrected the asleep nazi-movement. In a campaign to prevent the nazi-music from gaining a foothold and new fora AFA worked at having the nazi-records removed from record stores. The campaign was successful and was performed using a variety of tactics, ranging from activists informing record stores and handing out flyers, to sabotage and stolen nazi-records. Since the press and confrontations increased at nazi-demonstrations, the white supremacist-music lead to the fascists organizing concerts instead. The concerts were often held in secret, and could be held under police protection and became significantly safer to attend for the nazis than the demonstrations.

Both more narrow and more broad than previous movements

Concerts early turned out to be more difficult for us to stop than demonstrations. The concert activities were less sensitive to sabotage, or at least more difficult to get at with sabotage. Instead it became important to create a more broad political pressure to get an end to the concerts. The “secret” concerts forced AFA to become better at gathering information and we began to more than previously use media to release information which could lead to the concerts being cancelled.

By AFA’s emphasizing antifascism we have chosen both a more narrow and a more broad designation than the previous anti-racist movement. More narrow because we focus on fighting the fascist movement. In the anti-racist movement the fight against the fascist groups was a small part of the activities, the rest of the activities was about creating places for swedes and immigrants to meet och to counter both discrimination and the State’s racism. But we also use antifascism as a more broad term than anti-racism. We started a discussion about which components and which power structures a fascist movement was tied to. The sexism, homophobia and racism, which manifest in their ultimate forms in fascism, are structures which permeate our entire society. The fascist movement does not exist within a vacuum – it is connected to and is a part of a larger right-turn. But at the same time it is not the right-turn’s only expression, but is rather an expression it takes on the street, in concrete mobilization. There is an interplay between the right which moves the lines on the street and physically threaten people, and the right-turn within politics which harshens refugee policies and projects immigration as a society problem. With this analysis we have also worked with issues which have been outside a strict antifascist field but we have deemed as important parts of reactionary mobilization and right-turn. One such area, which several AFA-groups have chosen to prioritize, is a work against the increased distribution of porn within society and we have done so through attacking porn-shops and other institutions which have been spreading sexualized oppression of women.

Another example is the campaign ahead of the EU-referendum [on membership] which was initiated alongside the antifascist work. Nordic action-nights against “Fortress Europe” were organized and Yes to EU’s propaganda-center was beset by over 100 actions. The rationale behind the campaign was the racist and restrictive refugee policies which is built into the EU’s police-cooperation and closed external borders as well as the fact that the no-side only got a fraction of the yes-side’s resources ahead of the referendum and could not afford opening any fancy info-centers. The actions for us took place as a complement to the work with flyers-distribution and participation in No to EU’s activities. The work did not end with the EU-referendum. The most recent year we have continued working against the EU’s racist refugee policies and police-cooperation in the Schengen-agreement. Between the years 1992 to 1995 there was a tense relationship between AFA and the other left, especially Stoppa Rasismen, SAC-Syndikalisterna [anarcho-syndicalist labor union], Socialistiska Partiet [the Socialist Party], Offensiv [Trotskyist group] and Ung Vänster [“Young Left”, youth organization of the Left Party]. Meanwhile the “confrontational line” lead to AFA being put under heavy pressure by cops and media. The left meanwhile was electioneering and no controversial issues were allowed to disturb. During those years there was no broad antifascist movement to speak of in Sweden. AFA was alone in conducting a continuous antifascist work. AFA in this situation tried to become wider and tried to fill a role as social movement. Alongside the actions we held school lectures, conducted own research on the extreme-right and wrote articles. We tried to politicize the “sub-cultures” which were closest to us to counter the nazi “white supremacist-music”. And we invested in the building of the AFA-network within and outside of Sweden. We stood quite alone but that did not bother us much. The cooperation with the rest of the left felt mostly pointless and we could not see it giving any actual results in practice.

1995-1997

During 1995 the result of the nazi music-wave was seen, in the form of increased nazi-violence: the murders in Kode, Klippan and Västerås and serious cases of beatings outside Fryshuset in Stockholm. With the increased racist violence both media and the anti-racist movement was awoken again. AFA suddenly stood as sole group with a continuous work, an activist base, knowledge and experience, and had thus strengthened its position within the anti-racist movement. We had an entirely new base and sense of self for initiating a cooperation with other groups.

Emergency service politics and State racism

During 1996 there was an attempt to organize within the nazi-skin sub-culture, Nationella Alliansen [the “National Alliance”]. AFA could quickly locate their premises and militant antifascist groups made sure it was closed. The crowning moment came when the internationally important Hess-demonstration – which Nationella Alliansen organized in Trollhättan [town near Gothenburg] – was prevented from marching in the streets through our mobilizing and was instead enclosed at a loading dock at the train station. After the nezis’ fiasco in Trollhättan and closed premises in Stockholm internal fighting took over the nazi movement and Nationella Alliansen collapsed. Antifascist actions, an increased opinion against fascism and increased repression from the State broke the nazis’ little upsurge between 1993 and 1996. Today the nazi movement is in retreat and busy with internal fractioning while the Sweden Democrats haven’t recovered since the anti-election campaign 1994. AFA Stockholm has instead been able to widen its field of work. That we have gotten experience from continuously surveilling nazi activities has lead to militant actions or mobilizations having worked as “emergency service politics” which has been deployed when needed whilst the majority of the continuous work has be possible to put into offensive struggle such as building the libertarian socialist organizations and networks. Meanwhile we have been able to work with other issues, such as against the porn industry and a campaign together with Nätverket mot rasism [the “Network Against Racism”] against the European police-cooperation and the restrictive refugee-policies in the Schengen-agreement.

After the large number of nazi-murders 1995 there was a change in society. The discussion shifted. From earlier in connection with nazi manifestations talking about everyone’s right to freedom of speech, nazism instead began being seen as a threat. After 1995 one can notice an increased antifascist organizing and a more active State role through anti-racist campaigns and reversal on police interventions. The last three years there have been attempts at improving the contacts between all anti-racist/antifascist organizations. At an initiative by Hasans Vänner mot våld och rasism [“Hasans Friends against violence and racism”], a Stockholm-based group within the national association Stoppa Rasismen, Nätverket mot Rasism has been started. AFA has entered and helped building the Network. We have also entered the equivalent international network of anti-racist grassroots organizations, UNITED.

Within AFA we have no confidence in the State measures against fighting fascism. The latest five hundred campaigns against racism/fascism, it was established in a State study, has not had any effect (or adverse effect) in the work against racism. One of the reasons they have not tried starting any local and continuous antifascist/anti-racist work but instead go for spectacular gimmick campaigns whose purpose has been more to give the impression that the State is reacting against racism than trying to get actual results. In some cases the State campaigns have even suffocated the local anti-racist work through creating an interest, gathering a lot of names and then put the lid on. That is how both the “Rör inte min kompis”-campaign in the 80s and the “Ungdom mot Rasism”-campaign [“Youth against Racism”] in the 90s worked. The State campaigns have “depoliticized” anti-racism and lead the discussion away from making the State’s own role in maintenance of racism visible – the restrictive refugee policies and the lack of will to deal with discrimination.

The Swedish nazi movement has grown up under police protection. Without police protection the neo-nazi manifestations had been impossible. The neo-nazi concerts have been dependent on police not intervening and at several occurrences the police have convinced venue-renters to let the concert be held when the owner has wished to cancel the contract after it dawned on them whom they had rented the venue to. To “avoid scuffles” the police aided with buses to give nazis rides to the concerts and keeping antifascist demonstrations at a distance. As of the autumn 1995 one can notice a change in the police. They have become more active in the intervention against neo-nazi activities. We are strongly skeptical to these attempts. The police have been more interested in giving the pretense that they react against nazi activities, and they have only reacted after media pressure. We don’t believe one can legislate away social problems. Antifascist work which is to have effect must be undertaken locally at grassroots level by people working continuously based on their own every-day life. The State and authorities can never achieve that. We don’t believe that State or police have any genuine interest in fighting fascism, as they are not the ones hit by the fascist violence. We therefore can not put our trust in police or State undertaking the antifascist work. During the three first months 1998 the police have intervened and stopped three white supremacist-concerts. But it has not only been actions against the neo-nazi movement. The increased police-activities have also been used to try to suffocate initiatives from antifascist organizations. When “nazism” has become a police matter, antifascist mobilizing is seen as a disturbance of police work. “Regular people” should not go out detaining burglars, and they shouldn’t go out taking action against fascism either, since “nazism” is a police matter. In that manner one has attempted stopping antifascist manifestations and put the blame for failed police actions against nazism at the antifascist movement.

Activities are broadened


In autumn (1998) the AFA-network turns five years old. During that time we have not just kept fascism back but also broadened our own activities. A breadth which is noticed both regarding forms of actions and cooperations with other groups. One of our goals has been to refuse getting stuck in ruts, to neither let ourselves get sucked into the establishment nor being ejected into isolation. By broadening our cooperation at grassroots level with other social movements we have increased the areas of contact, broken our own isolation and created channels where we have been able to take a discussion about or activities. Purely self-critically the cooperation with other antifascist movements has forced us to be more open, straight and not enter cooperation with hidden agendas. But meanwhile our recurring, militant actions have lead to us maintaining a unique position in the antifascist movement and us not having to compromise our analysis and our antifascist profile. We have also during these five years learnt to conduct ourselves tactically and pragmatically relative to the militant form of struggle which we have been a part of establishing. We have not let the militance go to our heads and be transformed into a goal in itself. We have instead at each action and campaign first decided which political goal we wanted to achieve, to then decide methods to achieve that result. Protest activities, creating opinion through media, mass-militance and action group-militance has been allowed to complement each other. That is where our possibility of growth in the future lies: to both be an antifascist opposition and to work pragmatically. To both work in cooperation with other social movements and develop an anti-hierarchical, decentralized, militant and result-driven antifascist practice. And we have not forgotten that the AFA-network is only one means, suitable for the moment. The general goal is after all to create a broad and strong libertarian, socialist movement. A strong left is the best cure against racism, sexism, homophobia and capitalism.

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AFA (antifa) Stockholm: Nordic Youth – yet another fascist organization gives up

Posted by b9AcE in antifa, General, Stockholm, Sweden, Translations on 2019-08-06

“Do you have the courage?” → “Decision of disbanding”

In the year 2017 a text was published by Nordisk Ungdom [Nordic Youth] where the members were urged to prepare for becoming “political soldiers” which “will have to sacrifice significantly more than blood sweat and tears”. Today, two years later, the organization is being shut down because it has been too hard for these soldiers to keep the operation alive. AFA [antifa] Stockholm explains here how this development looked and the reasons behind Nordisk Ungdom giving up.

Nordisk Ungdom (NU) was formed in the year 2010 with the ambition of becoming a countrywide organization which would modernize the Swedish fascism through new methods and new political alliances. During the first years one amongst others cooperated with radical Islamists on a foundation of antisemitism and conservatism meanwhile a hand was being stretched out to the radical leftist movement in hopes of cooperation against globalization and “society’s elite”. NU profiled itself initially as a fascist group with socialist traits, which except for immigration and multi-culture also went after neo-liberalism’s assault on the labor-rights, economic injustice and imperialism. In this way the founders, which previously belonged to Nationaldemokraterna [the National Democrats], hoped that the organization would be able to unite youth with socialist and racist values and thus lay the foundation for a new kind of fascist movement. The inspiration for this movement came largely from fascist projects abroad like Casa Pound in Italy or Junge Nationaldemokraten in Germany.

This political strategy became short-lived, partially because the socialist movement with organized anti-fascists at the front treated NU by the exact same terms as any other fascist street-group.  It sometimes happens that fascists try to use socialist rhetoric, but this will never change the fact that they fundamentally want to divide the working class and get us to hate our colleagues and neighbors instead of our real enemies. The AFA-network [antifa-network in Sweden] and other anti-fascists therefore at an early stage ensured confronting NU repeatedly which contributed to all local groups except the one in Stockholm quickly being disbanded and also the remaining Stockholm group became quickly strongly weakened, they only succeeded in hanging on because the leadership and the core activists lived in Stockholm.

After the experiment of uniting fascist and leftist-minded youth failed Patrik Forsén (19840325-0155) and a few activists  continued running the organization. For several years the group was searching for a way to grow and become relevant, but time after time they were hit by setbacks in the form of at three occasions having their premises exposed and their events attacked. Among the few activists that had stayed in the organization are apart from Patrik Forsén also Fredrik Haugen (earlier Hagberg) (19860924-0638) and Christian Mattsson (19900604-4433). Through the years the group experimented with various ideological alignments, from the initial will to approach the left to adopting the so-called “alt right”-movement’s rhetoric and thereafter an attempt with a radical-conservative variant of Catholicism.

During the years 2015-2017 NU achieved some media success and in number of active members by producing video clips of provocative actions, e.g. was organized attacks against the Pride-parade and the sit-in strike for unaccompanied refugee minors’ rights. At one of these occasions one person was injured when pyrotechnics was thrown straight into the group of youths that were performing a peaceful manifestation at Mynttorget [town square between Parliament and Stockholm Palace], which we previously reported about here. Meanwhile, NU’s members worked frantically with a new social center which they rented in false name in the municipality of Danderyd’s premises. Furthermore Patrik Forsén launched a number of side projects, foremost Skandinaviska Förbundet [The Scandinavian Association], which was to work as the (officially) youth-based group NU’s adult equivalent. These side projects however never lead to any larger success but remained air castles on the Internet.

On March 8, 2018 NU once again performed an action whose only purpose was to become a good video clip by trying to provoke the feminist demonstration which is being held on that date every year. This time however they were confronted by a number of anti-fascists which lead to the action failing and those that had participated got to leave the place with their tails between their legs. In May same year we published a compilation of the people which participated in Nordisk Ungdom’s activities and a month later the paper Arbetaren [“The Worker“, the anarcho-syndicalist labor union SAC‘s paper] published where the new premises were, which got them evicted and all energy invested in the project was for nothing. In November 2018 NU’s last demo resulted in open conflict between their own group and Nordiska motståndsrörelsen (NMR) [Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM), Nazis], because the latter during the march had become violent when anti-fascists on location protested against their demo. NMR’s behavior resulted in the whole spectacle ending in a fight between fascists, police and anti-fascists. This was something which NU did not appreciate at all which drove the until then relatively good relations between NU and NMR into the ground. Furthermore NU left walkover to NMR in the few contexts they participated in and were engaged in, e.g. the demo at Mynttorget. During 2018 and 2019 the level of activism in the group has been steadily decreasing and the number of members drastically declining until it was decided to officially disband the group.

– We have decided to dissolve the organization as we don’t deem the conditions for continued activity to be fruitful.

This Friday came the statement from Nordisk Ungdom and Skandinaviska Förbundet which declares that the organization ceases to exist. After a 2018 filled with setbacks the group’s spokespersons explain that they no longer can carry on with their activities because “activists are fired from their jobs, the union refuses to represent them, they are persecuted by authorities while left-extremists are allowed to harass and batter. The established media houses cheer the witch-hunt and gladly destroy the lives of young and old. Electoral rigging occurs widely. We are convicted in political courts, we are not allowed to rent premises, banks have shut down our accounts.”

[“One of us was beaten down yesterday.”]

Nordisk Ungdom participates in an episode of Hate The Neighbor. The show mixes documentary filming with standup about the show’s activities.

We in AFA Stockholm can not but congratulate ourselves and other anti-fascists around in Sweden which since NU was founded the year 2010 with joy and pride have been a driving force in making these fascists’ lives difficult. The anti-fascist movement has through all these years worked hard at identifying and confronting these fascists. It is we in the anti-fascist movement that see to it that these individuals’ employers, colleagues and neighbors get to know what they are up to in their spare time. It is also the anti-fascist movement which by “harassing and battering” the fascists which themselves attack peaceful manifestations, burst the illusion they are trying to create of themselves as strong, brave and angry white men. Nordisk Ungdom has been unable to retain the activists which in various batches have joined the group because they were constantly countered, something which becomes extra clear when one reviews the past year when the air went out of the organization once and for all.

AFA Stockholm has through the years seen many fascist organizations come and go. Svenskarnas Parti [Party of the Swedes], Fria Nationalister [Free Nationalists], Nationaldemokraterna [the National Democrats] and Förbundet Nationell Ungdom [the National Youth Association] are some exaples of the groups within the white supremacist-environment which during the 2000s have imploded. That Nordisk Ungdom now join the same destiny is not only important in the meaning that we have a fascist organization less to oppose but also means that the entire white supremacist-environment is weakened overall. NU has as the previously mentioned organizations been acting as a fixed point in the fascist movement and has had collaborations and alliances with groups and initiatives which now stand without protection and extra activists to use. We expect more castles in the air to fall and look forward to the domino effect it results in dissatisfaction, personal conflicts and further division.

Nordisk Ungdom is no longer organizationally a problem. But in spite of the organization’s weakness and the members’ incompetence a few of the former members can on an individual level still represent a threat. Some of the members will leave the political involvement behind and some will look for new contexts in other fascist groups, it has always been thus. We have previously published a compilation of NU’s members and sympathizers which can be read here. The article is relevant until we see that those mentioned are no longer active and urge those which feel affected to contact us to avoid our future attention.

E-mail: afa-sthlm@riseup.net

Follow us on our active twitter-account so you won’t miss our updates.

/ AFA Stockholm

Translated by b9AcE to the best of my ability, from the original text in Swedish. Any errors are to be presumed mine, not antifa’s.

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AFA [antifa] Stockholm: 10 years since the murder on the anarchist Alexis in Greece

Posted by b9AcE in General on 2018-12-09

Thursday December 6 marked ten years since the 15-year-old anarchist Alexis Grigoropoulos was shot to death by the police in Athens.

The police’s lethal shooting took place during a street confrontation between police and anarchists in the neighborhood Exarchia in Athens. The event triggered extensive riots over the entire country and was described as the largest and most serious in several years, to the degree that the Minister of Interior Prokopis Pavlopoulos offered to resign. Several union organizations also declared general strike which lead to e.g. public transport stopping and no airplanes could land, demonstrators also occupied the Technical University in Exarchia and other Universities in Athens while powerful protests against the banks were ongoing in both Athens and the country’s second largest town Thessaloníki. The anniversary of the murder of Alexis has since continued to be commemorated yearly on the day of death December 6.

We in AFA Stockholm participated with a delegation of activists on the streets of Athens to the memory of Alexis.

/Anti-Fascist Action Stockholm

Translated by b9AcE (https://soc.ialis.me/@b9AcE and https://twitter.com/b9AcE) to the best of my ability, from the original text in Swedish. Any errors are to be presumed mine, not antifa’s.

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AFA (antifa) Malmö: May Day 2018 – 25 years as a network

Posted by b9AcE in General on 2018-05-04

During Tuesday AFA [antifa] Malmö participated in the manifestation of Revolutionary May Day in Malmö, where we also held a speech. The speech was prefaced by cheered news from the north, about how the [Nazi] Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR) failed their goals for May 1, and the Anti-Fascist counter-demonstrators in Boden reached several times larger numbers than the Nazis. The rest of the speech was about AFA, our history and the problems we face. We publish here in its entirety that part of the speech, which was held at Möllevångstorget [town square of the Möllevången neighborhood] on May Day 2018.

Autonomous Revolutionary Nordic Alliance’s bloc in the May Day demo.

This year, 2018, Anti-Fascist Action celebrates 25 years as a network. It is with mixed feelings we observe this anniversary.

The Swedish AFA-network was born from a need of organized resistance. We knew then already that to be able to do anything about Nazi violence, we had to gather the many small and create something larger. AFA was formed by youth which was forced to grow up too quickly and take the responsibility that society was avoiding – in those locations that Nazis acted freely it simply became up to organized youth to fight back.

25 years after AFA’s founding we as a movement face similar, but different, problems as then.

Our Anti-Fascist predecessors fought against Sweden Democrats on the streets and in the squares – today we see the entire political establishment adapt to Sweden Democrat politics. Already 20 years ago we saw a terror-inclined White Supremacist-movement – today their heirs commit both political attacks as well as arsons and bombings.

And while we – as a movement and individuals – are subject to Fascist violence, the establishment talks of the necessity of holding a dialog with the Fascists. Nazis are treated by the police as an expression of opinion among others, and we that act against them become an extremism among others.

But we refuse to be spectators while Fascism is normalized into a part of the political system.

Anti-Fascism is always self-defense – but Anti-Fascism also means attack!

We refuse to wait to become the Fascists’ next victim!

Banner carried by Everything for Everyone Malmö in commemoration of Firaz Kardo, a Socialist and Malmö-resident that fell as a soldier in YPG, in the struggle against IS in Syria.

Translated by b9AcE (https://soc.ialis.me/@b9AcE and https://twitter.com/b9AcE) to the best of my ability, from the original text in Swedish. Any errors are to be presumed mine, not antifa’s.

 

 

 

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