Above photo: The Liberal Youth of Sweden – the youth wing of the party Sweden’s Minister of Integration Erik Ullenhag belongs to – participated in the demonstration. Photo: Arild Vågen, CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Representatives from all parties in the Swedish parliament took the call of Pirate Party and protested against fascists and nazis who entered the European Parliament during the last elections in May 2014.
The recent elections to the European Parliament saw many fascist parties entering the European Union’s own parliament. In France, National Front – whose founder a couple of weeks ago proposed the Ebola virus as a “solution to the European immigration problem” – became the largest political party of the country. Poland’s party Congress of the New Right, which strives to abolish the right to vote for women and prohibit disabled people from using public spaces, reached 7 percent of the vote. And for the first time since the 1930’s, Nazis who cheer for Hitler and murder political opponents have been elected from Germany and Greece in a democratic parliament in Europe, as the German NDP and the Greece Golden Dawn entered the European Parliament.
At the same time, another new political movement is on the road to success in Europe: the Pirate Parties, which got better results these Elections than ever before, reaching as high as over 4 percent in Czech and Luxemburg and getting a Pirate MEP elected from Germany. But while the fascists strive to infringe upon basic human rights as well as democracy itself, the Pirate Party fights for the opposite: stronger protection of civil rights and a defense for the democratic principles that are being threatened. Thus, the Pirate Parties and the fascists are the polar opposites on the political spectrum of liberty/authority, where the Pirate Parties are the most freedom-loving parties of Europe (e.g. in immigration policy, where the Pirate Party campaigns for free migration) and the fascists are the most authoritarian.
Given this situation, it perhaps comes as no surprise that the party which managed to gather all of the non-fascist parties in Sweden against fascism in a mutual demonstration for the equal worth of all human beings was the Pirate Party.
“In times like these, we need to lay aside our political differences and focus on the core issue all anti Nazi parties can agree upon – protecting the democracy, sais Leo Rudberg, 18, organizer of the demonstration and an active member of the Pirate Party. I am very happy that all the political parties of Sweden, except for Sverigedemokraterna who are fascists themselves, joined us and together stood up against fascism, Nazism and racism in the demonstration.”
The demonstration against fascism took place in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, at 12th of June, a little more than a week after the European elections. Rudberg from the Pirate Party even managed to get Sweden’s official Minister for Integration, Erik Ullenhag, as a speaker on the demonstration, as well as a conservative MEP and high-ranking politicians from the other Swedish parties.
In his own speech for the Pirate Party, Leo Rudberg expressed a hopeful attitude for the future:
“Our peaceful fight shall defeat the fascist violence. Our love shall defeat their hatred. And humanity will enter a new epoch, guided by the principles of freedom, tolerance and compassion.”
Now, Leo Rudberg continues his fight against the local fascists in Stockholm by running for the Municipal Council for the Pirate Party (using a Facebook Page to reach out), aiming to help the homeless people of Stockholm who the fascists attack in their propaganda. And across Europe, the fight against fascism for the Pirate Parties – and all other democratic politicians – continues.