Recently a societal issue, of importance in this country as well as in others, has been brought to life after a much too long and unhealthy beauty sleep. Sweden has after 30 years initiated a vivid discussion on how LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) people historically have been treated in this country and the stigma that characterize and influence this group even today.
The issue has been (re-)highlighted thanks to Jonas Gardell. The author recently released the first book in the self-perceived trilogy Never Wipe Tears Without Gloves. At the same time the incredibly moving, beautiful and tragic TV-series with the same name based on a script by Gardell was shown on one of the country’s public service channels. The series follows the love story between the young men Rasmus and Benjamin. In the shadow of the relatively newly discovered and indeed ruthless disease AIDS the two guys try to find themselves and each other in the pulsating life of Stockholm. The book trilogy and TV-series shows a wealthy and, according to many, highly developed Sweden and its simultaneous denial and displacement of LGBTQ peoples’ fundamental rights.
When AIDS entered the country the patients were said to “deserve” the disease as a punishment from God and they were called murderers and accused of intentionally spreading the disease. The LGBTQ people were also forced to endure demeaning comments and actions from strangers on the street and many were banished by their own family. HIV patients were treated unwillingly by medical staff and the patients were often denied visits from their dear ones due to a fear of spreading the disease. After a sometimes isolated and both psychologically and physically brutal illness many of the patients passing away of AIDS were treated as trash and thrown into garbage bags due to a fear of an alleged risk of infection.
The patients were often very young and like all youngsters curious about life and the future. Trying to find your place in life at this age can, as we all know, be a sufficiently stressful process. These youngsters were, however, at the same time forced to deal with rejection, denial and stigmatization by the outside world.
"It was like a war taking place in peacetime, where young, beautiful men just died while everything around was going on as if nothing had happened", said Jonas Gardell in an interview (Dagens Nyheter, August 6, 2012).
As a politically engaged citizen with access to the world's information, I have, up until Jonas Gardell recently published his book and television series, felt relatively well informed on Sweden's contemporary history. News reports from the 80's were marked by detected submarines, Sweden’s involvement in the anti-apartheid movement, the assassination of Olof Palme, the question of why or why not the country should phase out nuclear power, ABBA's conquest of the music world, the conversion to right-hand traffic and other more or less important events. It’s fairly well known that LGBTQ people began to be visible in public during the 80's, but the reality Jonas Gardell describes in his work has been given particularly and spectacularly poor attention and an almost nonexistent chapter in the Swedish contemporary history.
In conjunction with Gardell’s acclaimed publishing something has happened in Sweden. Suddenly people have started talking about a time that has been silenced and suppressed by many for 30 years. People who saw their young friends languish of AIDS or committing suicide after receiving the news that they were HIV-infected, have suddenly begun to come forward and tell their own or their loved ones’ stories. Erik Engkvist appears in TV's morning couch and talks about his true destiny, which formed the basis for one of the characters in Gardell’s books, and how the family now has banished him due to him declaring his homosexuality, a sexual orientation the family's belief Jehovah's Witnesses does not allow.
Relatives who have lived with the belief that their youngsters died of cancer, which was declared in conjunction with many of the AIDS patients' funerals, have, after 30 years, suddenly been informed about the real cause of death. Public debates and personal discussions are more than ever dealing with how LGBTQ people were treated, and are still treated, and "it is as if a floodgate has been opened" as Jonas Gardell puts it (Dagens Nyheter, August 6, 2012).
What would have happened if Jonas Gardell had not published his script for the TV series and his first book of the trilogy right now? Would we continue to live in denial and ignorance? Would the AIDS patients still have passed away of cancer?
LGBTQ persons and HIV-positives’ rights have improved in the last 30 years. Diverse sexual orientations is by many in today’s country considered natural. However, the stigmatization is hardly completely wiped out neither in this nor in other countries. My friend working as a nurse recently told me about a colleague refusing to take care of an HIV-positive patient in a hospital in a city in southern Sweden, in year 2012. LGBTQ activists trying to organize Pride parades across Europe face restrictions by city authorities banning the parades and denying adequate police protection for the organizers and participants of the Pride events. Verbal and physical attacks is part of everyday life for those involved in the events and politicians and officials often run promotions with homophobic statements published in the media, according to Amnesty International (November 7, 2012). Outside Europe many LGBTQ people struggle against a constant discrimination and in some countries some argue that homosexuality is a “lifestyle” imported from the West. Homosexuality is still punished with the death penalty in Iran, Mauritania, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
The fact remains. Prejudices will not disappear without effort and the effort must never cease if one is truly seeking a genuinely open society. The many killed or stigmatized of AIDS deserve redress. A process that will have the greatest impact if we continuously and openly discuss the perennial denials of people's most basic rights, in Stockholm and the world.
In many countries my opinion is not very controversial. However, in some countries it still is.
Sources:
Dagens Nyheter, (August 6, 2012), Jonas Gardell: Jag var med, det är min tid, min stad. Det är min plikt att skriva, http://www.dn.se/dnbok/dnbok-hem/jonas-gardell-jag-var-med-det-ar-min-tid-min-stad-det-ar-min-plikt-att-skriva
Amnesty International, (November 7, 2012), Pride i Europa, http://www.amnesty.se/vad-gor-vi/diskriminering/hbtq/pride-i-europa
