greener than paradise

The links are in swedish and the story goes more or less down like this: After a raid on the Farc guerilla in Colombia swedish weapons has been encountered and this is commented by Bofors (swedish weapon producer) saying “It´s tragic. We´ve saled arms to a variety of countries in South America…”. It´s a pity that this is, and will continue to be, a reality. (DN)

How ever what I find more interesting is the fact that ongoing attempt on a debate is started by the NGO Ofog which haven´t recieved proper attention to their arguments. Martin Smedjeback in court concludes that this is a self-defense reaction to a unbearable situation (referring to the swedish arms export to countries as South Africa and the ongoing negotiations with India) for the people who either gets killed directly by the sold arms or, more important, the ones who indirectly dies due to lack of tax-money to fight poverty.

The argumentation is interesting as he do find support in the swedish law for his actions and I remain stunned that only a few have raised their voice on the topic in our neutral, peace hugging, country Sweden. Silence is certainly not a way of handling these issues and we have our history to look back upon. Or are we actually proud of the expression, coined during the WWII, “En svensk tiger*” (A swede remains silent).

*It´s actually a game of words implying that a swedish person is a tiger by remaining mute, or at least playing with the thought.