Few outside Sweden realise that the modern Swedish educational system was strongly inspired and influenced by the murderous totalitarian regime of communist East Germany (DDR) that was overthrown by a popular, democratic revolt of the German people in 1991 who were tired of totalitarianism and oppression. Few realise that the agenda was to indoctrinate the Swedish people with one exclusive, all-encompassing philosophical world view which may be best described as a hybrid of communism and secular capitalism, what some call 'The Third Way' or 'Europeism' that served as a model for the European Union state that emerged after the Lisbon Treaty on 1 January 2010. In reality, as we shall see, the 'Third Way' is little more than retailored Marxism with Western flavouring added to deceive the eye.
Even fewer know that in 2010 the 'Liberal-Conservative' Swedish government (under Education Minister, Jan Björklund, and leader of the country's main liberal party) not only repeatedly refused to consult with homeschoolers while it formulated its new Education Act but unilaterally banned home education and made it a criminal offence in 2010 (effective from 2011), following in the footsteps of a pioneering Nazi law enacted in 1938 after the destruction of democracy in that country following the collapse of the Weimar Republic. The banning of homeschooling by the German National Socialist regime was the death-knoll of freedom in education in Nazi Germany and enabled its murderous totalitarian government to have complete political and moral control over the minds of German children until its destruction in 1945.
In Sweden today parents who continue homeschooling are either being given crippling fines by some municipalities (such as Gothenburg/Göteborg and Uppsala) or in one ghastly case of government-approved piracy and family destruction (in Gotland), having their children kidnapped by the state and permanently removed from their parents. The story of homeschooled Domenic Johansson, kidnapped off a plane in June 2009 by armed police without a warrant while on his way to a new life with his parents in India, and the arrest of his father in November 2010 for desperately wanting to spend time with him after being shuffled over to state-mandated foster case, has come to highlight the failure of liberal democracy, and the demise of freedom and justice, in the modern Swedish state. Sweden has now reached the dangerous point where the people exist for the state and not the other way round. In other words, it is becoming entrenched as a dictatorship. The State has become the new secular God and religion, replacing the Lutheran Church, which as we will see has done little more than parrot government political correctness.
In scenes reminiscent of Nazi Germany and Communist Eastern Europe, we are again witnessing the sudden rise of the ugly hand of oppression and totalitarianism in the midst of a once free people, exploding once and for all the myth of the 'Swedish Social Paradise'.
Refugees, whom this writer is in contact with, are now leaving Sweden in search of educational and social freedom in Finland, Ireland, the USA, UK, Czech Republic and other countries, when they are not forcibly prevented from doing do as the Johanssons were when armed police boarded a plane and seized their only child. They are living in fear of their own government. Even Sweden's Scandinavian neighbours, Denmark and Finland, are shocked by her anti-democratic, totalitarian behaviour, all done (as in the former European communist block nations) in the name of 'democracy'.
This webpage was created to tell the story of homeschooling and the persecuted homeschoolers of Sweden both to Swedes (to wake them up to the enemy in their midst) and to the world (to put pressure on the Swedish régime to restore fundamental liberties), and to counter the Government's slick propaganda machine, which utilises a lot of Swedish tax money in order to convince the world that Sweden is a 'Social Paradise'. It isn't. Indeed, it has been referred to by one Swedish writer, who has experienced the dark side of the system first-hand, as 'The Madhouse'.
This webpage's purpose and agenda, then, is to put pressure on the Swedish government to:
This website represents no political, religious or non-religious persuasion. Swedish homeschoolers represent a typical cross-section of Swedish society and homeschool their children for many different reasons. All of us agree, though, that we don't like the unnatural state school environment with its rampant bullying and drug culture, nor do we accept that there is only one way of effective learning. Indeed, we want learning to be an enjoyable and creative experience that our children will carry with them throughout their adult lives and not be associated in their minds with 'school' which at the end of each day they can't wait to leave. There is, in our view, a world of difference between 'schooling' (which we dislike) and 'education' (which we love).
Once, because of the noble dream of the late Social Democrat Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson to bring equality and prosperity to all Swedes come true, Sweden was the envy of Europe. Today it is rapidly becoming a pariah state as some of its worst totalitarian roots arise again, like a monster barely now able to conceal itself any longer, from the murky depths. Little did Albin know that his dream would become so distorted that it would evolve into a beast with a smiling face, what some call Liberal Fascism. We would like to see Sweden a model of freedom and equality once again. But first Sweden has to wake up to what's been happening in her society all these years.
The author of this website is a homeschooling father and a retired life-long professional educator, having served in both the public and private school sectors. He was educated at Oxford University, England, and has been a resident in Sweden for the last 13 years. He represents no political position other than libertarianism and classical liberal democracy. In this extensive website, which until civil liberaties came under increased attack in Sweden he had no intention of ever creating, he tells both his own story as a home educator as well as the story of homeschooling in Sweden and the over-arching socio-political system that dominates every facet of Swedish life.
