Sweden Democrat MP Björn Söder declared on Twitter that “the culture war has begun” and that it is now time for conservatism to prevail.
“The decadent left’s cultural policy will soon be a thing of the past. For too long it has prevailed as a result of unbridled socialist influence and a neutered bourgeoisie. But now it will come to an end”, he writes.
Kulturkriget har börjat. Och nu ska konservatismen vinna. Den dekadenta vänsterns kulturpolitik ska snart vara ett minne blott. Allt för länge har den varit förhärskande som ett resultat av ohämmat socialistiskt inflytande och en kastrerad borgerlighet. Men nu är det slut.
— Björn Söder (SD) 🇸🇪❤️🇺🇦 (@bjornsoder) May 8, 2023
The Sweden Democrat veteran believes that it is high time for politicians to start questioning what kind of culture should be financed by taxpayers and wonders why the shaping of cultural policy should be excluded from political decision-making.
– Why is cultural policy a restricted area? We have to make sure that our hard-earned tax money goes to things that people benefit from, he told Aftonbladet.
According to Mr. Söder, “priority should be given to activities that are in the interest of citizens” – rather than money being spent on various strange art projects with questionable purpose and benefit.
– Investing in ludicrous projects like the one in Malmö, where tax money is used to record silence, or to organize theater in the forest for insects, is throwing money away. Politicians should set frameworks and guidelines for what tax money is to be spent on.
He also points out that “no one raised their eyebrows” when the Green Party decided that cultural policy should promote multiculturalism, and that it is not at all strange that publicly funded culture has a certain amount of political control – but exactly which guidelines should apply can be decided later, he says.
– It’s difficult to see exactly in detail, it’s a matter for discussion. For example, you can decide that we should protect our cultural heritage, that’s where the focus should be. Then that’s where the money should go, because it’s in the interest of the citizens.
– If the citizens do not like what we focus on in the field of culture, the voters will not vote for us. To say that it is a protected area because we should have an arm’s length distance, it is completely wrong, he concludes.
Björn Söder’s statements have caused the SD’s conservative partners to rage. The Liberals are said to be particularly upset to the extent that their party secretary Gulan Avci has gone public and demanded that the SD leadership “have a serious talk” with Söder.
SD party leader Jimmie Åkesson has also recently advocated a certain amount of political control of publicly funded culture, pointing out, for example, that it is inappropriate to have vulgar drag show performers reading stories to children, something the Liberals do not agree with.
