The Swedish exception A postcolonial analysis of exclusion in the Swedish Covid-19 strategy.

By: Juan-Carlos Munoz Supervisor: Ralph Tafon

Södertörn University | School of Natural Sciences, Technology and Environmental studies I Bachelor’s essay 15 credits

Development studies| Spring semester 2020

“Us Swedes live in an infinitely more fortunate situation. Our country’s population is homogeneous, not only in matters of race, but also in many other aspects.” – Tage Erlander, former Swedish prime minister

Abstract This essay seeks to understand the possible reasons behind the high rates of non-white

ethnic minorities, such as the Somali-Swedish community among hospitalized Covid-19

patients in Sweden. It interrogates the possibility of a White middle-class bias in the Swedish

government and the National Pandemic Group’s management of the covid-19 crisis. I

analyze data from daily press conferences held by the National Pandemic Group and public

statements from government and national pandemic group representatives regarding

updates in the management of the covid-19 crisis. In analyzing these statements, focus has

been on assessing the risk analysis and citizen recommendations presented to the public by

the national pandemic group. Results show that the specific vulnerabilities of ethnic

minorities and the socio-economic inequalities between majority White Swedes and ethnic

minorities has not been taken under much consideration by the Swedish government or the

national pandemic group, which can be interpreted as resulting from a white middle class

bias. The conclusions of this essay show that this may have contributed to the high rates of

Swedish-Somalis and other ethnic groups such as the Iraqi-Swedes and Turkish-Swedes

among hospitalized Covid-19 patients. This might have been prevented, had the Swedish

government acknowledged and acted upon the socio-economic inequalities between

different social groups.

Key Words: Covid-19, ethnic minorities, structural vulnerability, postcolonial analysis,

disaster response, environmental racism, institutionalized discrimination.

Table of contents

INTRODUCTION: COVID-19 AND NON-WHITE ETHNIC MINORITIES 1

PROBLEM FORMULATION 2

PURPOSE AND QUESTIONS 3

THEORY 3

POSTCOLONIALISM AND ITS POSTSTRUCTURALIST ROOTS 3 ORIENTALISM - THE COLONIAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS 6

METHOD 8

PREVIOUS RESEARCH 9

RESULTS 13

RISK ANALYSIS – LOSING SIGHT OF MINORITY VULNERABILITIES 13 STRATEGY/RECOMMENDATIONS – INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY AND SELECTIVE RECOMMENDATIONS 16

ANALYSIS OF RESULTS 18

THE PARTICULAR BEHIND THE GENERAL 18 SWEDISH INDIVIDUALISM 20

DISCUSSION 22

1

Introduction: Covid-19 and non-white ethnic minorities

When nations undergo big crises, the political elite usually calls for national unity amongst its

citizens and across political parties. Paradoxically, it is also under times of crisis that existing

social inequalities become more visible within nations. There is a myth that natural

catastrophes and pandemics do not differentiate between its victims, that irrespective of

social status, these unpredictable forces of nature affect everybody similarly.1 That is not

quite true. Since most societies are characterized by social inequality and differentiation

amongst its social groups (rich, poor, majority and minorities etcetera), national crises seem

to affect everybody, although to different degrees. Crises usually hit the most vulnerable

groups the hardest,2 and how society responds to crisis is also a highly political issue.

On March 11, 2020 the Swedish national television SVT reported about the deaths of six

Somali-Swedes related to Covid-19 in Stockholm. At that time, the total Covid-19 related

death toll for the Stockholm region was nine cases. Five of the six deceased Somali-Swedes

came from Järva, a socioeconomically marginalized area on the northwest side of

Stockholm. The area holds suburbs like Rinkeby, Tensta, Husby and Hjulsta with a high

percentage of nonwhite ethnic minorities. According to the Swedish-Somali medical

association that informed the Swedish national television about the six cases, socio-

economic factors like overcrowded living conditions, intergenerational housing and general

health issues amongst people living in the area, most likely contributed to the

disproportionately high number of Somali-Swedes amongst Covid-19 related deaths.3 The

association also pointed out that information about the virus was not available in the Somali

language, when the Coronavirus first came to Sweden, which led to Somali-Swedes not

taking any precautions against the virus in the beginning.4 At the end of March, Svenska

Dagbladet confirmed in an article titled “Corona information doesn’t reach immigrants”, that,

130 out of 959 confirmed Covid-19 cases in Stockholm, came from the Järva area.5

At the same time as news about the high rates of Somali-Swedes amongst covid-19 patients

broke out, a different story emerged, that of a Covid-19 related “White Flight”. Pictures and

stories of affluent white middle class families fleeing the city to their summer houses on the

country side started to appear on media platforms.6 This brought to the fore, questions

around class and race and differentiated vulnerabilities among various social groups in

1 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/coronavirus-refugees-covid19-unhcr-urges-solidarity-a9429106.html 2 https://time.com/5800930/how-coronavirus-will-hurt-the-poor/ 3 https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/lakarforening-larmar-over-halften-av-de-doda-ar-svensksomalier 4 Ibid 5 https://www.svd.se/manga-fall-av-covid-19-i-spanga-och-kista 6 https://www.svd.se/stockholmare-isolerar-sig-i-skargarden-overkligt

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relation to the corona virus pandemic. Clearly the reason that certain social groups were

more affected by the virus than others, was not so much due to poor language skills or

difficulties comprehending information, as it was of socioeconomic vulnerabilities. An article

in Svenska Dagbladet showed for example, how Swedish-Iraqi taxi drivers got contaminated

with Covid-19 through work when they transported tourists returning from Italy and Austria,

from the airport to their homes. One of the taxi drivers questioned why the returning

passengers were not controlled and tested for covid-19 directly when arriving at the airport.7

As weeks passed new reports kept coming in from other European countries that confirmed

that non-White ethnic minorities were generally more vulnerable to the Coronavirus than the

White majority population due to socio-economic disparities. Research carried out by the

British newspaper The Guardian showed that BAME people – Black, Asian and minority

ethnic groups - made up 19 percent of the 12,593 patients that had died in British hospitals

due to Covid-19 by the end of April 2020, although these groups together only made up 15

percent of the total population of England. The Guardian’s analysis also showed that three

boroughs, Harrow, Brent and Barnet, with a high percentage of BAME people had the

highest death rates in London. According to a British public health expert, this was a result of

health inequalities and social deprivation within the BAME population.8 Sweden followed the

same patterns. The Public Health Office released a report that showed, that of the total

number of all Covid-19 patients hospitalized in Sweden between March 13 and April 7,

“Somali-born” individuals were overrepresented by seven times, “Turkish-born” persons by

5,1 times and “Iraqi-born” individuals by 2,9 times.9

This poses two very important questions about the strategy of the National Public Health

Office and the Swedish government; what are they doing in order to protect the most

vulnerable groups in society and when they are communicating crucial information about

Covid-19, to whom are they communicating?

Problem formulation

While the everyday effects of institutionalized discrimination on non-white ethnic minorities

have been widely discussed and examined within the Swedish academic literature,10 the

7 https://www.svd.se/vi-som-korde-hem-folk-fran-arlanda-smittades 8 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/22/racial-inequality-in-britain-found-a-risk-factor-for-covid-19 9 https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/2Gx0Ev/fodda-i-somalia-turkiet-och-irak-far-oftare-covid-19 10 De los Reyes, P. Kamali, M, Bortom Vi och Dom - Teoretiska reflektioner om makt, integration och strukturell diskriminering

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effects of institutionalized discrimination on non-white ethnic minorities during different

disasters and times of crisis remain an under-examined issue.

Purpose and questions

This essay seeks to understand the possible reasons behind the high rates of non-white

ethnic minorities such as the Somali-Swedish community among hospitalized Covid-19

patients in Sweden by examining the Swedish governmental crisis management and

catastrophe response during the Coronavirus pandemic.

The following questions will be answered:

1. Has the specific vulnerability of non-white ethnic minorities and existing social inequalities

between the white majority population and the non-white ethnic minorities been taken into

consideration in the National Pandemic Group’s risk analysis and public recommendations?

2. Is there an excluding white middle class norm/bias in the official risk analysis and citizen

recommendations and other public statements coming from government or National

Pandemic Group representatives?

Theory

Postcolonialism and its poststructuralist roots

The theory that I am going to use is Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism. But in order to

broaden the theoretical understanding, I am also going to describe its poststructural

background. The post in post-colonialism does not suggest or imply that our present world is

completely decolonized. Instead the prefix “post” underscores the legacy of European

colonialism that has outlived the formal global decolonization process and still affects us

today in forms of neocolonial power structures, discourses and practices.11The Post-colonial

epistemological starting point is the colonized subject’s position, the silenced point of view of

the oppressed that has been marginalized and discredited by Eurocentric Modernity.12 The

post-colonial subjectivity is a critique of Western Eurocentric epistemology’s claim of

objectivity.13

11 Eriksson, Globaliseringens kulturer, page 16–17 12 Landström, postkoloniala texter, page 8,11 13 Loomba, Kolonialism/postkolonialism, page 56

4

By claiming that its own culture and science was of universal value during the period of Enlightenment, Europe made its own historical progress the norm for all humanity and

claimed exclusive right to true knowledge. Europe was portrayed as the most developed part

of the world due to its superior knowledge while the rest of the world was its underdeveloped

and primitive opposite pole. This is the Modernist discourse that laid the ideological

foundation for global White supremacy and justified the violent colonization of the non-

European “Others”. Colonialism and Modernity are thus two sides of the same coin according

to Post-colonial theory.14

The main tool of post-colonial theory to deconstruct Western Eurocentric epistemology and

examine the relationship between culture and imperialism is the deconstructive (colonial)

discourse analysis method that examines the relationship between knowledge and power.

The main contributors to the creation of this method of analysis are the French philosophers

Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault.

According to Jacques Derrida, language is a set of words and signs that create meaning

through difference and contrasts and is structured around binary opposites, such as man and

woman, black and white, rich and poor etcetera. It is the comparison of opposites and the

difference between them that generate meaning to the words. For example, the word man

would not mean anything without the word woman. The relationship between these binary

opposites is not neutral but asymmetrical, where one of the opposite words has dominance

over the other word that is seen as dependent of the first one. This perspective uncovers

how language contributes to creating and maintaining social power structures in a specific

society. The creation of meaning through binary opposites also creates a simplified black and

white world where there is no room for grey zones, thereby naturalizing oppression.

Therefore, what post-structuralists are interested in, is revealing these knowledge strategies

that obscure the existing power structures in the world that they are trying to depict.15 It is the

connection between knowledge and power that essentially is being examined, and that’s why

Michel Foucault’s notion of discourse is a key concept within post-structural and post-colonial

theory.

Discourse analysts examine representations of objects by examining their strategies of

representation and how meaning is constructed within the discourse.16 Foucault structures

history in different periods of time, which he calls epistemes: every episteme is based on a

14 Eriksson, Globaliseringens kulturer, page 29, 31 15 Eriksson, Globaliseringens kulturer, page 18 16 Eriksson, Globaliseringens kulturer, page 19

5

specific dominant world view and way of thinking. Foucault establishes three big epistemes

in Europe: The Renaissance, The Enlightenment and ultimately Modernity which we still live

in today in the West. Every Episteme has its own set of rules (Epistemology) for perceiving

and interpreting the objective world, in order to create meaning, and is characterized by its

specific historical rationality.17 Foucault calls these rules Discourses or Discursive

Formations and they are the organizing principles of each Episteme. Discourses enables

speaking and makes communication intelligible by creating rules for categorizing and

defining objects. Every given society has its own truth regime, with its own methods,

institutions and experts that have authority to define legitimate knowledge. These truth

regimes legitimize certain knowledge and discredits everything that falls outside the

boundaries of the discourse. For example, in certain Native American societies in the

Americas, the Shaman holds the authoritative power to decide what is true and what is false

through certain rituals. In contemporary Sweden the Shamans of this society are persons

that we call professional scientists that hold authoritative power to define legitimate

knowledge through what we perceive as scientific methods and by basing themselves on

(referring to) what earlier experts already have established.18 These authoritative experts or

gatekeepers of truth uphold the discursive rules of every truth regime. Foucault writes:

In a society such as our own we all know the rules of exclusion. The most obvious and familiar of

these concerns what is prohibited. We know quite well that we do not have the right to say everything,

that we cannot speak of just anything in any circumstances whatever, and that not everyone has the

right to speak of anything whatever.19

And: We can tell the truth in a wild exteriority, but to be within the truth, we must obey discursive

police...20

Foucault portrays how discourse excludes some versions of knowledge and according to him

there are three systems of exclusion that all rest on institutional support; prohibition, the

opposition between reason and madness, and third, the opposition between true and false

which is the most dominant and elusive one.21The scientific discourse is an essential part of

Western Modernity and will be thoroughly examined as a discursive theme in the Swedish

Covid-19 strategy.

17 Danaher, Understanding Foucault, page 15-20 18 Ibid, page 21-24 19 Foucault, Diskursens ordning, page 7 20 Ibid, page 25 21 Ibid, page 8-14

6

Orientalism - The colonial discourse analysis

Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism, to put it simple, is a colonial discourse analysis.

Discourse analysis as it was created and practiced by Michel Foucault in for example History

of Madness, has been criticized for being Eurocentric and only of value for Western societies

since his analytical point of departure was a specific European modernity where state power

over the human body was institutionalized and operationalized more indirect through jails

and mental hospitals.22

Said gave discourse analysis a new functionality when he applied it to the colonial context.

His theory of Orientalism is a discourse analysis of how the Western world has portrayed the

Orient historically, in imagery and text in order to dominate it and legitimize its colonization.

Orientalism deals with stereotypical thinking and the epistemological and ontological

dichotomization of humankind into two opposite and unequal poles, Us and Them. The

Oriental discourse is the discourse about The Other, where Us is The West and Them the

Orient. While Orientalism is to be seen as the essential mechanism in the Othering process

of the inferiorized East, it is also essential to the making of the superior West.23 Said writes:

Orientalism is never far from what Denys Hay has called the idea about Europe, a collective notion,

identifying “us” Europeans as against all “those” non-Europeans, and indeed it can be argued, that the

major component in European culture is precisely what made that culture hegemonic both inside and

outside of Europe: the idea of European identity as a superior one in comparison with all the non-

European peoples and cultures.24

The Occident defines itself through the difference towards The Orient and according to Said

the West has dominated the East by categorizing the difference of the others as a weakness.

Of course, the discursive power that the Occident holds over the Orient has only been made

possible through the historical and material process of European colonial conquest. Edward

Said writes:

The Orient was Orientalized not only because it was discovered to be ‘Oriental’ in all those ways

considered commonplace by an average nineteenth-century European, but also because it could

be—that is, submitted to being—made Oriental.25

22 Loomba, Kolonialism/Postkolonialism, page 60 23 Eriksson, Globaliseringens kulturer, page 20 24 Said, Orientalism, page 71 25 Ibid, Page 69

7

The Orient and the oriental are not defined by the oriental, but by the western voyeur, the

oriental is the object and the westerner the subject. According to the Oriental discourse the

Orient cannot represent itself but must be represented by the West. To substantiate this,

Edward Said quotes Karl Marx: They cannot represent themselves but must be represented, a

statement taken from Marx’ scripture from 1853 -The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis

Bonaparte.26

According to Said, the Oriental discourse has been an essential part of the European

Modernity project and shows how European colonialism and Modernity went hand in hand.

The project of Modernity was used as an excuse in order to colonize the Orient, Said uses

Napoleons conquest of Egypt in the beginning of the nineteenth century as an example:

To restore a region from its present barbarism to its former classical greatness, to instruct (for its own

benefit) the Orient in the ways of the modern West; to subordinate or underplay military power in order

to aggrandize the project of glorious knowledge acquired in the process of political domination of the

Orient; to formulate the Orient, to give it shape, identity, definition with full recognition of its place

memory, its importance to imperial strategy, and its “natural” role as an appendage to Europe.27

This shows how the Oriental discourse is an essential process of Othering, a two-way

mechanism that pushes the identity of the Orient and Orientals to the periphery, and at the

same time centers the identity of Europe and Europeans. What the theory of Orientalism

ultimately describes is one of the most fundamental psychological identity processes, the

self/other binary, where definition of Self occurs through the comparison of Other. The former

cannot exist without the latter because identity is essentially defined in terms of difference to

something else. This is the theoretical basis of the school of Ego-psychology and according

to Eriksson, Said’s theory of Orientalism and postcolonial analysis of cultural identity at large,

is inspired by psychoanalysts such as Jacques Lacan and Sigmund Freud.28

Orientalism is therefore an adequate theory for analyzing and describing todays postcolonial

and asymmetrical power relationship between majority white Europeans and non-white

ethnic minorities (with migrant history from non-European countries) living in European

countries like Sweden. I will use the theory of Orientalism in order to analyze how non-white

ethnic minorities are described and positioned in relation to majority White Swedes by The

National Pandemic Group and the government in the Covid-19 debate.

26 Ibid, page 89 27 Ibid, page 170 28 Eriksson, Globaliseringens kulturer, page 33-34

8

Method

I have collected data from daily press conferences held by the National Pandemic Group

regarding updates in the management of the covid-19 crisis. I have also analyzed certain

public statements from the government and public health officials in the media debate

surrounding the covid-19 crisis. My focus has mainly been on analyzing the risk analysis

presented and the public recommendations given by the National Pandemic Group. I have

limited my research by only collecting data from the initial response that was crucial to the

spread of the virus. That is the first month of the Corona crisis in Sweden, starting from the

6th of March when the National Pandemic Group broadcasted its first press conference until

the 7th of April. This time limit in the collected data has been made because it is an ongoing

pandemic that nobody knows when it will end. Furthermore, because the initial

“spontaneous” response gives a good perception of preexisting institutional biases that the

authority representatives have not had time to reflect upon due to the element of surprise.

The data collected has been analyzed through postcolonial discourse analysis based on

Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism. When using discourse analysis as a theoretical tool

focus is not on the objective world as such but on the language that describes the objective

world, the discursive representations of the objective world. Edward Said writes the following:

What should be investigated is the style, the rhetorical configuration, the setting, the narrative

technique and the historical and social circumstances, not if the description is correct or faithful to a

magnificent original.29

I will be using the Orientalist process of Othering as an analytical tool to examine if there is a

Eurocentric point of view, a Swedish white middle class identity that positions itself as a

neutral, objective, general middle point in the discourse of the authorities. I will also examine

if there is an opposite Other that functions as the hidden normative identity’s opposite pole

and analyze the power relationship between the two. My analysis of the material I have

gathered will be guided or structured in to various key themes that structures the Orientalist

discourse. What I will be looking for in my collected material is the theme of separation in to

binary opposites, the dominance of one opposite pole over the Other and the

essentialization of these two opposite poles to examine if they are described as two

monolithic and separate units or heterogenous and similar. Since the Orientalist discourse

produces and reproduces an already existing postcolonial racial/ethnic hierarchy in society,

what will also be discussed is the possible consequences and implications that the

authority/government discourse may have for ethnic minorities in Sweden. As mentioned

29 Said, Orientalism, page 89

9

earlier in the theoretical section, discourse analysis examines the relationship between

knowledge and power, discourse and social practice and how discourse influences social

practice and vice versa. The post-colonial theorist Stuart Hall underlines that all action has a

discursive aspect since all social practice is intertwined with the concept of meaning and our

actions are influenced by our perceptions.30

Previous Research

A group of researchers and professors from Center for Race and Ethnicity at Rutgers, the

state university of New Jersey have studied Hurricane Katrina through the lens of race and

structured vulnerability. By examining flaws and racial biases in disaster response, media

coverage and deeply structured historical inequalities in housing, environmental exposures,

in access to health care and transportation, this collection of essays shows how poor African-

Americans were more vulnerable to the effects of the storm than the white middle class

population in the state of Louisiana.31

The historically accumulated sum of socio-economic vulnerabilities in the African-American

community led to their extreme vulnerability in the face of the storm. Vulnerabilities such as

historically risk prone settler patterns of African-American households in vulnerable areas.

Flawed regional planning over time, in public works, development of hazardous housing and

a flood control program that was not built, first and foremost for public safety.32 By the

1930’s, Jim Crow segregation laws forced black people to move in to low-land, swampy city

areas of New Orleans that were at risk of flooding. While white people fled to the newly

developed suburbs outside of New Orleans in the 1950’s, after a federal highway was built.

The suburbs remained off-limits to African-Americans because of social hostility and

segregation laws.33 These historical inequalities made African-Americans more exposed to

the hurricane, than the privileged white middle class. What made this racial inequality worse

during Hurricane Katrina was that the city’s only evacuation plan depended on residents

driving themselves out of town.34

Black Americans were three times more likely to lack a car than whites, and in New Orleans,

a predominantly black city, 200 to 350 000 residents lacked access to “reliable personal

transportation”. Still the city claimed that it was every citizen’s personal responsibility to drive

30 Eriksson, Globaliseringens kulturer, page 22 31 Wailoo, Katrina’s Imprint, page 1-6 32 Ibid, page 9-13 33 Ibid, page 15 34 Ibid, page 16

10

out of town in to safety.35 Historical health issues such as high rates of stroke, diabetes and

heart disease amongst African-Americans in the region, limited their mobility further when

forced to evacuate.36 Overall, African-Americans faced greater likelihood of experiencing

various hardships related to the disaster, both during and after, because of historically

rooted, preexisting socio-economic vulnerabilities. Victims of Hurricane Katrina faced a

double trauma, first because of the effects of the Hurricane, and second because of the

neglect in the post-Katrina response that was rooted in racism and classism.37

The Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware released an interdisciplinary

“Handbook of Disaster Research” with various international contributors. The handbook is

based on the concept that disasters are social constructions and focuses on social science

disaster research. Bob Bolin, professor at the Arizona State University contributes to the

handbook with a chapter about race, class ethnicity and disaster vulnerability. In his chapter

he discusses theoretical and methodological issues in the accumulated knowledge from five

decades of hazard and disaster research in relation to race and class. He focuses

specifically on race and class vulnerabilities and his primary interest is the relationship

between social inequalities and hazard vulnerability in disaster processes. Research shows

that social inequalities are essential conditions that shape disasters and environmental

inequalities.38 Vulnerability science investigates hazards, environmental inequalities and

questions of sustainability and contends the traditional analysis of disaster that view

disasters as “unique” events separated from the ongoing social order in society. Instead its

theoretical point of departure is that disasters are conditioned by the already existing social,

political, environmental and economic conditions and should therefore not be considered as

natural occurrences but man made.39

Vulnerability researchers define vulnerability as the characteristics of a person or group and

their situation that influence their capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist, and recover from

the impact of a natural hazard. These characteristics or factors of vulnerability are for

example; race, class, ethnicity, gender, immigration status among others, they vary

depending on the type of hazard. The historically accumulated advantages or disadvantages

of different class or racial groups in certain places can have distinct relevance for hazard

vulnerability. Racialized groups, may be spatially segregated and forced to occupy unsafe

and hazard-prone spaces that privileged groups can avoid occupying. Bolin points out that

35 Ibid, page 27–28 36 Ibid, page 35 37 Ibid, page 79 38 Bolin, Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Disaster Vulnerability, page 118 39 Ibid, page 114

11

“racially marginalized” groups can be denied access to necessary disaster recovery

resources, exacerbating their vulnerability to future hazard events.40

Class and race are often coupled in the United states and class position often determines the

type of resources people can use in crises, social protections they have or lack access to,

and the proximity to hazardous areas.41

Bolin analyzes the difference between three different types of research about disaster and

hazard; traditional disaster research which he critiques, vulnerability research and

environmental justice research. While the first examines disaster as an extraordinary event

disconnected from societal structure, the second analyzes disasters as imbedded in an

economic and political context that produces poverty and spatial processes of

marginalization, and confines specific class, race and ethnic groups to occupy hazardous

areas and structures.42

The third, environmental justice, is concerned with unequal distributions of hazards and

processes that create landscapes of differential risk, in relation to class and race. One of its

key matters is environmental racism, the disproportionate and discriminatory exposure of

people of color and the poor to environmental hazards, such as toxic waste. Bolin argues

that the methodology from environmental justice literature could be applied to traditional

disaster research in order to understand pre-disaster vulnerabilities and post-disaster

processes. Bolin points out historical environmental justice research as a good example to

learn and borrow from. Historical environmental justice literature shows how race and class

inequalities in hazard exposure historically have been an essential part of processes of

urbanization and industrialization. Bolin lifts a study by researcher Laura Pulido from

California State University that examines the development of environmental injustice in Los

Angeles through the lens of white privilege. By using the concept of white privilege, a

hegemonic form of racism, that operates through ideologies, institutions and social practices

and creates social, political and economic advantages for white people across time and

space, she shows how white people historically have been able to control the locations of

hazardous industries and waste sites, and avoid the most polluted and hazardous parts of

the city. The growth of white suburbia can therefore be understood as a geographical form of

white privilege, that leaves the environmental burdens to the poor people of color who dwell

in the deteriorating inner-city.43

40 Ibid, page 115 41 Ibid, page 118 42 Ibid, page 123 43 Ibid, page 128

12

Laura Pulido argues in a report that environmental racism (the disproportionate amount of

exposure to different types of hazards, such as toxic waste, garbage dumps, environmental

pollution etcetera, in black and brown communities), is an essential part of racial capitalism.

Racial capitalism is a definition of capitalism, coined by the American theorist Cedric

Robinson, that sees racism as the structuring logic of capitalism. Since environmental racism

is a part of racial capitalism, the economic system of the state, it is therefore to been seen as

state sanctioned racial violence against black and brown bodies. The global historical

commodification and devaluation of non-white bodies through slavery and genocide, that

persists to this day in racial capitalism has made it acceptable by the state to expose these

devalued and racialized bodies to pollution among other forms of violence. Pulido forms her

argument as critique against the environmental justice movement for failing to see the state’s

participation in environmental racism. The state does not want to solve environmental racism

because it would cost too much and disrupt, industry, the entire political system and the state

itself according to Pulido. Because of the fact that it is disproportionately black and brown

people (devalued bodies) who are exposed to industrial pollution, industry is allowed to

continue polluting in spite of the rising death toll and other human health consequences. This

is called a racial state of dispensability and is seen as a fundamental life devaluation and

destruction with legal impunity.44

Sociology professor Anna Olofsson investigates in an article from 2007 whether Swedish

municipalities adapt their crisis communication to a heterogenous group and specifically

towards immigrants or not. She compares this institutional approach with immigrant’s risk

perceptions and actions during crises. Her analysis is based on two empirical studies, a

postal questionnaire to people living in Malmo, Gothenburg and Stockholm about risk

perceptions and crisis-related actions, and a telephone survey to representatives from

different Swedish municipalities with questions about their crisis communication with regards

to immigrants. Olofsson’s conclusions are that although immigrants seem to differ from the

native Swedish majority population with regards to risk perceptions and crisis behavior very

few municipalities adapt their risk communications to immigrant, ethnic minorities. Instead

most Swedish municipalities tend to treat their populations as if they were homogenous and

this may have a discriminatory effect.

Olofsson quotes one of the municipality representatives; Our crisis preparedness plan is the

same for everybody. According to Olofsson, people with foreign background, stand the risk of

44 https://journals-sagepub-com.till.biblextern.sh.se/doi/pdf/10.1177/0309132516646495

13

not being reached by local crisis communication and become more affected by crises than

native Swedes because of this exclusionary approach.45

In 2019, the Public Health Office released a report that established that foreign-born

individuals, a group that in 2018 made up 19,1 percent of Sweden’s total population,

generally lived under poorer living conditions than Swedish-born individuals. The report

labelled foreign-born individuals as a vulnerable group and confirmed that there was a

growing health gap between Swedish-born citizens and foreign-born immigrants in Sweden.

The report showed for example, that the highest percentage of smokers in Sweden exists

among men born outside of Europe and that diabetes is almost three times higher among

African-born immigrants (living in Sweden for more than 5 years) than people born in

Sweden. The report confirms that socioeconomic factors such as levels of education,

unemployment and income have an impact on health. According to the report, Swedish-born

individuals have a higher employment rate and significantly higher disposable incomes than

foreign-born individuals in Sweden and that this contributes to the growing health gap

between the majority population and the ethnic minorities.46

Results

Risk analysis – Losing sight of minority vulnerabilities On the first press conference on the 6th of March 2020, the National Pandemic Group

presents itself and confirms that Sweden has got its first cases of Coronavirus du to people

coming back to Sweden from ski trips to Italy where they contracted Covid-19. The officials

state that there is no spread of the virus in society at that moment, and that focus lies mainly

on the group of people coming back from their winter holiday ski trips in northern Italy.

However, the officials also underscore the importance of communication and the need to

reach different groups. The National Board of Health and Welfare communicates that it plans

to release information addressed to, and adapted for, different groups, in different languages

because it is essential that everybody understands the official recommendations and

guidelines of how to behave.47

Regarding the tracing, testing and containment of the virus, the focus remains on this group

from Italy for the first couple of days because there is no spread of the virus within society

according to the National Pandemic Group. When asked two weeks later by a journalist, if

the number of infected people would have decreased or if the spreading of the virus would

45 Olofsson, crisis communication in a heterogenous society, page 6-7 46 https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/publicerat-material/publikationsarkiv/h/halsa-hos-personer-som-ar-utrikes-fodda--skillnader-i-halsa-utifran-fodelseland/?pub=61466 47 Press conference Covid-19, March 6

14

have been slower if harder controls had been carried out on people coming back from their

winter holiday in Italy, Johan Carlson the chief of the public health office answered:

In my opinion no, because we know that most of them got sick a week after, the ones who came home

were not sick, and the ones who were sick were taken care of. What had an effect was the

information, we’re talking here about, well-educated Swedes that have been on rather expensive

vacations in ski resorts. They have, by large heeded the message and also visited and contacted

health care and we have been able to track the spreading of the virus, so the answer is definitely no.48

This focus on ski tourists coming back from Italy changes around the 10th of March, when the

National Pandemic Group confirms that they have been seeing cases of Covid-19 among

people in Stockholm and Västra Götaland who have not been outside of Sweden during this

period of time and who have not had contact with people who have travelled abroad. The

group focus changes from people who have been in Italy to everybody who has been abroad

and most of all to people who work within the geriatric care. Johan Carlson states that

everybody who works with the elderly should stay home when feeling sick and ordinary

people should not visit their parents and grandparents in retirement homes. The number one

priority is to protect the elderly.

The risk alert for the eventual spreading of the virus changes to very high and the national

pandemic group confirms that the virus can also come from people who have been visiting

other countries in Europe.49

As the Easter holidays were approaching the National Pandemic Group shifted back its focus

to ski tourists due to the anticipation of a mass movement of people traveling within the

nation during the holidays. At the press conference on the 20th of March, the Public Health

Office warns people against going on ski trips up north and also to vacation houses along the

coasts of Sweden to places like the west coast, Gotland, Öland and such, without taking

precautions. Going “cross-country skiing” is not a problem and “infecting other people in the

ski slopes” is not that big of a risk. On the other hand, moving in crowded areas such as “ski

lifts, inhouse after ski events, bars, pubs, queues in grocery stores or art galleries” is risky

business according to Director General Johan Carlson. When asked by a journalist how strict

the recommendation to not travel outside of Stockholm is, Carlson replies:

It depends on the situation, if you have your own vacation house somewhere in the woods in

Bergslagen and travel by car, take food with you and live there and have a good time, then that’s a

48 Ibid, March 20 49 Ibid, March 10

15

whole different situation than going by train to the mountains without a backup plan, in case you get

sick, then you should consider if it’s a good idea.50

The 20th of March is the same day that the Swedish-Somali medical association goes public

with the six Covid-19 related deaths of the Swedish-Somalis in Stockholm. The issue is not

addressed officially by the national pandemic group at their press conferences until the 24th

of march. Morgan Olsson from the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) addresses

the situation concerning the Swedish-Somali Covid-19 victims, stating that there are certain

groups that “maybe are extra affected” by the virus and that certain groups will be “extra hard

to reach” with information, some of them because of “linguistic confusion”. He continues to

mention that his agency MSB, has reached out to the Swedish-Somali community with

information about the Coronavirus by using music artists of Swedish-Somali heritage.

Furthermore, he informs that there is video information with Somali audio available at

Vårdguidens webpage 1177 for Somali-speaking persons who cannot read. When asked by

a journalist what he thinks of the critique that Coronavirus information in other languages has

been inadequate and published too late Olsson agrees with the critique but also points out

that the norm in society is to speak Swedish.51

Chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell is asked by a journalist to evaluate the informational

campaign towards the Swedish-Somali community. Tegnell answers that information towards

the Swedish-Somali community existed prior to this issue being brought up in media. He also

states that there are other factors that makes this specific group very vulnerable for this type

of infection, and that he does not believe that the lack of information made a big difference.52

Tegnell does not elaborate further on the subject.

On another occasion a journalist asks Tegnell what he thinks is the underlying cause of a

higher percentage of covid-19 cases per capita in the suburbs of Rinkeby, Spånga, Tensta

and Kista. Tegnell answers that there is a well-known higher risk when living crowded in

intergenerational housing and that he suspects that these types of living patterns are much

more common in those parts of the city than in other parts. The journalist continues to ask

Tegnell about the same issue, and says that the National Pandemic Group talks a lot about

maintaining social distance, working from home, staying at home when sick, and asks him if

maybe people living in those areas do not have the possibility to follow their

recommendations. Tegnell answers that it may be the case, and that’s why municipal and

regional level authorities need other tools to work with these groups in society in order to

50 Press conference Covid-19, March 20 51 Ibid, March 24 52 Ibid, April 2

16

facilitate these recommendations for them. The journalist then asks Anders Tegnell if the

Swedish Society has let these groups down. Tegnell rather refers the journalist to municipal

and regional authorities.53

Strategy/Recommendations – Individual responsibility and selective recommendations According to the National Pandemic Group the main objective in the national strategy against the Coronavirus is to protect the old people who are the most vulnerable group. The means

of doing that is mainly through communication. Morgan Olsson, the communications

manager at MSB, stated that while lacking a vaccine, we only have communication left.54

Most of the communication during these press conferences is in the form of authority

guidelines and recommendations given to the public. Johan Carlson, Director General of the

Public Health office said the following about the recommendations at a press conference:

We give general recommendations, we cannot give recommendations and instructions that cover all

aspects of life.55

Chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell recommended that old people should isolate

themselves and limit their contact with other people.56 Most of the recommendations

regarding the isolation of the elderly either suggest that younger relatives should not visit the

old in their private homes and retirement homes, or that people who work within the geriatric

care should not go to work if they feel sick. No recommendations are given to

intergenerational households where senior citizens live together with younger relatives.

Instead Anders Tegnell tells the British newspaper The Guardian, that there are almost no

households in Sweden where people over 70 years live together with younger adults and

children.57

The main focus in the Swedish strategy against the spread of Covid-19 is individual

responsibility. The National Pandemic Group recommends the public to always practice

social distancing, wash their hands, stay home when sick, work from home if possible and

that everybody should make sure they have food, water, communication equipment.

According to Anneli Bergholm Söder from the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, every

household is responsible for building its own preparedness and situation.58

53 Ibid, April 7 54 Ibid, March 16 55 Ibid, April 1 56 Ibid, March 16 57 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/28/as-the-rest-of-europe-lives-under-lockdown-sweden-keeps-calm-and-carries-on 58 Press conference Covid-19, March 9

17

Individual responsibility is a recurrent key concept in the national strategy against Covid-19

and is repeated many times by the government and the National Pandemic Group when

communicating with the public. It is often stated that it is the individuals own responsibility to

follow authority recommendations. When asked by a journalist what he means with the word

recommend, Anders Tegnell the chief epidemiologist answers:

What we are talking about here is the sort of Swedish culture how they interpret recommendations

from authorities. If you go around asking, I think most people see it as a very clear advice on how to

do this in best possible manner and see it as a very strong recommendation…I think there Is a long

tradition in Sweden to follow the advice of the authorities. We don’t need the legal advice to get people

to come and vaccinate their children for example, 98 percent of the parents come any way. While in

other countries you need the legal obligation. And I think there is a cultural difference, which i think

also shows very clearly in Stockholm now. When we give the advice to stay home when you can or if

you have a slight cold, a lot of people are staying at home, while in other countries you need a legal

obligation and people are still protesting and go out and doing things. So, I think all of those things you

need to put in to context, and I think it is very important for each country to do what fits in to their

context. If you need legal obligation to do things, that’s fine, if you can do it the voluntary way that’s

fine.59

The National Pandemic Group bases most of its strategy and recommendations on the

individual citizen taking his or her responsibility to follow the recommendations given by the

Swedish public health experts and authorities. This rather unique Swedish approach to the

Covid-19 pandemic, based on free will and not coercion, and led mainly by experts rather

than politicians, seems to stem from the Swedish national self-image as a nation of rational,

well-educated and responsible individuals with a great belief in science. According to Tegnell

the Swedish people are very responsible people and that’s why coercion is not necessary in

Sweden.60 Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, stated the following at a press conference, with

regards to not implementing harsher restrictions in Sweden:

We cannot legislate just about everything and we will never be able to ban all harmful behavior, this is

a question of common sense. There is an individual responsibility and every individual has to take

responsibility for himself/herself, for his/her fellow humans and for his/her country.61

Chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell differentiates between political decisions and scientific

decisions, and sides with the scientific approach with regards to combating the Coronavirus.

In an article in Aftonbladet he comments on the neighboring country Denmark’s decision to

close its borders:

59 Ibid, March 27 60 Ibid, March 25 61 Press conference with the prime minister, March 27

18

Historically, it has shown to be a completely pointless measure…It’s not possible to justify from a

scientific point of view...It’s probably a decision that has been taken on a completely political level.62

Another explanation to the Swedish governments non-interventional and individualistic

approach in the battle against Covid-19 could maybe also be found in the great confidence

that the public health officials seem to have in Sweden’s relatively high public health status.

In an article in Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) Anders Tegnell confirms that the Public Health

Office has taken Sweden’s high public health level in consideration and that they think it

could help Sweden’s population to pull through the pandemic in a much better way than

other countries. Tegnell mentions that a much smaller percentage of the Swedish population

are smokers than in, for example China, and that less Swedes, compared to other countries,

belong to the “risk groups”, people with cardiovascular diseases, diabetes type-two and

obesity.63

Analysis of results

The particular behind the general The general director of the Public Health Office Johan Carlson said that the National Pandemic Group only gives general recommendations and not specific ones for all aspects

of life. But after analyzing their recommendations and their overall communication, the

specific behind the so called general starts to appear. The general recommendations given

are not that general at all, and are not adapted after every social group’s ability and

circumstances. Class and ethnic/race specific norms start to unravel as one examines the

National Pandemic Group’s risk analysis and recommendations. Consider, for example the

recommendations to work from home. The working-class population (in which non-white,

ethnic minorities are overrepresented) that occupies typical blue-collar jobs such as taxi and

bus drivers, construction workers, store clerks, nurses, janitors etcetera do not have the

possibility to work from home since they have to be in their workplace in order to carry out

their work. Social distancing is another class related recommendation that is exclusionary.

Many of the same working-class people who have to show up to a specific location to work

have to commute every day and those who cannot afford to drive to work or do not have

access to a car are forced to ride on overcrowded buses and subways where it’s difficult to

maintain social distance. The recommendation to Isolate the elderly is both class and

ethnic/race specific since certain immigrant groups such as the Swedish-Somali group and

other non-European immigrant groups do not share the cultural custom of leaving their old

relatives in nursing homes. Instead many care for their elderly in their family homes and are

62 https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/9vdeo9/tegnell-om-danskbeslut-fullstandigt-meningslos-atgard 63 https://www.svd.se/tegnell-ser-hopp-i-svenska-folkhalsan-kan-betala-sig

19

thus more accustomed to intergenerational living. For many families it is also an economic

issue since bigger apartments and houses cost more, therefore poor people tend to live more

crowded in smaller apartments.

To stockpile food and other essential products is also a matter of money, and not all people

and households can afford to stockpile as the National Board of Health and Welfare

recommends. Making all these recommendations a matter of individual responsibility is

therefore not only unjust and discriminatory but it also obscures the existing social

inequalities by individualizing structural socio-economic problems and linking personal

responsibility to socio-economic resources.

Furthermore, when analyzing the risk situation and giving recommendations, chief

epidemiologist Anders Tegnell clearly reasoned in a very Eurocentric way and has failed to

take into consideration the structural vulnerability of non-white minorities. Tegnell has failed

to recognize the socio-economic vulnerability of non-white ethnic minorities related to work,

living conditions and health risks related to Covid-19. Tegnell for example, claimed in an

interview with the Guardian that there existed almost no intergenerational living in Sweden,

but then later on admitted during a press conference with the national pandemic group that

overcrowded and intergenerational living could be a contributing factor to the

overrepresentation of Swedish-Somalis and other immigrant groups living in the suburbs of

Järva among Covid-19 patients. Tegnell also claimed in an interview with Svenska Dagbladet

that the relatively high national public health level of Sweden could save the country from a

harsh development of overwhelmingly, increasing Covid-19 related deaths, as seen in other

European countries. But Tegnell failed to mention that this was not true for all of the

population in Sweden, and did not mention his own agency’s report of the specific health

vulnerability of certain immigrant groups. This was very remarkable since the

overrepresentation of smokers among non-European men and the high diabetes type-two

rates among African-Swedes was of specific importance to the current pandemic and made

these segments of the population high risk groups in relation to the Coronavirus.

The Eurocentric discourse hidden in the National Pandemic Group’s recommendations to the

“general” public is reinforced by the focus on certain ethnic specific situations and social

practices that bear racial and class connotations.

By focusing on ethnic specific situations and leisure activities that are foreign to, and too

expensive for other ethnic groups such as recreational trips to private vacation houses or

wood cabins (sommarstugor) and downhill and cross-country skiing, typical Nordic/European

winter sports, certain parts of the population were excluded. When the general director of the

Public Health Office Johan Carlson talked about the Italy ski tourist returnees as responsible

20

well-educated Swedes, he failed to mention the people that they might have contaminated

after arriving back to Sweden. The individuals working at the airport, the health workers at

the healthcare units they visited or the bus and taxi drivers that drove them home from the

airport (many of whom belonged to the same ethnic minorities that later on showed high

rates of hospitalization due to Covid-19 infections). Would it not have been more responsible

if the returning ski tourists followed the recommendations given by the Public Health Office to

take precautions in order to protect other people in society by avoiding public transportation

such as buses and taxis and then isolating themselves at home instead of visiting hospitals?

This institutional, Eurocentric discourse given by the National Pandemic Group positions the

white middle class experience as a “general” and neutral, objective middle point and

marginalizes non-white immigrant and working-class experiences. And the momentary shift

from the Eurocentric/ethnocentric focus on the (white) people who matters to the Others was

only a brief pause in the dominating white middle-class narrative that characterized the

official Covid-19 focus. The deaths of Swedish-Somali citizens and other minority groups

came crashing in through media reports, forcing themselves on the comfortable white middle

class existence and demanding attention from the National Pandemic Group. The social

vulnerability of the Others that became more visible for a short period of time was treated as

a side track from the main course. And when it was not possible to keep ignoring the

suffering of the Others some of the National Pandemic Group’s representatives blamed the

victims for their own death by making it a matter of linguistic confusion and illiteracy among

the Swedish-Somali group. This is a clear example of how the ideological

workings/knowledge strategies of the Orientalist discourse obscure the same power

inequalities and associated vulnerabilities that it creates.

Swedish individualism The individual responsibility discourse that characterizes the Swedish strategy in the battle against Covid-19 brings us to the next political frontier. The Swedish individualism is a key

component of the Orientalist discourse that shapes the Swedish national identity by dividing

the Swedish population into binary opposites, two opposite poles, the Swedish, white middle-

class majority population and the non-white immigrant, working-class population.

The Eurocentric and individualistic Modernist myth of accomplishment and progress, works

in two-ways. By hiding structural socio-economic inequalities that privilege white middle-class

Swedes over non-white minority Swedes, it also reinforces or reproduces the mythical

national self-image of Sweden’s majority Whites as well-educated, rational, hardworking and

self-accomplished individuals. In other words, by hiding the process of social, cultural,

economic and political dominance of the Other, the image of Self becomes self-made - the

Swedish White subject is excellent by nature, and the opposite Other is inferior by nature too.

21

This process naturalizes the relation of dominance between Self and Other. In Other words,

if non-white Swedes are overrepresented among Covid-19 patients it is their own fault, they

are hard to reach because of their own flaws. They do not know the language, they are

illiterates and they did not follow the recommendations. It is not because of structural

inequality or vulnerability. And If white middle-class Swedes are less affected by the virus it is

because of their own greatness, because they are rational individuals who know how to

follow instructions (even when they do not), not because society favors them and gives them

socio-economic advantages that protects them from getting infected.

This discourse becomes clear for example when one looks at how white Swedes are

depicted by chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell when he tries to describe the Swedish

exceptionality by saying that Swedish people are very responsible and that’s why you do not

need to force them to do anything. Another example is when Johan Carlson, the general

director of the Public Health Office says that he did not believe harder controls of people

coming home from ski trips in Italy would have made a difference in the spread of Covid-19,

because these people were well-educated Swedes that followed the official instructions

anyways (although they did not follow the instructions) and contacted health care on their

own in order to get tested.

Then you put that in contrast to how the Swedish-Somali community is depicted by Morgan

Olsson, the communication manager of MSB. He insinuates that the overrepresentation of

Swedish-Somalis among Covid-19 related deaths is their own fault because of “linguistic

confusion” and that “some groups are harder to reach”. He tops that off by saying that his

agency has taken precautions and made information videos specifically for illiterate Somali-

speakers as if Somalis are more illiterate than other ethnic groups. Furthermore, it is rather

remarkable that Olsson’s agency has used musicians/artists to reach out to the Swedish-

Somali community. One wonders why they have not used the same method to reach out to

majority White Swedes. Would the National Pandemic Group, for example, find it appropriate

to use the popular Swedish artist Carola Häggkvist instead of Morgan Olsson himself to

present Covid-19 related information at their press conference? The rationality behind this

action implies a stereotypical image of black people as being more spiritual and musical, in

contrast to rational Whites. This alludes to the Orientalist discourse of the non-white, non-

European Other as ignorant, irrational and uncivilized, the opposite pole to the educated,

rational and civilized white Swedish/ European. It is also The Othering mechanisms of the

Orientalist discourse that inferiorize and marginalize the non-white Other and contributes to

reproduce a superior white European/Nordic/Swedish hegemonic identity becomes clear

after examining the National Pandemic Group’s public communications through a post-

colonial discourse analysis.

22

Ultimately, the almost religious belief in science, and the dichotomization between science

and politics (as if science was an absolute objective truth that is free from ideology and

politics) reinforces the national self-image, that of the Swedish white, middle class, male

subject as a rational and well-educated individual. This dichotomization between science and

politics becomes clear when Anders Tegnell comments on Denmark’s decision to close its

borders and rejects it as a political decision that holds no scientific weight. This scientific

discourse is consistent with, and an essential part of the Orientalist, modernist epistemology

that masks European knowledge production as the unquestionable and objective, universal

truth.

Discussion

In this thesis I set out to answer two empirical questions; the first one was if the specific

vulnerability of non-white ethnic minorities and existing social inequalities between the white

majority population and the non-white ethnic minorities has been taken into consideration in

the National Pandemic Group’s risk analysis and public recommendations?

Analysis of the data collected from the National Pandemic Group’s daily press conferences

and their public statements in interviews and articles in the media between the period of the

6th of March 2020 and the 7th of April 2020, show that the specific socio-economic

vulnerabilities of racial minorities such as, intergenerational and crowded living conditions,

vulnerable work situations, low-income and preexisting health issues, are neglected and not

taken into consideration by the National Pandemic Group in the risk analysis and the

recommendations that they have presented to the public in regards to the spread of the

Coronavirus. The vulnerability of the Swedish-Somali community and other non-white ethnic

minorities and their heightened risk of contracting the Coronavirus only became visible after

the Swedish-Somali medical association flagged about the death of six Swedish-Somali

Corona patients in the media on the 20th of March. The National Pandemic Group did not

address this matter until the 24th of March after being confronted by journalists, and then only

briefly as a side track from the main, general course. Instead the authority representatives

assumed in their risk analysis and recommendations that everybody among the Swedish

population was equally exposed to the virus and had the same abilities to protect

themselves.

The second empirical question was; if there is an excluding white middle-class norm/bias in

the official risk analysis, citizen recommendations and other public statements coming from

government or National Pandemic Group representatives?

23

The failure to take into consideration the structural vulnerability of certain non-white ethnic

minorities in the National Pandemic Group’s risk assessment and recommendations to the

public is the result of an ethnic specific Whiteness and middle-class bias. The National

Pandemic Group’s recommendations and risk analysis departed from the assumption that all

segments of the Swedish population shared the same socio-economic conditions and the

same socio-cultural living patterns as the Swedish white middle class. By acting and

reasoning as if the Swedish population were homogeneous, the National Pandemic Group

discriminated on its non-white ethnic minorities, a substantially large segment of the

population. This institutional, Eurocentric discourse positioned the white middle-class

experience as a “general” neutral, objective middle point and marginalized the non-white,

immigrant, working class experience.

Furthermore, by making the protection against the Coronavirus, a matter of personal

responsibility, the National Pandemic Group ignored the socio-economic and socio-cultural

differences between the white majority middle class population and the non-white, working-

class, ethnic minorities. Behind the Swedish strategy, there is of course a political decision

that has been made by the Swedish government - the decision to interfere as little as

possible in the battle against the spread of the Coronavirus and let each Swedish citizen

protect him or herself through their own means. The Swedish government may have taken

this decision because of fear of damaging the Swedish economy if interfering too much and

closing down larger parts of the Swedish society. If one sees the disproportionate exposure

to the hazardous virus known as Covid-19 within non-white ethnic minorities as a form of

environmental racism due to racial capitalism then one can argue that the state’s inability or

unwillingness to protect its ethnic minorities is rooted in the devaluation of black and brown

bodies, fueled by economic reasons (they are not worth the cost of being saved and are

therefore dispensable) and to be seen as state-sanctioned violence against black and brown

bodies.

However, the Swedish government’s inaction and failure to respond to the needs of its most

vulnerable citizens may have contributed to the high rates of Swedish-Somalis and other

ethnic minorities such as the Iraqi-Swedish and Turkish-Swedish communities. This can be

read as an act of institutional discrimination since the national state has the utmost

responsibility to aid its most vulnerable citizens when they cannot protect themselves against

certain threats, specifically in times of crisis. To treat all of its citizens as equals with equal

rights, does not mean treating everybody the same or letting everybody take care of

themselves. It means acknowledging different socio-economic capabilities and catering to

different needs and circumstances.

24

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Press conference Covid-19, March 9, 2020, Visited: 2020/04/20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly4w3scdUS0&list=PLLqBo3UjMccAyAkJ9uiJkQpPjDYUoWlHp&index=38

Press conference Covid-19, March 10, 2020, Visited: 2020/04/21

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IysHl0lzuGo&list=PLLqBo3UjMccAyAkJ9uiJkQpPjDYUoWlHp&index=37

Press conference Covid-19, March 16, 2020, Visited: 2020/04/21

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2MajAQvpY8&list=PLLqBo3UjMccAyAkJ9uiJkQpPjDYUoWlHp&index=33

Press conference Covid-19, March 20, 2020, Visited: 2020/04/22

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afvq-Eyi2Uk&list=PLLqBo3UjMccAyAkJ9uiJkQpPjDYUoWlHp&index=29

Press conference Covid-19, March 25, 2020, Visited: 2020/04/22

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnri1OIbt68&list=PLLqBo3UjMccAyAkJ9uiJkQpPjDYUoWlHp&index=26

Press conference Covid-19, March 27, 2020, Visited: 2020/04/23

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Mfd5dKLMYg&list=PLLqBo3UjMccAyAkJ9uiJkQpPjDYUoWlHp&index=24

Press conference with the prime minister, March 27, 2020, visited: 2020/04/23

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_QoEJKjQK8

26

Press conference Covid-19, April 1, 2020, Visited: 2020/04/25

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F602U38BYQE&list=PLLqBo3UjMccAyAkJ9uiJkQpPjDYUoWlHp&index=21

Press conference Covid-19, April 2, 2020, Visited: 2020/04/25

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVmYShU0BPw&list=PLLqBo3UjMccAyAkJ9uiJkQpPjDYUoWlHp&index=20

Press conference Covid-19, April 7, 2020, Visited: 2020/05/02

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=janmckTKpjE&list=PLLqBo3UjMccAyAkJ9uiJkQpPjDYUoWlHp&index=17

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/28/as-the-rest-of-europe-lives-under-lockdown-sweden-keeps-calm-and-carries-on Visited on: 2020/05/02

https://www.svd.se/tegnell-ser-hopp-i-svenska-folkhalsan-kan-betala-sig Visited on: 2020/05/02

https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/9vdeo9/tegnell-om-danskbeslut-fullstandigt-meningslos-atgard Visited on: 2020/05/02