The Swedish flag has been raised outside NATO’s headquarters in Brussels, but while Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson basks in the glow of his country finally joining the military alliance after months of delays, the country’s once thriving peace movement is smarting.
Once widely visible in debates and on the streets — particularly over nuclear weapons, disarmament and the Vietnam War — the movement had already been on the wane since the end of the Cold War.
However, at the Olof Palme International Center in Stockholm, a short walk from where the peace campaigner and former Swedish prime minister was assassinated, there is a feeling that ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the subject of peace has disappeared from public debate.
“It was perceived to be totally naive to talk about peace. That space was not there. We were called ‘naive’ or ‘Putinist,’ making an argument that was only serving the interests of Russia,” said Anna Sundstrom, secretary-general of the center, which is a democracy and social justice organization.
Instead, Sweden rapidly made the decision to apply to join NATO, abruptly ending its 200 years of military non-alignment and issuing warnings that the Nordic country — whose neighbors are Finland, Denmark and Norway — was at imminent threat of war.
Kristersson’s rhetoric had been “reckless,” Sundstrom said. “We are not standing on the brink of war. It’s extremely dangerous to talk in these terms.”
Even if war were imminent, preparedness is about much more than just military equipment, she added.
A further blow came in December last year when the government announced it was abolishing a peace fund that had been providing financial support to peace organizations since the 1920s.
For Sundstrom it was “a worrying sign that the government does not want these kinds of views to be strong.”
On Thursday last week, Kristersson was US first lady Jill Biden’s guest of honor at the US president’s State of the Union speech — hours after the final NATO documentation exchanged hands. Kristersson, who has been grappling with the issue of Sweden’s NATO membership since taking office in 2022, beamed as he was praised mid-speech by US President Joe Biden and applauded by the room.
Ulf Bjereld, a political science professor at Gothenburg University and an active Social Democrat, said Sweden’s entry into NATO was a failure of the peace movement.
“There is very big disappointment among the peace movement in Sweden now. The debate process went so fast and the peace movement failed to stop NATO membership,” he said.
When Magdalena Andersson, the Social Democrat leader and former Swedish prime minister, who led Sweden’s initial NATO application, supported joining the military alliance, the peace movement was “too weak,” Bjereld said.
“They tried to mobilize, but it was an issue that was very difficult for them,” he said.
However, now that the deal is done, he said he believes the movement’s goals should include banning nuclear weapons on Swedish land.
Stockholm also has a chance to take a stand within the alliance, but Bjereld said that might depend on who is in government and whether or not former US president Donald Trump wins the next US election.
However, many likely long for Sweden’s former policy of military non-alignment, which, Lisa Nabo, the chair of Sweden’s Social Democratic Youth Association (SSU) who is running for the European Parliament, said “gave us a voice to criticize and prioritize humanity and solidarity.”
There were fewer protests and dissenting voices than there might have been because of the political sensitivity around the subject, she said.
“If you criticize NATO, you’re automatically pro-Russian. In the debate there is not the possibility to have two thoughts in your head at the same time,” Nabo said.
Critics reject this interpretation, but also say that peace activists such as Nabo are deluded if they think there is room for ambiguity with an emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.
Before the Social Democrats changed their minds on the issue in a major policy reversal in May 2022, Kristersson accused Andersson of pleasing only Russia with her comments against joining NATO.
“There isn’t anything to be neutral between any more. There is the West and there is Russia,” he said at the time.
Meanwhile, among younger generations the immediacy of the climate crisis sometimes outweighs taking a long-term view on issues such as NATO, she said.
Having not been given a referendum on NATO or the ability to vote in the last election because they were too young, she believes teenagers should be given more clarity on what military service entails.
The Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society, which at 140 years old is one of the world’s oldest peace organizations, has seen membership soar from 6,500 before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to more than 15,000.
Society president Kerstin Bergea, who has called Sweden’s NATO membership “a historic misprioritization,” said that overall during the NATO debate there was “very little space for critical voices,” and accused Sweden of giving in to the demands of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
“Sweden’s historic voice for peace seems to have quietened. We are worried [it] ... will go silent,” Bergea said.
Now that Sweden has joined NATO, she said she hopes it would act as a “peacemaker” within the alliance and take a strong stand against nuclear weapons.
Emma Berginger, a Green Party lawmaker who is on the Swedish parliament’s defense committee, said the war in Ukraine was a “huge game changer” for the peace movement and for her party, as well as the Swedish population.
However, she said the application was rushed and should have been subject to more public debate, which meant many were unclear on what being a NATO member really entailed.
Although the Greens voted against NATO membership, they have opted to respect the outcome and not call for Sweden to leave.
“Instead we want to work in a constructive way influencing what role Sweden may take in the alliance,” she said.
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