{"id":10533,"date":"2019-05-24T11:41:35","date_gmt":"2019-05-24T17:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10533"},"modified":"2019-05-25T13:27:41","modified_gmt":"2019-05-25T19:27:41","slug":"swedish-social-democrat-wants-to-ban-runes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10533","title":{"rendered":"Swedish Social Democrat Politician Wants to Ban Runes?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

From Sputnik News<\/p><\/div>\n

Back in the late 1990s, I had a young Swedish student in my English 102 (second-semester composition) class. I noticed that he wore a small silver Thor’s hammer (Mj\u00f6lnir<\/a>) around his neck on a chain, under his shirt.<\/p>\n

Was he a Norse Pagan or just making a cultural statement, I wondered. So I complimented him on it a neutral way.<\/p>\n

I don’t think he was Pagan as such. But he was interested in the Viking Age and all that.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, he told me, he was afraid to wear the hammer at home, “because people would say that I am a Nazi.”<\/p>\n

Now it’s twenty years later, and at least one Swedish government minister is worried about “Nazi associations” with runes. Never mind that they are many centuries old,<\/p>\n

A partisan Swedish website reports:<\/a><\/p>\n

The government is currently investigating the possibility of banning the use of Norse runes. It is reported that the Minister of Justice, Morgan Johansson (S)<\/a> [Social Democrat], is behind the initiative. In the Asa community, which organizes asa troops and people with an interest in the Norse cultural heritage, the outrage is great about what one thinks is a restriction on, among other things, religious freedom. A collection of names has been started and on Friday [May 24, presumably] a manifestation [demonstration] is arranged outside the Parliament House in protest against the proposal. (Machine-translated by Google Translate).
\n<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This was picked up by the site Sputnik News (“Pagans, History Buffs Rage as Sweden Considers Banning ‘Nazi’ Runes<\/a>,”), which sounds like another Russian shit-stirring operation. Nevertheless, I think there is a kernel of truth here.\u00a0 They quoted a Swedish Asatru group,<\/a> which said (translated)<\/p>\n

Our attitude is that prejudices and misunderstandings are best cured with knowledge and facts. It is not okay to try and replace the meaning of our symbols with one’s own prejudices or political meaning they completely lack. Banning them would wipe out a part of our own history, culture and beliefs \u2014 and our freedom of expression because of political interpretations that do not belong in the Asa community.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Maybe the Swedish Social Democrats could just ban the letters N and Z. My student knew his own culture’s predilections, I can say that much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in the late 1990s, I had a young Swedish student in my English 102 (second-semester composition) class. I noticed that he wore a small silver Thor’s hammer (Mj\u00f6lnir) around his neck on a chain, under his shirt. Was he a Norse Pagan or just making a cultural statement, I wondered. So I complimented him […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[134,79,176],"class_list":["post-10533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-norse","tag-politics","tag-sweden"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-2JT","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9153,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9153","url_meta":{"origin":10533,"position":0},"title":"Does Anyone “Own” the Vikings? The NY Times Wants to Know","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 18, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Some years ago \u2014 the late 1990s? \u2014 I had a Swedish freshman student in one of my classes. Looking over his shoulder as he was typing at his computer station, I noticed that he had a silver Mj\u00f6llnir (Thor's hammer) pendant on a thin chain around his neck. Naturally,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Asatru\"","block_context":{"text":"Asatru","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=asatru"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/hammer-maiden.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8967,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8967","url_meta":{"origin":10533,"position":1},"title":"I’m Here to Fill your Krampus-tide Stocking","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 23, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Krampus likes lots of odd, pointy, and weird things, so let's go . . . . \u2022 Was a genuine 11th-century Norse penny found in Maine dropped by a Norse explorer, or is it part of a long-time hoax? But would\u00a0\u00a0 \"Egil Ketilson\" have been carrying money? Where was he\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/penny-223x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7240,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7240","url_meta":{"origin":10533,"position":2},"title":"The Persistence of Runic Memory","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 24, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Why buy a book on learning runes from Llewellyn or Weiser when you can learn from the people who clung to them the longest? But you say that they stopped using them a century ago? That is nothing in the spiritual tourism market. \"My grandfather taught me the secret tradition\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"runes\"","block_context":{"text":"runes","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=runes"},"img":{"alt_text":"Seventeeth-century runic inscription from Sweden.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/dalruner_sverige_beskaaret.jpg.crop_display.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1293,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1293","url_meta":{"origin":10533,"position":3},"title":"Around the Pagan Blogosphere","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 25, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2022 \"Hard versus Soft Polytheism is a False Dichotomy.\"\u2022 A recently discovered statue described as the god Odin and welcomed by some reconstructionist Norse Pagans, is--by Viking Period artistic conventions--either a woman or the goddess Freya, says a Swedish archaeologist.\u00a0 \u2022 The Necronomicon: \"It's like the Bible but different\" (YouTube\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11651,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11651","url_meta":{"origin":10533,"position":4},"title":"What Female Heathen Instagrammers Reveal","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 6, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Another article from the new issue of The Pomegranate on the theme of Paganism, art, and fashion, guest-edited by Caroline Tully. \"Hashtag Heathens: Contemporary Germanic Pagan Feminine Visuals on Instagram,\" by Ross Downing. You can download the entire paper free at the link this summer. Here is the abstract: A\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"Instagrammer Helheimen as the goddess Hel.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Fig.-2-Helheimen-as-the-goddess-Hel300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Fig.-2-Helheimen-as-the-goddess-Hel300.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Fig.-2-Helheimen-as-the-goddess-Hel300.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Fig.-2-Helheimen-as-the-goddess-Hel300.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Fig.-2-Helheimen-as-the-goddess-Hel300.jpg?resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5236,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5236","url_meta":{"origin":10533,"position":5},"title":"The Hidden Folk of Iceland","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Two nations live in this country \u2014 the Icelandic nation and this invisible nation.\" Hulduf\u00f3lk 102\u00a0is a wonderful 2006 documentary about Icelanders' relationship with the Hidden Folk (elves, fairies) in their landscape. You can watch it online here (74 min.) Here is the trailer. 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