War of the placards rages in Sweden's Övertorneå

Nazi symbols erected at the roadside annoy tourists

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By Jenni Leukumaavaara in Övertorneå and Helsinki
     
      Övertorneå is just across the Tornio River from Ylitornio. The two small towns have much in common, despite being in different countries. They even share a tourism-oriented website. The river here forms the border between Sweden and Finland.
      It is a normally tranquil sort of place, but when one crosses the bridge linking the two sides, in Aavasaksa, a few kilometres north of Ylitornio, the view these days may nevertheless cause drivers to do a double-take.
     
The river and its banks are pretty enough, but the eye is inexorably drawn to two trucks parked at the side of the road - and to the message and symbol painted on their sides.
      Arne Honkamaa, the chairman of the Övertorneå municipal board, does not really know whether to laugh or to cry at the new edge that has been brought to the local landscape.
      "You can take those texts or leave them, but that symbol does stick in the throat. Even if the swastika is the wrong way around, there's no mistaking what it means", says the slightly embarrassed Honkamaa.
      Yes indeed, the sides of the trucks do contain a symbol that combines the Swedish Social Democrats' party logo - a red rose - superimposed on a reversed swastika.
      They appeared a couple of weeks ago - on trucks in yards and parked by the roadside, with blunt messages, generally questions or comments directed to politicians.
      "Go on, enjoy your schmoozing with the rich and powerful, pose smugly for the cameras - but first pay your dues. Inequality is growing - it's every man for himself!"
     
The targets of the verbal assaults have been variously the local decision-makers and some national politicians, such as the Social Democrat Environment Minister Mona Sahlin.
      The man behind the placards is local entrepreneur Mikael Styrman. The CEO of electricity generating company Ekfors Kraft, Styrman says he has become fed to the back teeth with the intolerable demands the state places on private businesses and the way small companies are discriminated against.
      "At the same time as the state hikes up the charges for maintaining grid transmission lines at a prodigious rate, they demand the price of electricity should be reduced all the time. They forget down in Stockholm that people are constantly moving away from places like Övertorneå, so there are fewer and fewer customers around."
     
According to Styrman, the whole process of decision-making has been out of kilter in Sweden for a long while.
      "Politics and the state are too cosily bound together. For example if we compare the situation in Norway or Finland, the Swedish system looks pretty rotten."
      Styrman is referring among other things to the selection process for civil service positions, in which he argues the wishes of the political elite have altogether too much sway.
      The placard debate, which began as a monologue, has grown more strident in tone and taken on a more complex aspect. The municipal board nailed up its own response next to the original signs, in which it strongly distances itself from Styrman's opinions.
      This only put fresh wind in Styrman's sails and he banged up a few more signs to comment on the replies and to defend his right to freedom of expression.
     
Styrman is no pushover, by any manner of means. As the person with his hand on the electricity networks in the surrounding area, he could conceivably cause blackouts all the way down to Haparanda (Haaparanta in Finnish, see map), where the river runs into the Gulf of Bothnia.
      According to Honkamaa, himself a Social Democrat, this one-man protest campaign is starting to have an impact not just on the landscape but also on the local economy.
      "We get quite a lot of German tourists here, for instance. So I hear, more than one busload has turned around immediately and gone elsewhere after seeing the offensive signs. This is not good news, especially for those people who earn a livelihood from tourism", laments Honkamaa.
     
Styrman takes an opposite view, arguing that his placards are actually a draw.
      "Obviously, those who don't understand the language may wonder when they see them. But if some have turned away, then I'm sure there have been many more who have come out of sheer curiosity."
      But it is a bit strange, isn't it? Why the Nazi references?
      "The actions [of the state] are so grotesque that the point of reference in my view was the National Socialist thinking of the 1930s, that they could control and run things just as they liked. Many people think this is some neo-Nazi campaign I'm running, but the truth is the complete opposite", explains Styrman.
     
These are pretty strong words, but Styrman is more than willing to stir up discussion.
      He has had some success, too. His campaign has been followed and commented on in the Swedish media to some extent. And according to the local residents, there has been no shortage of coffee-table discussion in the past weeks.
      "People who do not directly have to have anything to do with the authorities, they want to believe that everything is hunky-dory, even if it isn't."
     
And what if the posters and placards don't work?
      "Don't forget that some of these signs are on wheels", says Styrman. "It might be that we'll take the protest to a wider audience in Sweden."
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 30.7.2006


Links:
  Övertorneå
  Övertorneå-Ylitornio Tourism

JENNI LEUKUMAAVAARA / Helsingin Sanomat
jenni.leukumaavaara@sanoma.fi