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Danny Robins and a Sweden without Saab

30/3/2012

 
Saab AB Carl Gustav 84mm Recoilless Rifle. The best multi-purpose weapon there is
Danny Robins has a voice like Tony Blair and loves Sweden with the same intensity as does David Cameron and his "free" school sidekick, Michael Gove.

Like me, Danny is married to a Swede. Yet the Sweden that he conjures up in BBC Radio 4's The Swedish Invasion is no place that I've ever visited.(1)

But then again, unlike Danny Robins, I've never exterminated an elk in Eksjö...

In his programme Danny salivates about the land that "gave us IKEA, Volvo and Abba". It is, of course, also the country that rocks our world with top-design products like Saab AB's Carl Gustav 84mm Recoilless Rifle: "The best multi-purpose weapon there is".(2)

This globally exported grenade launcher is in fact so potent that it shares its name with the king of Sweden.

Alas, there was no time for Danny to discuss Sweden's burgeoning weapons export industry.(3) This is a real pity because, if he had focused on this aspect of "the Swedish invasion", he might have squeezed in an interview with Sweden's former defence minister, Sten Tolgfors. Mr Tolgfors resigned yesterday in the wake of reports that he had sanctioned covert Swedish support for the construction of a weapons factory in Saudi Arabia.(4)

But why should we trouble our pretty blonde heads with such things? It's far nicer to seek out a snug, "mysig” IKEA-furnished corner and lose oneself in Steig Larsson's cosy world of rape and murder.

Pure fiction, Danny, eller hur?

____
Notes

(1) Jo Wheeler (producer), The Swedish Invasion, "An Unique" production for BBC Radio 4, broadcast 30/03/2012 and available to listen for seven days. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010k2f6.
(2) "Carl-Gustaf M3 - Weapon System: The best multi-purpose weapon there is", http://www.saabgroup.com/Land/Weapon-Systems/support-weapons/Carl_Gustaf_M3_weapon_system.
(3) Read more about this explosive aspect of the "Swedish Invasion" in my soon-to-be-published paper, "Banal Nordism: Recomposing an Old Song of Peace".
(4) "Swedish Defence Minister Tolgfors quits over Saudi deal", BBC News, 29/032012, accessed 30/03/2012 at, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17548390.

Thomas Notini
30/3/2012 06:48:51 pm

Mrs Thatcher would have agreed with you completely - and rightly so - on the arms trade issue, but in relation to wartime history. It was precisely arms trade, along with regular transit of both troops and arms from Germany to Norway via Swedish territory, that made Sweden "a lucrative neutrality" during World War II, in the words of Sir Winston Churchill. It seems to be a habit that just continues into the present time, hopefully not for very long time more.


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