Battleangel

As reported by The Local. It’s not that often that new parties are formed in an ageing parliamentary system like that of Sweden. So this is quite the occasion. One ought to say a few words about it.

Overall, I’m sceptical of course. Even with good intentions, it’s not easy to change a stagnant political system. You can only do so much and only inside the box that is the hegemony. Also, it’s apparent that a feminist party is in danger of becoming a one-issue movement. One can for example wonder how they relate to other existing structures or poignant topics. Such as immaterial property, taxes, foreign policy, energy through nuclear power and so on.
What I believe many have not realized yet is that there are a great many people that want change. For different reasons but still. Their desires are NOT mutually exclusive. I believe that in the end, it is only if we band together that we can achieve any real change. More equal rights for women, better intellectual property laws, better working conditions, better commons, a higher degree of positive international involvement and so on and so forth.

The Local points out that the party may very well just be feeding off of the left. Whether that will spell doom for the left or not is difficult to say. Best case scenario is probably that the party will simply replace another on the left and (because of the background of the leading members) just take up generally leftist politics. But what good is that for revitalizing the system? I guess we can’t be picky. Any change is a welcome change. Like the last time …

One can still recall the last real parliamentary effort by the last party to try and break the status quo, “Ny Demokrati” (”New Democracy“). Though definitely a rightist party, they had some very interesting ideas. Ideas that were unfortunately overshadowed by the dirt that the media and the hegemony managed to dig up. New Democracy is remembered today as a populist, xenophobic, almost racist, party and there is ample indication that this Feminist Initiative will go down the same road of smear and slur. In fact it has already started.

Also, in this context, it’s interesting to, again, think about “populism” and its connotation. Like democracy, it is a term that people wield without understanding its meaning. Imo populism IS a natural part of democracy. But what we are seeing is governments that wield the term in a highly hypocritical, frivolous manner. If there are issues not covered in enough detail by the system, then it is only right that a new force will rise to power. In reality, all political parties are highly populist (when it suits them, like right before an election). So it’s not really believable when a political party claims that the up-and-coming contender is a populist, when said party just wasn’t populist enough to capture the consent of the people. Or indeed manufacturing consent by throwing the people off, appearing to be doing something about the issue or creating a mudslide elsewhere for instance.