The Good Ones Must Act More Often – In Sweden, Poster Child For Democracy, Election Showed How Fast Democratic Values Get Sold Off In Exchange For Power

Photo: Stolperstein Cordelia Edvardson: Wikipedia / Stolpersteine: @paulamarttila

It was September 13, 2007, and I was feeling strangely at unease. I had just finished reading ”De goda måste agera oftare”, the good ones must act more often, a column by Cordelia Edvardson. As an avid reader of hers, she had always left me filled with energy, resilience, and a clearer vision, but this particular one felt different. (My translation of her column.)

At the time I couldn’t quite put a finger on that unsettling feeling. It wasn’t the same lingering, slightly anxious feeling I had had the days after November 30, 1999, when passing the new security guards at the Aftonbladet entrance, one of the four newspapers (with Svenska Dagbladet, Dagens Nyheter, and Expressen), that had jointly published the faces and names of 62 Swedish Nazis on their respective front pages.