The strange death of Swedish Liberalism

 The election, with hours to go before this year's presumed premier political event on the Liberals' part (and perhaps their penultimate) the questionable milestone, as well as decision, to select a leader younger than yours truly to succeed the miracle of mediocrity, the man behind the grill, and hopefully to reenact his historic (well) achievement of not being the second (or third) party leader to lose its Riksdag seats, with the (also questionable) ominous sign they may well not recover. In the case of Swedish Liberalism, once hegemonic (as so many heroes have been) in fighting for their goal, of universal suffrage,    

This constitution of ours

 

It can hardly be doubted that Donald Trump, and his compatriots, have done great harm to the constitution. How much, and which of his enemies may well be considered asides the question of his ilk, remains to be . But in light of the recent affaire of not quite-president Biden and his (not "just" mentally) challenged health, which might have reached apocalyptic levels in the event of his (reasonable, some did say) re-election, do we grasp the fully apocalyptic extents of the present climate. Two unreasonable choices, or so many of the American public would believe,  

More social, less democratic...?

 

The elusive combination summed up, at least in the motherland of parliamentarianism, as "Blue Labour", is 

Cultural revival, economic prosperity and social cohesion 

Not least, what should be the policy on culture? On the ? On the ostensible "replacement", now that "new", or "paleo"-social democracy has adopted its tactics, if not its creed? 

The only certain summary is that a more authoritarian policy, whatever the policy, is sure to replace the current one, in a continuing downward (yes, I will make that value judgment) spiral of . This in turn will, undoubtedly, breed conflict, 

The Scourge of Ukraine

 

Ukraine - it feels odd spelling it with a "k", when the opposite is increasingly prevalent in the K-loving Swedish language - can still sport a number of followers abroad. This is not the case for a large swathe of Ukrainian exiles, a term that seems increasingly ambiguous as a number of mysterious deaths occurring across Western . 

Assassinations within Russia, aimed at Russian generals, may seem offhand (echoing the late, if now increasingly younger Hitchens' remark about Pearl Harbor, almost a "u" there) but seriously within the ambit of modern, hybrid, hyper-mechanised warfare, especially if one considers the serenity with which Russia employs special forces, decapitation strategies and poisonings against "peaceful" traitors and dissidents in Western capitals, 

The grander question here posed is: To what extent ought or southern Slavic allies, as they are yet and for good reason, to utilise methods so decried, to the verge of being considered Russian in substance rather than utility, 

Wrestle not with a monster, as Nietzsche warned, fully aware those who would heed the warning would do or be in the act of doing so anyway, prophetically ascribing not only the mutual escalation of hostilities, but also - and more importantly - the increasing moral decline of the importance of who. Who, who wins, in Ukraine, in the grander game for Eastern Europe (being played from both fronts, I will not abstain from saying it and nobody worth taking seriously would negate it)? We have cause to expect, as in the campaign of 1610, and certainly of 1708 - being a defensive war, after all - and possibly in 1812, who knows, either being (depending on your more immediate, material interests) the cause of our misfortune three years before, 

The Scourge of Honour

 

This last day, devoid of any accusations of an unseemly April Fool's joke by the smallest margin, the woman known (and often mispronounced) as Fadime Sahindal would have celebrated half a century on the earth, in an existence which would, then, have included Turkish Kurdistan (yes, the adjective is important and no, a sovereign, should-be entity of uncertain borders, government, composition and international relations does not yet exist), the once free republic of now-Swedish Jamtland, Kenya, and old Uppsala, where she drew her last shocking breath, before her father fired a piece of lead too close for comfort (or dare I say it, elegance) into his daughter's brain, a second into her jaw, if intended in a needless and bewildering token of humiliation, a extra chastisement unfelt and backfiring on the perpetratorn. The picture painted in that stairway, a future snuffed out, which should have been "his", in the more general sense, with the decisions going with it. 

She died, childless and a disgrace to her name, bereft of her Swedish partner, because she wanted to be an individual. She died because not only her father, but numerous other paternal relatives - and maternal, unless considered a mere extension of their male peers - considered the need to guide her entry into adulthood, wifehood (as a legal wife, nothing else) and maternity necessary, in order to safeguard an isolation - social, if not necessarily economic - from general society. From Swedes, in effect, . Had this affair considered a son refused leave to date a girl from, say, sub-Saharan Africa, the lens through which his murder (or, very much, her murder) would have been very clear, very loud and condemning to unanimous sublimity, rather than loud vocals occasionally interrupted. Condemnation followed, but the general, or should I say structural, norms did guide themselves into a very different current, one which seemed to take the considerations of the many Sahindals of Sweden in very great care. 

This Age of Europhobia

Eurus, Phobos. To the many phobias haunting Europe, the one last added is the alleged disease of "Europhobia". While Russia wants to invest, to be engaged, to invade (in every sense), the alleged "America" wants to move out 

This is a smokescreen, of course, for at the moment  

Smoke and the need for screens

 

The smoke attack, which followed the legal (in every sense of the word) attack on the broader LGBTQ community and its ability to communicate and manifest its message in the old land of the Magyars, 

This law is passed in the name of 

It must be said, and asserted, that this sensation of attack on rights is not restricted . In fact, one would be remiss to deny such attempts - more so, the successful ones - are done in the name of (I emphasise, as gay people are not authoritarian and should not be equated to such policies) LGBTQ rights. Indeed, while Hungary may be considered a particularly (or moderately) conservative actor in the "free" or "Western" world, I would wager that Western, liberal democracies hatred against this community thrives where . If you ask me, would I permit gay marriage if . If I must, gun to the head, I would vote against both, and for the insecurity involved when the right of another to express h**self, as it should be. Any other policy, let alone one euphemistically and slovenly cancelling general political rights in favour of abstract rights of minorities, or a Christian majority, is an abomination, and those silently going along with it... well, I don't need to finish the comparison, do I? 

The common theme here is the right to , and common theme of pro-gay and anti-gay legislation alike?