Jenny’s Pennies

The Christian fundamentalist* church Maranata has illegally been homeschooling children for years, reports Existens, a Swedish public service TV program. Homeschooling in Sweden is only allowed if the child is very ill, or lives in a remote location far from a school. Homeschooling for religious reasons is not allowed, and yet Maranata has been able to do this for years. Apparently they were given a permit in the 1970s and since then it has just continued, even though the law says that the permit needs to be renewed yearly. Evidently, neither the Stockholm municipality or the National Agency for Education (Skolverket) has been doing their job properly.

Many churches start their own schools, but Maranata doesn’t want to do that, since then they would have to follow the national law on education, which wouldn’t allow them to spank children and teach the Bible as the Truth^TM. Home schooling should, as the name suggests, take place in the home, not in some defacto “school”, but this is what Maranata has been doing: the home schooled children has been educated together in something called “Pilgrimsskolan” (”the Pilgrim school”). A “school” which is under no control from the school authorities and does not follow the Swedish law. Fortunately Lotta Edholm, politician with responsibility for schools in Stockholm, has promised to make sure that the homeschooling is discontinued after this semester. The reply from Maranata is that if that is the case, they will break the law and continue to brainwash their kids**.

A while ago, the liberal party Folkpartiet proposed that the police should be allowed to pick up truant students. But I haven’t heard anybody propose that these children, whose parents/educators are breaking the law both when it comes to homeschooling, compulsory school attendance, and spanking, should be picked up by the police and the parents prosecuted. I’m not proposing that either, but it’s an interesting observation.

And what about when these children enter high school (or do they home school in those levels also?) - according to the law, you need grades to enter high school, but are the grades given in this “school” valid? What about university attendance? Are these children given education in all subjects needed to enter college? Do they have chemistry labs where they can do experiments? Certified language teachers? Well-rounded education about other religions? Certified biology teachers who teach sex ed the way it is outlined in the curriculum?

Seriously, I don’t understand why religious schools are allowed - religion is a private matter and if parents want to install a certain faith in their children, they can do so off school hours. And it is the responsibility of the state to make sure that all kids are in school - we have compulsory school attendance and being of a certain faith does not give you a free pass to break the law. Maranata and other such churches may want to shun society, but they are still members of this society and citizens of this country, and their responsibilities and duties does not end just because they believe in God (or Allah, the Earth Goddess or the Pink unicorn in the sky).

*Don’t jump on me for calling them fundamentalist, that’s what the leader of Maranata’s Stockholm parish, Tage Johansson, is calling himself.
**Again, not my wording: read the article in The Local where Tage Johansson says that the children are brainwashed in order to free them “from the degrading effects of society”.

(Read more: Svenska Dagbladet here and here, DN here, Dagen here, or the Local in English here)

Edit: As pointed out in comments, I had gotten the name of the leader of Maranata’s Stockholm parish wrong: it’s Tage, not Ture. Sorry for the mix-up.

As an illustration to the previous post, go read this great interview in Dagens Arbete from last year, with Sverigedemokraterna’s spokesperson for labour market policy, Per Björklund. It’s illustrates perfectly how undeveloped SD’s politics are.
The first question, to their spokesperson for labour market policy, is: Can you summarize SD’s politics on labour market issues?. The answer: Nah, I don’t know..
Surprisingly, he can’t explain their primary political goal, to “restore a common national identity”, either. A snippet (my translation):

Define what it is to be “Swedish”.
No, I don’t want to do that.
Why not?
I don’t think I know enough to do that.
Your entire program is full of expressions about “the Swedish” and being Swedish. You’re a member of the party executive, and you don’t know enough to answer what that means?
Why don’t you say what you think, and I will tell you if I agree.
Ok… A person who lives in Sweden and/or feels Swedish him/herself is Swedish.
Right. No, I don’t want to enter that discussion, you have to take it with someone at the party’s press service, Mattias, for instance.
Your program says that “The primary goal of the politics of Sverigedemokraterna is to restore a common national identity”. What should that common identity be?
I don’t want to talk about that.
The primary goal. You need to be able to discuss the primary goal of your party’s politics.
The primary goal.
The most important, the overall goal.
Yes, I know what primary means. No I won’t enter that. I don’t want to discuss the program on immigration policy.
Why not?
I haven’t participated in writing the program. I’m the spokesperson for labour market policy.
Immigration is your most important political issue. You have been active in SD since 2002. You have a lot of functions and are in the party executive. And you can’t talk about the primary goal of your own party’s politics.
No.

I laugh because it’s so unbelievably stupid, but I also cry because some people think that this country would be a better place if run by people like this. Read the whole interview!

Edit: I had mistakenly written that the interview was in Arbetaren, which is wrong, it should be Dagens Arbete. I have corrected that now, and realize that it is time to go to bed…

Right wing populist party Sverigedemokraterna (SD) is having problems. They can’t fill their seats in municipal assemblies; out of their about 140 elected representatives in assemblies around Sweden, 39 have quit since the election in 2006. And their representatives are not participating fully in the political process: they produce very few bills, don’t participate in debates and so on.

Of course this is because SD is a one-issue party: their platform is totally built around the immigration question, over which municipal assemblies have very little influence since it is a state parliamentary issue. To add to that, the party program of SD is really undeveloped - I haven’t heard them say anything about defense policy, or higher education, or monetary policy, or cultural policy, or bilateral relations (unless it’s tied to immigration, of course). And when their municipal representatives are people with little if any political experience and with only one thing to work for - less immigration and more “Swedishness” - well, of course they won’t have anything to say. What do they think about zoning plans, traffic issues, tourism, daycare, public art, housing and other such issues that municipal level politicians are dealing with? They don’t know, cause there’s no party line.

Another reason why people are dropping out is because being a politician in a municipal assembly is lots of hard, and mostly unpaid, work. Most politicians on that level have other ordinary jobs and are doing the political work on their free time. Some, not all, of those who have filled SD:s seats in municipal assemblies around Sweden have been recruited because their were no other candidates. In at least one case, someone had written his own name on the ballot and was then elected because he was the only candidate. And for these people, it now becomes clear that the “I could straighten this place up”-attitude wasn’t quite enough and that it takes more than a strong stance on one issue to actually make an impact and be taken seriously. When faced when the harsh realities of everyday politics, it becomes clear that SD is a very immature party. Hopefully the voters will see that also.

Landskrona in southern Sweden will be the the first municipality to randomly drug test 8th and 9th graders. 20 percent of the students will be randomly selected for the testing. The tests will be administered by the school nurse, and the student’s parents or guardian has too consent as well before the test is administered. The student is allowed to say no, but then a letter will be sent home to the parents. That’s how “voluntary” this is. Of course students who say no will be pointed out as potential drug users and/or troublemakers, disrespectful of authority and refusing to buy the “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to be afraid of”-rhetoric.

Many people are critical, including the Swedish National Agency for Education. Although they are saying that the tests are not against the law, one of their lawyers asks whether it is really the school who should administer these kinds of tests, and also questions how the tests results will be handled with regards to confidentiality.

You know, drugs are definitely a societal problem which should be taken seriously. But blanket testing, disguised under some false voluntariness, is not the solution. I don’t think treating everyone as potential drug users, cheaters (not the sexual kind), criminals etc. are the way of creating a just, equal and thriving society. But what do I know, I’m just a bleeding-heart, terrorist-loving, Sweden-hating, tree-hugging communist.

Due to budgetary cuts, many schools nowadays do not have school nurses or counselors, or only have them very few hours weekly. In total, the number of adults in schools per student has gone down. And now the school nurse’s time will be clogged up from administering and following up and and filing drug tests. Is this wise use of seriously constrained budgets? I ask, wouldn’t it be better to spend the money on real preventive measures instead? (And by that I don’t mean the ridiculous scare-mongering propaganda that I was subjected to in school, the “if you smoke pot once you will end up a heroin-injecting homeless criminal”-kind, which was so easily debunked.)

I haven’t heard a single word about what kind of support would be given to the student who have given a positive drug test - it’s like this that I wrote about screening for partner violence among pregnant women: when you get the results, exactly what are you going to do with it? Report the student to the police? Kick them out of school? Offer them counseling? Enforce mandatory counseling? No-one has said anything about that. Probably they don’t know.

This is another of those measures which sounds good (making sure kids don’t get caught up in drugs, I’m all for that), but which merely paints over the real problems and doesn’t solve anything in the long run. It seems the preferred way of conducting politics nowadays, and I guess anything else would require quite a revolutionary remake of society. And we can’t have that. But now at least the politicians can pat each others backs and say that they are “tough on drugs”.

(Read more in Swedish: SvD; HD)

In the arts section of yesterday’s Dagens Nyheter, there is an article called “The glamorous prostitution” (Den glamorösa prostitutionen). It starts: “They say sex sells. And the luxurious and happy whore sells even better. Now the Swedish books are here. But why is everyone so happy?”

Well, after reading that intro, I just knew what was coming.
The article then talks about pseudonymous London call girl Belle de Jour and Tracy Quan’s “Diary of a Manhattan call girl”. Now, a former Swedish stripper, Caroline L Jensen, is telling her story in “Champagneflickan. En svensk strippa berättar” (The champagne girl. The story of a Swedish stripper).

The author is (predictably) critical of the subject. In the end, the not so objective article reads (my translation):

Publishers are thus putting out books that portray prostitution and stripping as exotic occupations - but without caring about what signals they are sending out. A lot of the themes addressed in the books (buying sex, exploitation, the “happy whore”, free choice and so on) are of course pure mine fields. Behind the tough girls in luxurious packaging lays a lot of unanswered questions. As a reader you have to be careful not to be tricked by the glamour and the shiny covers.

You know, I have nothing against critical examination of the sex industry (or the publishing industry). I have read neither of the books, but I can buy that they might have been published more for cheap thrills and money than for their actual literary qualities. But then, isn’t that true of a lot of books?

To me it seems as if the article writer, Matilde Sköld, doesn’t want voices like those of Belle de Jour or Tracy Quan and Caroline L Jensen to be heard. Should the books include a mandatory chapter about the downsides of the sex industry? Advisory stickers on the covers? Or should they not have been published at all, because they don’t fit Sköld’s understandings of how sex workers are supposed to behave and feel?

And since then does publishing houses have to care about what “signals they are sending out” by publishing one book or another? You know, there are a lot of books out there which in detail describes sadistic murders and torture. In which sick and twisted individuals are portrayed without much, if any, criticism. In which the bad guy is getting away. And people that have done pretty awful stuff have published memoirs and biographies. Should books like those also be questioned on what “signals they are sending out”?

Belle and Tracy and Caroline have the right to tell their stories and to own their experiences and feelings (just as those who have terrible experiences of being sex workers have the right to their feelings and experiences). If they say they are happy, who are you to question them?

(I promise, the headline will make sense if you read on!)
Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet publishes a tired old same-sex-marriage-will-destroy-society tirade in their debate section today. It’s written by Anders Svensson, who says he’s a lawyer and law teacher at Stockholm University. I pity his students (and hope they take him on tomorrow):

Imagine a country were the legislators re-interpret human rights according to a value-neutral ideology, where dissidents are violated and where media censors unfit opinions. The military dictatorship of Burma or North Korea? No, it’s the country of Sweden.

Dear Anders Svensson: If you write a long opinions piece about a contentious issue and then get it published in a really large newspaper, where debate ensues and people are allowed to have different opinions and counterarguments are raised and you get support from some and critique from some, and all this happens without the police knocking on your door or you losing your job or getting imprisoned or tortured or threatened - that’s usually a sign that you’re not living in a military dictatorship.

His main argument against same sex marriage is not “won’t somebody please think of the children!” or “horses and box turtles and forty wives oh my!” but this:

It is not hard to see how a gender neutral marriage law would be yet another weapon of censorship against traditional values.

Oh really? What would be censored? How would this censoring work? Would legions of newlywed same sex couples invade newsrooms, lecture halls and kitchen tables everywhere to make sure everyone follows the “homosexual agenda”? Svensson, of course, doesn’t tell. But he sure is censored and oppressed, the poor little sod, sitting there at Stockholm University and getting his writing published in a large private newspaper. Yes, you can really feel the Swedish military dictatorship at work here.

But if the GLBT folks are so powerful that they can impose a brutal military regime à la North Korea on us unsuspecting Swedish citizens (they’ve done a great job of masquerading it as a pretty decent democracy, I can tell you), you would wonder why they haven’t managed to get that gender neutral marriage law passed in the parliament yet. Maybe they forgot to squeeze it in between brunch and facials.

A good society must rest on stable ground of values which are reflected in legislation. What does this ground of values look like? Well, it can’t lack values. In Sweden, we have abolished this ground of values and are traveling down a road of lack of norms. How can the legislature accept this?

If people aren’t allowed to think and speak freely, a democratically stable ground of values are missing. We don’t need any more laws which despite good intentions create a fearful society where conversations die out. I want to warn the Swedish parliament of taking further steps down this road of silence and censorship. The parliament should say no thanks to this sophisticated form of euthanasia for marriage.

As often with these kinds of articles, there’s no substance. No explanations, no examples, no logical arguments, not any arguments at all about why a “good society” can’t coexist with same sex marriage, why same sex marriage hinders people from thinking and speaking freely, which values will be destroyed and how and why conversations will be silenced. No explanation on how man-woman marriages will be “euthanized” if man-man or woman-woman marriages are allowed. No line of reasoning to follow. Just fluff and a lot of words.

Also, note this lovely allegory, used to rail against anti-discrimination laws and policies. As a metaphor for gay people, he uses a weed.

A dandelion isn’t discriminated against because it can’t call itself a tulip.

So, uppity gay-dandelion-weeds should be satisfied with the civil unions they have today (which people like Anders Svensson raised all kind of hell against when they were introduced in the 90s because they would destroy society, but which they now present as a great “separate but equal”-solution) and not destroy the lovely garden of heterosexual tulip-marriages. Dandelions can also silence conversations and turn countries into North Korea. Or something.

Tor of Antigayretorik takes on the train-wreck article here, tireless and to the point as always.

Very interesting product which may help solve some of the problems raised in the previous post!

A Swedish company called Peepoople (cute name!) has developed a self-santizing single use biodegradable toilet - the “peepoo bag”. The concept is simple: you do your business in the bag, seal it, and it will be odourless. The contents of the bag are hygienized within a period of 2-4 weeks by a mix of chemicals which inactivates the dangerous pathogens (i.e. the bacteria which spreads stuff like cholera and dysentery). The bag can be thrown away or the contents used as fertilizer, which makes the bag have economic value and opens up the possibility of small business systems to develop. Trials are on their way in Kibera, a giant shanty-town in Nairobi, Kenya. Very cool innovation and a great idea!

Peepoople website (in English).

Intimate partner violence and violence against women is an area where crimes are underreported. Shame, guilt and societal responses (shaming, trivializing, blaming) makes it hard for women to speak out about being abused by their partners.

Research from year 2000 found that about 2000 women each year in Sweden are subjected to violence by their partners during pregnancy and the first year thereafter. This is of course 2000 too many. Many antenatal clinics have therefore made the habit of routinely asking pregnant women if they have been abused by their partner, even when there are no indications of abuse. But is routine screening really a good way to address the problem?

Hanne Kjöller, editorial writer for Dagens Nyheter, Sweden’s largest newspaper, thinks that routine screening isn’t a good idea. For once, I am agreeing with her.

Three researchers have written a letter to the editor in Läkartidningen, newspaper for the Medical Association of Sweden, regarding the screening for partner violence. They are critical of the process and calls for an ethical analysis of the practice, which takes into account both positive and negative aspects, for women who are subjected to violence as well as for those who aren’t.

Studies have shown that many women find it uncomfortable to be asked about partner violence. I understand them. I was asked the question, seemingly out of the blue, during a visit to get my prescription for the pill refilled, and my reaction was like “what? no!”. The doctor simply looked at me, ticked the box in her questionnaire and got to the next question. I often wondered what her reaction would have been if I had answered yes (I have never been a victim of intimate partner violence, but let’s say that I was). Should she have taken time out of her busy schedule to have that long and hard conversation? Simply ticked “yes” in her questionnaire and moved on? Handed me some brochures and the phone number of a women’s shelter and thought that was it?

That’s my second objection to this routine screening thing. What should be the ob/gyn’s response? If the woman answers yes and explains that the father of her child is abusing her, what should the ob/gyn do? It places them in a very difficult situation. As expressed by a midwife in a survey on the subject by the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen): “It takes too long time to ask. You need time to listen to their response. You find those who have already gotten out of the relationship. It’s hard to catch those who are in it right now”. If the woman answers yes and then comes to the next visit with her partner with her, what does the doctor do? Legally they are obliged to report the abuse to the police, but it may put the abused woman in a much more dangerous situation. Without clear policies on how to handle “yes”-answers, it is quite contra productive to have ob/gyns and midwives ask the question.

The article in Läkartidningen also raises the issue that routine screenings for partner violence can make women skip their appointments at the antenatal clinic. There is a risk that women who are subjected to violence will face even more violence if their partner finds out that they have told someone about it, or that they have even been asked.

Obviously the ob/gyns and midwives try to ask the question on a visit when the partner is not present (in Sweden it is increasingly normal for the father to be present during the antenatal clinic visits). In the article, a midwife explains her strategy for keeping the partner away for one or more visits (apparently if a woman answers “no” to the question the first time, she is to be asked again), like saying that “he is not needed”. That just seems really dishonest to me.

And after hearing a radio program yesterday about the heteronormativity within our health care system, I can’t imagine what the response would be if a woman confessed to having been abused by her same sex partner.

As Hanne Kjöller points out, you’re always in a subordinate position when you seek health care and therefore it is the moral obligation of your caregiver to explain to you why they are doing or asking one thing or another and what relevance it has. If the reason for routine screenings of pregnant women regarding partner violence is to get statistics (which aren’t very reliable - reliability would increase somewhat if the woman was given a totally anonymous questionnaire), then I think that is a quite cynical way to treat these women - ask them about something so personal and then really offer nothing in return (e.g. counseling and legal advice). If the reason is to truly help women to get out of abusive relationships, then the state should instead put money into shelters, counseling, legal advice, education and so on, instead of, as it is today, rely on volunteers, charities and idealistic forces to provide those services.

My gut feeling is to agree with Per Gudmundson in today’s Svenska Dagbladet (and it doesn’t happen often that I agree with their editorials).

Background for non-Swedish readers: a few days ago, the Swedish police performed searches at members of Svenska Motståndsrörelsen, SMR (the Swedish Resistance Movement). Weapons and explosives were found, and three men are detained for illegal possession of weapons and preparation to inflict serious damage (I guess that means blowing stuff up).

SMR is a neo-nazi organization which wants to abolish democracy and create an authoritarian national socialist society, hates Jews, Muslims and homosexuals, and struggles for the ultimate victory of the national socialist ideology and the creation of a new world order. (More in Swedish at Expo here.)

They have organized paramilitary training camps for their members, they idolize people like Hitler (obviously) and William Pierce, they want racial war, obviously store weapons and explosives, and their leader, Klas Lund, has been convicted of bank robbery, assault, illegal possession of firearms and manslaughter.

So, my gut feeling is to agree with Per Gudmundson when he says that the SMR members should be charged using the law on terrorist crime. Because that law says that terrorism is (big disclaimer about me not being a legal expert and knowing how to translate legal text accurately) to seek to “instill grave fear in a population” or “to seriously destabilize basic political, constitutional, economical or social structures in a state”. And that seems to fit pretty nicely with a movement that wants to destroy our society and install a dictatorship.

But.
Just as Svensson, Christian Engström and Mårten Schultz, I think that we should be careful to use the terrorism rubber stamp. Individuals can be guilty of acts of terrorism, but to label a whole movement or organization as “terrorist” is problematic. Especially when the organization or group is incoherent and multifaceted - that may not be the case with SMR, but it is certainly true of other organizations that we, in the era of the “war on terror” have put the terrorist label on.

And, as Christian Engström writes - the law on terrorism has mostly been used against non-Swedish citizens. It has allowed the state to deport them to torture and to freeze their assets, all in breach of human rights and rule of law. Even though it is tempting to put an equal opportunity spin on it and for once use the terrorism law against shiny white very Swedish people, we’d better not. Terrorism can and should be addressed using our perfectly fine “normal” laws.

And I really don’t want something like this in Sweden - The law HR.1955: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, which is being passed in the USA. It defines “homegrown terrorism” as: the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.

This is what the American Civil Liberties Union have to say about it (they’re not too excited, as you can imagine). A snippet:

“Law enforcement should focus on action, not thought. We need to worry about the people who are committing crimes rather than those who harbor beliefs that the government may consider to be extreme.”

So true. So even though my gut feeling tells me that of course the SMR members should be tried as terrorists, the implications, real and possible, makes me think that it might not be such a good idea after all.

Via Isabella Lund, I find out that the Swedish government are conducting a hearing on prostitution and on trafficking for sexual purposes. A number of organizations have been called to participate, from Save the Children and the Red Cross to the Swedish Association for Victim Support and The Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights.

Do you think something is missing? As usual, sex workers themselves are not invited to participate. Not a single sex worker organization, such as SANS, on the list. Renegade Evolution file stuff like this under “typical”, and so do I. Why do they think that sex workers, current and former, have no useful knowledge about the subject? Why aren’t sex workers allowed to take part in the conversation about themselves?

For crying out loud, even if you don’t agree with sex work/prostitution, can’t you at least listen to what the people who are actually in it have to say? How is that going to hurt you? Dear Swedish government, why do you think an organization like Män för jämställdhet (”Men for equality”) have more useful insight about the subject prostitution and trafficking than do an actual real life prostitute?

Well, to answer my own question, it is because what they might hear from people like Isabella Lund does not fit in their preconceived notions on what sex work/prostitution/porn is. And it is because it will not score them any political points from the people who set the agenda on this subject in Sweden.

I self-ID as a feminist (cue disclaimer about not being a hairy-legged man-hating ugly lesbian, and for the Swedish crowd, about not agreeing with Gudrun Schyman), and you know, a big thing in feminist discourse is the word choice. Now I’m going to borrow some rhetoric from belledame222 at Fetch Me My Axe who writes, with address to the anti-pornstitution (sic. they do call it that) radfem crowd:

Seriously, let me ask you this. I assume you’re “pro-choice” when it comes to reproduction? (If I’m wrong, ignore what follows). Okay. Putting aside the irony of “choice” being an acceptable feminist concept when it comes to reproductive rights but not when it comes to sexuality (for pay or otherwise) (or even personal adornment and modification, depending on who you ask, but that’s another argument, maybe)

…putting that aside, do you, you know, -like- abortion? I mean, are you like, “yay!abortion!” Are you gleefully advocating that women just go out and have abortions for shits and giggles? Do you claim that “choice” means the -correct- choice is always to get an abortion? Is the “abortion industry” a heartless sinister machine to which you’ve pledged your allegiance in exchange for a mess of pottage and your immortal soul?

Ridiculous, right? Well, funny thing, because this is pretty much how a lot of let’s say non-nuanced pro-lifers see the pro-choice folks.

What she’s getting at, of course, is that just as the anti-choicers see the pro-choice crowd as “yay! abortion”-shouting maniacs, the anti-pornstitution crowd also often come across like this. With the demonization of people not agreeing with them and the tendency to see everything in black and white: a sex worker is either a brainwashed victim in need of rescue, or a patriarchy-enabling sellout in cohorts with the enemy.

I can assure the Swedish government that if you would expand your list to include just one group who speaks for actual real life sex workers out there, you are absolutely not going hear them say: “Yay! Trafficking! Let’s have more 16 year old Moldavian girls who are kept drugged down and locked in apartments in Stockholm suburbs!”. Neither will they tell you “Yay! Selling sex is for everyone and should be a mandatory female experience”.
You know that.
So what are you so afraid of?