You could say that Billy Bragg, the protest singer from Barking, north-east London, has a very even temperament. He is always angry.
There are of course many good reasons for this. In his new song “City of Heroes,” released around the same time as Bruce Springsteen’s more popular “Streets of Minneapolis,” Bragg addresses the murders of Renée Good and Alex Pretti as well as citizens’ reaction to the presence of ICE on American streets.
The song starts with an allusion to a German priest whose ghost is said to haunt history: “The ghost of Martin Niemöller/haunts the halls of history,” sings Bragg. Now, if singing is the right word – his diphthongs in hard cockney are more of a phonetic pistol that should be able to spook even Trump’s best-equipped federal thugs on the run.
Who was Martin Niemöller? It was he who wrote the famous lines about how tyranny takes over a society: “First they came to get the communists/but I didn’t raise my voice/because I wasn’t a communist…”
The text, which exists in countless versions, then alternately repeats the same scene with Social Democrats, trade unionists and, in some versions, even Jews, before ending with the words: “Then they came to get me/and then there was no one left/who could speak for me.”
Here, too, the boundaries are shifting, even though there are no state-sanctioned stormtroopers patrolling our streets.
Bragg sets Niemöllers slow reaction patterns in contrast to the residents of today’s Minneapolis, who immediately take to the streets despite tear gas and rubber bullets and defend humanity and human dignity: “When they came for the refugees/I got in your face,” Bragg sings. When they came to pick up the refugees, I screamed.
How far is it from Minneapolis to a medium-sized city in Sweden?
The question deserves to be asked. Here, too, the boundaries are shifting, even though there are no state-sanctioned stormtroopers patrolling our streets. Cases in which young people who have been living in Sweden for years are suddenly told that they are not allowed to stay – even though their parents and younger siblings are allowed to do so – have caused a stir and outrage in recent weeks.
Aftonbladet tells the story of Ayla, who still lives at home, studies and works in LSS accommodation, but is now about to be deported to Iran alone. Her younger brothers and her mother, however, have received a permanent residence permit. In Expressen, 18-year-old Jomana, who has lived in Sweden since she was four, talks about how she wants to graduate in the spring and dreams of studying sociology. Now she is to be deported to Egypt without her mother, father and little brother, a country she has hardly been to and whose language she does not speak. Since Jomana is 18 years old, she is no longer part of her “nuclear family”.
It doesn’t matter what an immigrant does to integrate into society, he still has no chance. You’re going out! Away!
The formal reasons are given each with merciless clarity. The age limit of 18 years means that young people without their own reasons for asylum can be deported even though they still live at home. In December 2023, the Tidö government removed the last “valve” – that is, the chance for those who have reached the age of majority to be allowed to stay due to “particularly painful circumstances”, for example if they were educated and raised here and speak the language.
The young people are not alone either. All over Sweden there are examples of people – cooks, welders, nursing assistants and auxiliary nurses – who are now being torn from their lives and deported, even though they have long since become part of Swedish society.
The message of the new policy is basically just as brutal as the one conveyed by the stormtroopers on the streets of Minneapolis: It doesn’t matter what an immigrant does to integrate into society, there is still no chance. You’re going out! Away!
Note that this The issue is not whether we should pursue “tough” or “generous” immigration policies (that debate has long since been settled). This isn’t about people who may Come here, except for people who already have done The. People who work and “care” in Sweden, who are unlikely to become gang criminals or rapists, but who, on the other hand, work in industry, in care and social services, who sing in the choir and play on the ice hockey team.
“What excuses would you tell yourself/If this ever happened to you?” sings Billy Bragg in his song about Martin Niemöller. What excuses would you use if this happened to you?
Like most of us, Martin Niemöller was not a pure moral hero. His famous lines about silence were not just a poetic device, but the story of his own life. Well into his thirties, he was an ardent Nazi who admired Hitler and loathed socialists, trade unionists and Jews. Not only did he remain silent about the abuses of Nazism, he also actively voted for them. It was only when the Nazis began targeting his own activities in the church that he spoke out.
Then it was like that Daytime Billy Bragg ends his song with a mocking reference to how Niemöller was imprisoned and had to spend seven years in various prisons and concentration camps where he had to “suffer for his complicity”: “In Dachau Martin Niemöller/Sudered for his complicity/But in this city of heroes/We learn the lessons of history.”
What are these historical lessons? And perhaps even more interesting: Who will be the Martin Niemöller of our time – those who realize too late that the policies they are pursuing also affect them?
They are not concerned with indifference or humanism, but rather with seeing a system error with directly destructive consequences for society
Today, resistance to the unreasonable and inhumane deportations is growing, not least among those who are struggling with their consequences. Many smaller communities across the country are protesting, including those governed by Tidö collaborationist parties. Several point to the obvious social disadvantage associated with the separation of families and the deportation of residents who contribute to the functioning of life in these places.
For these politicians This is not primarily about insensitivity or humanism, but rather about witnessing a systemic failure that has direct destructive consequences for both individuals and collectives. Even entrepreneur and former New Democracy leader Bert Karlsson now believes that the deportation policy has gone off the rails. This week, a representative from the otherwise pro-Tido think tank Timbro said the government’s policies were not only immoral and inhumane, but also “economic madness.”
After the war, Martin Niemöller became a radical pacifist and human rights activist.
People can do the hardest thing of all: change.
This is also one of the lessons of history.
Read more texts by Björn Wiman. Also, subscribe to the Wiman & Beckman newsletter, where he and Åsa Beckman select favorite articles and give cultural tips every Monday.
