Porter’s Pensées

More grist to Assange’s mill.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/head-swedish-bar-association-condemns-handling-assange-case-uk-sweden-deplorable/5677741

It’s mainly a recognition of the flaws in any new Swedish extradition case against Assange, which his supporters have known about from the start. But it also bears on the crucial question of his possible re-extradition to the USA; in connexion with which the last point made here is I think a good one: ‘Should we extradite to Germany’s Hitler someone who has revealed the existence of concentration camps and genocide, regardless to how that information was obtained?  I don’t think so.’ Amen.

We Brits living in Sweden have a number of very informative and useful Facebook groups devoted to us. Most of the conversations posted there lately have focussed on the impact of Brexit on us, and carry advice about applying for residence in Sweden, citizenship, driving licenses and the like. Some carry desperate appeals from Marmite-lovers about how to get their favourite spread (you aren’t allowed to bring it through Customs in your hand luggage: it’s a ‘liquid’, apparently, and – I was once told – likely to explode), and other British essentials, like unsmoked sausages; or where they can find a rugby or cricket team to join. There are no real problems with any of these: there are ‘English shops’ in most Swedish cities and an English butcher here in Stockholm; rugby is beginning to catch on here (advertised as ‘the game for men with odd-shaped balls’); and even cricket can be seen played by the local Bangladeshi communities – the ones that run the ‘Indian’ restaurants – if you look hard enough.

Other Facebook contributions are fond of comparing Swedish life with British, almost always to the detriment of the latter. ‘I went back to England last week to visit my Mum and could hardly believe how the country has gone down – dirty towns, shops boarded up, the homeless sleeping in doorways, food banks, knife crime, stressed doctors, nurses and teachers, signs of austerity all around, people unfriendly (especially towards foreigners), a toxic politics, Nigel Farage: no longer the country I used to know and love.’ All this is contrasted with what they have found in Sweden: broad prosperity under a sort of socialism, sparkling clean towns and even immigrant suburbs, plenty of woods and parks to play in, polite if not particularly extrovert people, a fantastic life for parents and children, almost perfect social and (especially) gender equality, civilised political discourse, free education at all levels, almost free medical treatment, genuine newspapers (!) – even the tabloids have ‘Kultur’ sections – and a universal sense of social  pride and responsibility which seems to underlie all this.

It may require a foreign eye, from a country like Britain, to see this clearly. For Swedes do sometimes complain about their own country: about the Romanies begging in the streets, for example; high prices and taxes (but look at what they get for them!); the Sweden Democrats (their version of UKIP); a few criminal immigrants; and, for some of them, the boredom that they say all this equality, welfare and niceness brings in its train. A number of books have been published recently running Sweden down in this way. Those who think like this perhaps ought to be forced to spend a month or two on a grotty housing estate in Hull. They’d soon come round to my perception of Sweden as, if not quite a social democratic utopia, at least getting on that way. And whether one is ‘bored’ in any country is surely up to him or her. Speaking for myself, I get quite enough excitement from the food. (A choice of three sorts of sausages in their ubiquitous hot dogs!)

And, as Tony Judge comments on my last post: they mostly are now coming to terms with their past; rather better, indeed, than the Brits.

From today’s Guardian, by a Swedish author:  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/14/sweden-far-right-wartime-past?utm_term=RWRpdG9yaWFsX0Jlc3RPZkd1YXJkaWFuT3BpbmlvblVLLTE5MDUxNA%3D%3D&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=BestOfGuardianOpinionUK&CMP=opinionuk_email.

This will be uncomfortable reading for many native Swedes, as it was for me as a ‘new Swede’; although, to be fair, I and most of my Swedish friends were already aware of most of it, and as a result had long shed our national self-image as the spotless goodies of the world. The Swedes that I know – mostly Lefties – are almost as historically self-critical as we Leftist Brits are (the Empire); and will be able to add to the list of failings that Elisabeth Åsbrink provides here: Sweden’s state-sanctioned ‘eugenic’ or ‘sterilisation’ policy, for example, which began before the war and continued until fairly recently.

It’s good for any country to be reminded occasionally of its past sins, as well as its triumphs; both of which are pretty evenly scattered amongst peoples over time. That’s because neither depends on national failings or virtues, but on ones that are common to humanity (male humanity, at any rate), and on circumstances at any given moment. Sweden’s vulnerable situation vis-à-vis Germany in 1939 clearly needs to be taken into account to at least partially excuse her collaboration, and what many Brits regarded as her ‘cowardice’, in World War II. Recognition of one’s own nation’s historical failings, and even atrocities, is a pretty reliable prophylactic against the sort of national pride which can trigger many of those atrocities in the first place. Yes, we – both Brits and Swedes – could have turned Fascist in the ’thirties, in only slightly different circumstances. Look at today.

Just three days now until re-entry to the toxic planet called Britain. I chose this time to return in order to be able to vote in the EU elections. As a dual national, I could vote here in Sweden, but not in both countries in the same election, and I reckoned that, with the UK’s place in the EU being on a knife-edge just now, my vote there would be more important: in as much as any single vote amongst millions can be.

But I feel conflicted about where my vote should go. I understand the reasons for Labour’s ambivalent position over Brexit, and have supported Corbyn’s line on this all along. Brexit is not the main problem facing Britain today, by comparison with growing inequality, the environment, austerity, the rise of the Right, education, health, the press and a score of other deep-laid issues that desperately need to be tackled, on all of which I support the Labour leadership’s policies wholeheartedly; and which I believe lay, albeit invisibly, at the root of that disastrous Brexit vote in 2016. Labour currently reflects most of my views on nearly everything. I’ve been a member since the early 1960s.  I worked and voted for them in the recent local UK elections (where we won in our ward and overturned the sitting Lib-Dem by just 14 votes!), and will again, of course, if they retain their present progressive platform, in the next General Election, whenever that is.

But this EU election is not like those others. It’s to vote in MEPs – members of the European Parliament. And if Brexit goes through, they won’t be sitting there for long. If I knew they were, I’d vote for the party that I thought stood most chance of turning European policies in the direction I want, in alliance with Left-wing MEPs from other countries. That of course would be Labour. But Brexit has fouled up the whole thing. It’s the only issue that counts now. If Labour remain ambivalent on EU membership, or on the question of a new referendum on whether and if so how we should still leave, no-one will be able to tell from the results of the election what the Labour votes represent on this issue. That will tend to boost the Brexiteers.

I’m getting desperate e-mails from Labour candidates in my Yorkshire constituency urging me to stick by my basic political principles, and vote for the party that best represents them. But I’m thinking of supporting the Lib Dems nonetheless. I’ll have to hold my nose, having been betrayed by them before. (Can you believe that I actually left Labour briefly under Blair, and joined the Libs on the strength of their solemn promise to abolish University tuition fees! Fool that I was.) Once bitten, twice shy. I could never vote for them in a ‘normal’ election. But on this occasion, on the basis of their unequivocal ‘Remain’ stand, and if Labour doesn’t re-think in the next couple of weeks, and at the very least promise a People’s Vote come what may, I just might.

I imagine that other pro-Europe British Leftists are faced by the same dilemma. Which is why the results of the upcoming elections will probably tell us little that we need to know.

So, Swedish prosecutors have decided to re-open the ‘rape’ case against Julian Assange: https://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/swedish-prosecutors-reopen-inquiry-into-rape-allegation-against-julian-assange/ – from Dagens Nyheter, but in English. Does this mean he will be tried in Sweden? Who makes that decision? I must say I’m a little surprised, in view of what I’ve been able to gather about the facts of the case: see https://bernardjporter.com/2015/01/09/julian-assange-and-the-european-arrest-warrant/, and the links there; and http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/free/lobster71/lob71-assange-again.pdf. But of course I don’t have all the evidence, and the case against him may well turn out to be stronger than I suspect. If not, then his extradition and trial, carried out in the full glare of international press publicity, may not reflect well on the Swedish judicial system, and hence on Sweden’s reputation as a nation. (As a Swede myself now, I would regret this.)

On the other hand it is undoubtedly good news for Assange, who has always protested his innocence of the rape charges and his desire to prove it, and only resisted extradition to Sweden in the first place – it should be remembered – because Sweden would not guarantee his re-extradition to the USA on other, political charges. I wonder whether they’ll promise that this time? It always used to be a general and very proper principle of extradition law that it can’t be used to convey the extraditee to a third country. That was seen as an abuse.

It’s also good news for the British government, who in these ‘Me Too’ times will gain kudos from elevating sexual offences against women over the more controversial crime of political whistleblowing; and for liberals who are likely to trust the Swedish government more than the current American. So Britain can’t be accused of truckling to Trump. (Not on this occasion, anyway. Of course we still have his State visit in June to come.)

PS. I’m not altogether confident of the fairness of any trial Assange may stand in Sweden.  I expressed my doubts about the Swedish legal system on this blog some years ago: https://bernardjporter.com/2015/01/09/julian-assange-and-the-european-arrest-warrant/. It’s not what Assange will have been used to, coming as he does from a country where – for a start – juries are required. They’re not in Sweden. And I’m not certain that the trial would need to be ‘public’, in our sense. In which case, in a high-profile case like his, the Swedish judicial process might well come under some adverse international scrutiny. This was one of the reasons why I originally thought the authorities might be content to let the case lie. But I imagine his defence team are aware of all this.

Yesterday morning a happy event occurred in my step- (in Swedish ‘bonus’-) family. I spread the news to my own children via  e-mail and text-messaging – but NOT on Facebook. Less than 24 hours later I received an email from Moonpig.com  advertising ‘new baby’ greetings cards and gifts. Unless this was an extraordinary coincidence, how did they find out? Are our personal emails and texts now spied on by – or for the benefit of – private companies? I’ve always known that the State can hack into our Facebook accounts; but this appears to go much further than that.

Not that I’m worried for myself – I’ve never to my knowledge used email or messaging to communicate content that might compromise or even embarrass me in any way. But what if, in the future, I did  need to communicate information privately? Is there any way of doing it now, short of whispering in someone’s ear? And even then I might need to ensure that my TV, laptop or i-phone weren’t nearby. I read somewhere that they can pick up conversations even when they’re switched off.

I suppose we could all go back to writing old-fashioned paper letters. And delivering them personally, to avoid interception by the Post Office. (That’s been going on since 1845 at least. See my Plots and Paranoia.)

Mother, father and child are doing well, by the way. But I won’t be Moonpigging them.

How about a nice piece of music?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg9CBBd3vZ8

Wasn’t that splendid?

I ‘discovered’ Joseph Martin Kraus long before I came to Sweden, and was surprised when I arrived here to discover how little he was known in his adopted country. This symphony – his best – was on an old Turnabout LP called ‘Symphonies for Kings’. The King in this case was Gustavus III of Sweden; the highly cultured but latterly increasingly authoritarian monarch whose assassination is the subject of Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera (1859). I reckoned that this symphony was up there with Mozart and Haydn; and apparently Mozart and Haydn thought so too. Haydn claimed that Kraus’s Symphony in C minor would be ‘regarded as a masterpiece for centuries to come’. Mozart called him ‘the first great composer of genius that I ever knew’. He wrote several symphonies, plus operas and chamber music; as well as being a playwright, poet and philosopher of some merit. He also shared a rather spooky history with Mozart: sharing his dates (1756-92), dying tragically young, therefore, and with his final musical work being a Requiem (of sorts, for his murdered king), just as Mozart’s was. Some of his music is appearing at last on CD, and on YouTube, whence this example is taken.

Kraus was one of those German composers who sought patronage abroad, as had Handel in England earlier, and one of the Bach sons around Kraus’s time. The German states clearly had a surplus of symphonists, and other countries a serious lack of them. Who between Purcell and Elgar could be counted a really ‘great’ native composer in England, for example; or at any time at all in musically impoverished Sweden? The quirky Berwald, perhaps; but he couldn’t make a living there as a composer, so only made music part-time. His day job was as an orthopaedic surgeon. (I’m sorry, I can’t accept Stenhammar: see https://bernardjporter.com/2019/02/23/walton-and-stenhammar/. But maybe I’m just deaf to him.) In fact it’s curious that Sweden is the only Scandinavian country that can’t boast a Grieg, a Nielsen or a Sibelius; though I’ve long thought it might appropriate the last-named, who was a Swedish-speaking Finn, after all. – And yes, of course I’m being elitist in my choice of the kind of music I’m writing about; though I think I could be accused of greater elitism if I thought that ‘ordinary people’ couldn’t appreciate classical music too.

It’s for reasons like this – the unequal spread of musical genius around Europe – that what talent there was needed to be shared out. And – to insert a political point into this argument – doesn’t it more than justify freedom of movement in Europe, at least on this cultural level? Just think what Britain might have been if Brexit had gone way back? Little decent music, no Gothic architecture, Shakespeare without his Continental links (visits by his ‘players’, for example, to the castle of Helsingør), no Saxon democracy, even possibly no drinking cups (brought over from Europe by the ‘Beaker Folk’); to put against the less admirable aspects of immigration: Viking rapine and pillage, the Norman Yoke, our aristocracy, the Royal Family, and so on. And the same applies the other way around. Where would the Continent be without our manufacturers (Engels’s dad, for example), railway builders, football, and Political Economy? All of which was made possible because freedom of movement was more or less a ‘given’ in that period; except in a few very backward countries – Tsarist Russia was one – where there were even restrictions on travelling between towns. Britain, for one, didn’t require passports for foreign incomers until the 20^thcentury.

You can see where poor Martin Kraus fits into this argument. But his music should mainly be listened to, of course, for its intrinsic beauty and drama. I thought of him in this context because I’ve just acquired a volume of his letters in translation, edited by the leading – perhaps, sadly, the only – scholarly expert on him, Bertil Van Boer. I’m looking forward to reading it, with the Symphony in C minor playing in the background.

Anyone who still thinks that we have a free press in Britain, in any meaningful sense, should watch this.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=604221586603881

It’s old, but telling. – In fact our press is about as ‘free’ as the Mafia was in 1920s America, and in much the same way. The Daily Mail has long been our substitute for, or equivalent of, Fascism on the Continent – English, lower-middle class, family-centred, nostalgic, superficially friendly, but also prejudiced, hostile towards the weak, and dangerous; followed closely by the Express and the Sun. Hence our disgracefully low placing on most current global indexes of ‘press freedom’, which I’ve noted before: https://bernardjporter.com/2017/04/30/press-freedom/.

The right-wing press isn’t the cause of all our current national poison; but it’s the conduit through which it flows.

‘Anti-semitism’ on the Left is an issue here in Sweden too.

https://ledarsidorna.se/2019/05/socialdemokraterna-ansvarigt-for-ssus-antisemitism/

Again, it’s the Social Democrats’ sympathy for the Palestinians that appears to lie at the root of the charge.

Oh come off it! Fair’s fair. As much as I loathe and despise Nigel Farage, and willing as I am to believe he’s an anti-semite underneath, I can’t accept that this is proven by the words and opinions that are held against him in a recent attack by certain ‘Jewish organisations and a series of other groups’, which argue that his appearance on right-wing US talk shows (damning enough, I agree) where he ‘openly’ discussed conspiracy theories, ‘some of which have been linked to antisemitism’  (my italics), definitely establishes this. None of Farage’s statements quoted in this Guardian report, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/06/nigel-farage-under-fire-alleged-antisemitic-tropes-far-right-us-talkshow-alex-jones, mentions the Jews specifically; and the ‘links’ it claims to antisemitism seem, to my mind, to be tenuous.

There are and always have been conspiracy theories alleging a desire for ‘global domination’ which don’t involve the Jews at all: the Illuminati, Freemasons, communists, the ‘Rhodes group’, capitalists of all races and religions, the CIA, the mainstream media, and so on, depending on your prejudices and gullibility; which makes it curious – surely antisemitic, even – to assume that talk of ‘conspiracy’ automatically involves Jews. Find a better petard to hoist Farage by, please. There are plenty of them around.

Of course it’s useful to be able to counter the specious accusations that are being made against Corbyn with these mirror-image ones against Farage. But therein lies the flaw, and the danger when it comes to rational political debate. What’s sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander. If we object to the ‘anti-semitic’ insinuations made against Corbyn – and, to take the latest of them, I’ve written favourably about Hobson’s Imperialism too – we should extend the same privilege to his enemies. I hold no candle for Nigel – precisely the opposite, in fact; and there may be other reasons to attribute to him one of the nastiest prejudices in human history. He’s of the right class, in the right trade, and with the right brand of politics, after all. What is at issue here, however, is the integrity of our political discourse, which should not be coloured on any side by insinuations and alleged ‘links’ of this kind.