The most interesting thing about the Swedish website Metapedia – a fascist equivalent of Wikipedia – is not that it has a positive view of Adolf Hitler, which must be considered commonplace for a website of this kind. Rather, the significant characteristic of Metapedia is that it is truly international. Metapedia is available in eighteen languages (as of September 2015), serving radical activists within the generic fascism spectrum – in Europe and elsewhere – with a knowledge bank for their struggle. Since mainstream media, including encyclopaedias, are considered to be infested with lies, there is a need, according to Metapedia, for an alternative: ‘Metapedia sets its focus on topics that usually are not covered in … mainstream encyclopaedias. Metapedia has a metapolitical purpose, to influence the mainstream debate, culture and [general] view of history,’ the encyclopaedia states.³

In this article I will argue that Metapedia is an example of the internationalization and metapoliticitization of what Roger Griffin calls the ‘ideological mutations of the fascist species of radical right.’⁴ Furthermore, I will argue that this specific example of internationalization of generic fascism, firstly, comes from a long tradition within Swedish fascism, and, secondly, that to the extent that it can be described as a form of entrepreneurial globalization it in fact represents a broader constituent streak of Swedish national identity. For these reasons it is a characteristic expression of contemporary Swedish ultra-nationalism.

Metapedia

In 2004 the Swedish Nazi movement Nordiska förbundet [Nordic Union] was formed by former members of several Nazi and fascist organizations. The movement had close ties with the publishing company Nordiska förlaget [Nordic Publishing House], and was started in 2002 by ex-skinhead Anders Lagerström.⁵ Unemployed prior to this, Lagerström received training in business administration via the national public unemployment agency and was in fact given government funding to start his own business. The business in question was Nordiska förlaget, which sold Nazi propaganda and white power music, and proved to be an economic success. Thus Lagerström replaced his skinhead clothing with a suit and tie and began presenting himself as a businessman. This proved to be the starting point for both Lagerström’s rather successful career and, a couple of years later, also Nordiska förbundet. Between 2005 and 2008 Nordiska förbundet organized an annual festival in Sweden for international neo-Nazis, fascists and right wing extremists: The Nordic Festival. Here, among others, the former Ku Klux Klan-leader David Duke and the German singer of Nazi songs Frank Rennicke made appearances. The internationalization of the particular movement thus became a part of what Griffin has called ‘the new sector of international cultural production’ which is ‘dedicated to keeping alive Nazism as an ideology, either through books glorifying the Nazi period (memoirs, biographies), or, more subtly, through academic journals, monographs, conference papers, and “scientific” reports.’⁶ The idea of a fascist web encyclopaedia fits right into this approach and can thus be described as a stroke of genius by Lagerström and his associates. In 2006 Nordiska förbundet and Anders Lagerström started Metapedia, which was to be an international source of knowledge for racist movements and activists. While Nordiska förbundet was terminated in 2010, Metapedia – its most significant contribution – not only survived, but is now thriving. It offers articles that are primarily focused on history, political thought and ideology. Impressively, Metapedia is today available in eighteen languages, even if the number of articles available in each language varies very much. The following languages have the most contributions:⁷

1. 1. Hungarian 146,470
2. 2. German 55,859
3. 3. English 1,862
4. 4. Swedish 10,271
5. 5. Spanish 9,167
6. 6. Estonian 2,692
7. 7. Rumanian 2,393
8. 8. French 1,878
9. 9. Portuguese 1,629
10. 10. Slovenian 935
11. 11. Norwegian 602
12. 12. Dutch 412

Somewhat surprisingly, as the table shows, the Swedish version of Metapedia is not among the top three. Instead, the Hungarian version is by far the most extensive. This supports the conclusion that Metapedia truly is an ambitious pan-European project. As such, it is completely in line with the development of modern generic fascism, in which the ‘national or ethnic dimension of the struggle for regeneration was not abandoned, but subsumed within a wider context, so that Swedish or American Nazis can feel that the struggle for the rebirth of their nation or homeland is but one theatre in an international race war.’⁸

Studying the traffic Metapedia generates, its global rank according to Alexa⁹ is 63,792.¹⁰ This is rather modest, comparing to for example the – mainly extremist – Swedish web forum Flashback (ranked 6,045).¹¹ Generally in Sweden, national socialist sites like Metapedia are living in the shadow of the web presence of the more ‘moderate’ Sweden Democrats, above all their semi-official site Avpixlat (global rank 19,368 on Alexa), thus being one of Sweden’s most popular web sites. It would appear that Avpixlat is also a key weapon in a strategy of intimidation against any Swede daring to say anything critical in public about the party.¹² Swedish journalists, researchers, politicians, civil servants and ordinary citizens (even children) are the targets of this very well organised industry of intimidation (including death threats). Compared to sites like Avpixlat, the impact in Sweden by Metapedia is miniscule. A guess would be that the mainstream sympathizer of the Sweden Democrats is more interested in hating specific journalists and people of darker colour in general, than being taught ideology or history by Metapedia. However, this does not mean that Metapedia is unimportant. On the contrary, being a tool for an international ultra-nationalist elite (be they Nazis, neo-fascists or radical right-wing populists) gives Metapedia importance which can not be seen in web stats engines like Alexa. They do however show something important about Metapedia, underlining the international scope of the site. Unlike for example Stormfront, receiving almost half of its visitors from the usa, or Flashback and Avpixlat being very much Swedish sites (receiving more than ninety per cent of their visitors from Sweden), Metapedia is truly international, receiving its visitors much more evenly from different countries, as such:¹³

1. 1. United States 20.6%
2. 2. Hungary 15.4%
3. 3. Spain 9.2%
4. 4. Sweden 5.7%
5. 5. United Kingdom 4.3%

The reference to Alain de Benoist is no coincidence, of course, as he is held in extremely high regard in Metapedia-circles. Furthermore, Griffin describes this example of Metapedia-rhetoric as ‘the recurrent features of New Right thought’, namely ‘a right-wing Gramscianism’ which recognizes that cultural hegemony must precede political hegemony; the extensive use of intellectuals associated with the ‘Conservative Revolution’, thus forwarding ‘the idea of Europe as a unique cultural homeland which can still be revitalized.’¹⁹

Having been described in the Swedish media as ‘the patriot in a tail coat’, Brinkmann represents the elitist well-to-do part of Europe’s extremists on the fascist spectrum.²¹ His wealth is connected to the mineral exploration and mine development company Wiking Mineral.²² Having supported various European ‘patriotic’ politicians, Brinkmann also employs many of his political associates in his company, giving them leading positions in Wiking Mineral. Among them are Mikael Valtersson, former head of administration of the Sweden Democrats, and Daniel Friberg who runs the right-wing-radical publishing company Arktos Media Ltd, situated in Great Britain.

Mentioned above was Brinkmann’s pet project, the ‘Continent Europe Foundation.’ This foundation does not formally exist, according to Swedish authorities, but that does not mean it is unimportant. The idea of this ‘foundation’ is to create a ‘European cooperative project that works for European culture and identity’, according to Metapedia.²³ Brinkmann himself writes that ‘the foundation “Continent Europa” will bring together scientists of the continent to join and to care for mutual history and future of our European homeland.’²⁴ Brinkmann is the chairman of this foundation, together with former leading Sweden Democrat Patrik Ehn. Although the foundation boosts several people with academic titles as having been involved ‘in the work of the foundation,’ it is unknown what that work in practice has consisted of.

Metapedia as ‘Ikea Fascism’

In 1991 I was working as a news reporter for one of the major Swedish daily newspapers, when the Baltic states won their independence from the disintegrating Soviet Union. I interviewed one of the trade ministers from the newly independent states, concerning the future plans for economic progress. The minister formulated his vision with the following words, as I remember them: ‘Wherever there is a plane crash in the world, there are always at least one or two Swedes killed. My political goal is that there also will be at least one of my countrymen killed in those crashes.’

These were doubtlessly rather dramatic words, but the point was to convey an admiration for how successfully Swedish business had handled globalization. In short: Swedes are everywhere and so are their companies: Ikea, H&M, Volvo, Saab, Skanska, Ericsson, Vattenfall and so on. In later years, the world is listening to music via Spotify, keeping in touch via Skype, playing Battlefield 4 or Minecraft, and so on. This brand of Swedish internationalism also exists in the political sphere, dating from the 1950s and 1960s, when the ‘Swedish Model’ was being used actively by the Swedish government to promote the country abroad, especially towards the Anglo-Saxon countries.²⁵ This dimension of Swedishness is also visible in Swedish fascism – both historically and present day. As in many European countries, Swedish inter-war fascism was miniscule, due to lack of an available political window.²⁶ It was not until after the Second World War that Swedish fascism would make a more notable contribution, and that was on the international level.

One of the Swedish teenage ultra-nationalists during the war was Ikea founder and later legendary Swedish businessman Ingvar Kamprad. In 1942 he came in touch with the most well-known Swedish fascist leader, Per Engdahl (1909–1994).²⁷ The intellectual Engdahl became organized as early as 1928 in Sveriges Fascistiska Kamporganization [Sweden’s Fascist Combat Organization]. During the war, he founded an intellectual fascist organization which in the post-war era lived on by the name of Nysvenska Rörelsen [nsr; The New-Swedish Movement]. Engdahl after the war tried to distance himself from Nazi Germany, claiming in 1945 that his fascism during the war really was ‘a defence for all of Europe’ but ‘this created violent opposition in the dominant Swedish press, and our movement was therefore labelled as Nazism.’²⁸

The internationalization of nsr had already begun in 1945, when Engdahl started an unemployment agency in the city of Malmö for Danish and Norwegian fascists and Nazis fleeing their countries. In 1947 nsr took an additional step, initiating a conference for Nordic fascists, while European fascist leaders were starting to take notice of this new movement, and invitations regarding co-operation began pouring in. At a nsr-conference in May 1950 there were delegates from France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Norway. That same year in Italy, the Movimento Sociale Italiano [msi; Italian Social Movement] organized a pan-European conference in Rome, connecting Engdahl’s efforts to even more nationalist parties. In 1951 Engdahl founded the Europäische Soziale Bewegung (esb) commonly known as Malmörörelsen [The Malmö Movement], by hosting a conference with the title ‘For Europe – against Communism.’ Notable participants were the British fascist Oswald Mosley, the French intellectual Maurice Bardèche, msi-leader Arturo Michelini and the ex-leader of Hitler-Jugend’s propaganda department, Karl-Heinz Priester. The movement focused on abandoning racist ideology and instead concentrated on anti-communism. This decision proved controversial. The French and Swiss delegates insisted upon an ‘active politics of race’ and anti-Semitism, which Engdahl opposed. In 1953 the esb-program was approved, stating that every member organization (representing Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, West Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary and Spain) should institute a national and social revolution, since democracy had failed to make Europe a third factor in world politics. In the 1950s Engdahl was relatively successful, both on the European level and on the national Swedish level.²⁹

During this time, the relationship between Engdahl and Ikea’s Ingvar Kamprad deepened.³⁰ Kamprad founded his company in 1943. Though the beginnings were humble, Ikea soon grew and in 1947 Kamprad started selling furniture, opening his first department store in 1958. When he married in the 1950s, Per Engdahl was invited as the guest of honour – the fascist leader also gave a speech at the wedding dinner, before which Kamprad stated that he was proud to be a member of Engdahl’s political movement. When journalists put the spotlight on Kamprad’s fascist past in the 1990s, he made a public apology.³¹ But interestingly enough, Kamprad at the same time tries to defend Engdahl’s post-war fascist movement, with the argument that it was not Hitler’s Nazism: ‘The truth is that one should call me a fascist. … There were many views in that movement. There were people who were as much anti-Nazis as you and me.’³² He also maintains that Engdahl was ‘a great man.’³³

The period of Ikea’s growth corresponded with the dramatic growth in the Swedish export industry. The importance of foreign trade increased markedly by the end of the decade, growing at twice the pace of Sweden’s gnp and contributing twenty per cent to it. Over the course of the 1950s and 1960s exports quadrupled, and the Swedish economy became far more dependent on foreign markets than previously, as international specialisation became one of the main forces behind the economy’s fast growth. This fact was the backbone in the so-called ‘Swedish model’ of society’s economic and social development.³⁴

Engdahl’s confidence in establishing his fascist movement and ideas on a European level reflected this growing Swedish confidence during the 1950s. The neutral state of Sweden established itself as a ‘third way,’ between Soviet communism and western (American) capitalism, in its ways of branding the ‘Swedish Model’ abroad. This ‘third way’ was also visible in Engdahl’s vision of a new fascism, without the burdens of biological racism and Hitlerism (granted that those thoughts were also common among many other European post-war fascists).³⁵ The general ideology behind Swedish national identity and nationalism became that Sweden could make important contributions to all humanity, to export Swedishness to mankind. And there is no reason to think that Swedish fascism was an exception to this.

This growing international industry of white power music became a major source of income for the Swedish neo-Nazi movement in the 1980s and 1990s, which continued to have strong international ties on a European level. White power music was ‘the soundtrack of the white revolution’³⁹ in the west and ‘for a few short years in the 1990’s Sweden was the world’s leading nation regarding production of White power music.’⁴⁰ Thus internationalism within Swedish fascism prevailed, made easier by the fact that Sweden during the post-war period de facto (due to its focus on export industry and globalized trade) had become a virtually bilingual country, its population being nearly as fluent in English as in Swedish. The problem was primarily distribution. It was hard to find companies that were willing to manufacture racist cd’s, and it was controversial to help these movements with logistics. The internet revolution became a turning point in those hardships, especially in Sweden. Due to a high level of the population having access to personal computers in their homes, Sweden was fast in taking advantage of the new technologies available via the ‘information super highway.’ This Swedish advantage has prevailed. In 2010 over ninety-two per cent of the Swedish population was using the internet, making it the country with the highest percentage of internet users in the EU (the European average in 2012 being sixty-three per cent).⁴¹ The Swedish various neo-fascists (including the Sweden Democrats), Nazis and extreme right has been exceptionally successful in utilizing this new technology, their websites and blogs being some of the most frequently visited in the country.⁴²

The latest idea of the Metapedia-team is to make a massive multiplayer online computer game, mimicking the Swedish successes with games like Minecraft, the Battlefield-series and Candy Crush. Inspired by World of Warcraft (which happened to be Anders Behring Breivik’s favourite game), the idea is to establish fascist ideas in society via the game. As one of the developers has said: ‘This idea is genius! To create a politically incorrect computer game. We create obstacles and other things for the gamers, which takes a nationalistic mind to defeat? The gamer feels that he has to think freely and independent to get somewhere in the game, which he might actually do, but this process of thought is totally controlled from the beginning, to promote a certain view of the world!’⁴³

Thus the internationalization of Swedish fascism, manifested by Per Engdahl and Metapedia alike, continues to develop, according to the globalized traits of Swedish nationalism, national identity – and therefore also Swedish ultra-nationalism.

Conclusions

If indeed the system of liberal democracy is being challenged by ultra-nationalism in this way, then we need to find ways to counter it. If today’s ‘truth’ is something the citizens of Europe find via Google, then there is all the more reason for being pessimistic about its future.