Swedish racism past and present

Momodou Malcolm Jallow, of the 'Afroswedes fighting against racism' put on their  now annual event to both inspire the nation's Black and minority ethnic communities in Sweden and inform and challenge wider Swedish society particularly its institutions.

If this event is anything to go by most Swedes are almost completely oblivious to its nation's involvement in the slave trade. For more than 200 years Sweden engaged in the trade of enslaving Africans, not on the scale of Britain, France, or the US, but as brutal and systematically documented given that the trade in humans was just that a brutal commercial endeavour.

Two academics Fredick Tomoasson and Kitimbwa Sabuni, gave chapter and verse about the level and details of Sweden's barbaric past.

Swedes started trading in 1646, when businessman Louis De Geer bought 260 Africans, destined for enslavement on the sugar plantations in Barbados. Of those 260 Africans nearly half died enroute. 

For many years Sweden serviced the slave industry until it acquiree its own island, Saint Barthelemy, which it bought  off the French in 1784. Although the Island wasn’t suited for growing the king crop sugar cane- possibly why the French sold it to them,- the Swedes did establish the Island as key trading port in the Caribbean.

Enslaved Africans, we were told,  accused of stealing would be whipped to within inches of their lives. One description of a whipping stated what every lash sounded like a bullet being shot as the whip would remove skin and flesh from the man's back.

They like other slave nations justified their actions by suggesting Africans we not really humans. One Swedish pastor-Carl Adolf Carlson- described Africans as: "barely half a person, the rest is ape and tiger”. This latter assertion did not stop the slave owners taken women as their prize as Swede Robert Montgomery explains that he took 22 year old African woman;  “Since everybody kept telling me that I needed a girl for my health”.

Even to those that know about Sweden's most brutal acts of white supremacy, these events are catorgorised as part of their very distant past, with no bearing on today's society.

But Momudou Jallow would have none of that. When he took to the floor he highlighted Swedish  State violence against Black people in particularly by the police.  He highlighted a case of an African who was turned away from a night club in Malmo, who simply  wanted to know why. Instead the club called the police, and instead of assisting the man they  beat him  up, broke his  and threw him in a cell. He turned to Jallow to help in make a complaint, but when he returend the police stated that he could have no  representation. Not surprisingly they stated there was no case to answer. Jallow  went to the media, and eventually got the case heard, but it was quickly thrown out again.

The police informed the complainant, in a not so subtle fashion; "We know where you live. Don’t think about appealing”.

The shocked audiences shook their heads in sorrow and disbelief.

The event then focused on solutions and how  the police might make progress in the issue of race. Two Met police staff were invited Black British Met police officer Victor Olisa and his Colleague - Samantha Flores, who is not an officer, spoke about the challenges a police force had to confront if they were genuine about making substantive changes. Representatives from the Swedish police attended and engaged in meaningful dialogue.

Our role at OBV was to help inspire the continuation this  Black Swedish Civil Rights movement that would push the nation to a better place.

In many ways Afro Swedes are in the early days of transforming their society, which too often  believes it has no racism to answer, much less deal with. But this group is strong, young and like any movement destined for success, they have plenty of powerful Black women organising and ready to hold the State to account.

Good luck to the Afro Swedes and other minorities there too

Simon Woolley