Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
(Note, this is a preliminary version, but I put it up anyway cause I don't have time to fiddle with images right now)
The assault on Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, AZ, has sparked an intense debate in the US, and immense media coverage abroad. The US debate is focused on how some see the violent agitation in US politics to be directly or indirectly responsible for the attack. Outsiders will probably be quick to accept that view and at least from a European or Scandinavian point of view, it's easy to also blame the US (AZ) gun laws.
What I'm missing from the coverage here is the memory of our own experiences of similar events, which is really disturbing considering I'm speaking of two of the defining moments of Swedish history of the past 25 years: the murders of Olof Palme and Anna Lindh.
Yeah. Murders of prominent politicians right on the street, apparently committed by outsiders. Way more prominent than Giffords. Twice. And Swedish political climate is way off from the anti-Obama polemics of present day US politics.
Note: for simplicity's sake, the characterization of the Palme and Lindh cases are vastly simplified in the following. The Palme case especially so, since it is officially unsolved. For the sake of discussion, assume in the following that the Pettersson-Tingström connection is the valid and proven guilty party of the Palme murder. I don't mean to imply that this is the case, I'm just using the possibility to make a point and create a discussion.
Some background: Swedish PM Olof Palme was gunned down in 1986. The man who was tried for the shooting (convicted and then aquitted, since deceased) was a small-time criminal, Christer Pettersson, with lots of links to a guy who is probably the closest you'll get in Sweden to US anti-fed extremists, Lars Tingström: a violent and systematic offender who saw in society a conspiracy against himself specifically, and the government and the left, led by Palme, as the head of the snake. Tingström was convicted of three bombings against government and justice targets, like Pettersson he also died a few years later (both from natural causes, btw).
Anna Lindh was stabbed to death in an apparent spur of the moment attack in a Stockholm department store in 2003. The murderer was Mijailo Mijailović, a 24-year old with mental issues. He simply encountered Lindh and decided to get a knife and attack her. Mijailović stated later that he'd been hearing voices and not sleeping for a period of days leading up to the attack. Mijailović's guilt is beyond doubt, linked by DNA evidence from the murder weapon and his presence documented by cameras, and after a few months in jail he also admitted his guilt.
As far as is known, neither Pettersson-Tingström nor Mijailović acted on behalf of any political group nor did they have views that aligned them to any particular extent with such groups. In the case of Palme, he was a target for right-wing hatred in a way that is quite similar to that aimed at Obama the past few years. Less abundant perhaps, but just as over the top and tasteless. Lindh was not a target in this sense. She was widely assumed to be the next leader of Sweden's biggest party, a well liked and respected political figure at the very top of the political hierarchies of Sweden. At 46, most people in the country assumed she would have gone on to become Sweden's first female PM within the next few years.
Loughner seems to be more insane than political, judging by the incoherent ravings on Youtube. More Mijailović than Pettersson or Tingström.
Enough with the background detail. Each case is different and more so the more you look at them. The point I'm getting at is that there have been two high-profile murders of prominent Swedish politicians, murders not so vastly different from the attack on Gabrielle Giffords. Perhaps the similarities between the cases could teach us all something?
Obviously, gun laws would not have stopped Mijailović - he used a Mora knife. The Smith & Wesson used to kill Palme has not been found but if one continues to assume that the Pettersson-Tingström theory is plausible, they were well enough at home in outlaw territory that they could easily have gotten hold of a weapon regardless of gun control laws. I gather that Loughner should not have been allowed to buy that Glock under the present gun laws of Arizona (though I've seen tatements indicating the opposite as well), this part of gun control obviously failed. Comparing to Mijailović, it's clear to me that nut-cases will be able to get hold of a weapon, but: if Loughner had had to make do with a knife, 5 people who are dead today would probably not have been.
The part that really interests me though, is the moral issue of the rethorics. Let us assume that Tingström indeed did enroll Pettersson in his private crusade against the Palme government. The anti-Palme rethorics of the 80s included leaflets with bull's eye patterns and caricatures that most resembled the pictures of jews favored by Julius Streicher's Der Stürmer. If that doesn't qualify as violent rethorics, I don't know what does. This rethoric appeared on the fringe of the right wing of the established political spectrum of Sweden. Similar to how the Tea party consists of the far end of the established conservatives or the Republican party in the US, actually.
That anti-Palme fringe was never part of daily political debate, but if it had been, what would we have said about guilt? Would it have been a valid point to say that it shared responsibility for the murder of Palme? Of course not. Would it have been disgusting polemics that should have no place in political debate? Certainly. It was, regardless of actual violence.
So, do Palin, Kelly and others who use violent rethorics on either end of the political spectrum share responsibility for Loughner's deed? Equally certainly, of course not. Is it disgusting polemics that anyone with a functional moral compass should stay clear of? Oh yes. Palin for one knows this. The fact that the much talked about cross hairs were promptly removed from her website tells us that she does. The lack of a straightbacked apology for the tasteless symbolics is disturbing, but it's hardly criminal in any sense of the word, nor should it be. Tasteless, foul and stupid - yes. That's the only crime relevant to the cross-hairs.
And for readers in Europe: what happened in Tucson can and will happen in Europe. It has happened in Sweden already, and it didn't take violent agitation or lack of gun control. An assault only takes one nut-case. The assault on Giffords does not prove or even illustrate anything about America being different from Europe - in fact it shows that some things are eerily similar.
Violent and tasteless rethorics has no place in serious political debate and should be left out. How this can be a surprise to anyone is beyond my grasp.
Despite the bible thumping and gun toting, America and Americans are more similar to Europe and Europeans than most of us realize. Under the skin, we're just the same. Even the psychos.
* Now you're at the end of the text and you're thinking I don't know about those cross-hairs not being cross-hairs but surveyor's markers ("purveyor's markers" according to some sources). Wrong. I do know about it. I'm still pondering whether I should write about that or not because I'm simply not sure I can keep that part as respectful as I'd like. As things now stand, I don't think I'll write that second part - for instance, Barefoot & progressive expresses it much better than I could do.
