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<title> About Violence and "Violence", a Counter Argument </title>
In Sweden we all remember the images of the confrontations between the police and stone throwing, masked demonstrators, and the vast demolishing of public and private property. We have all wondered what it was all for, what went wrong, and why it happened. In an article named About Violence and "Violence", Staffan Jacobson gives his views on the latter, and in a sense gives his approval to what happened, claiming that the "police state" and the world situation are the sole culpables.
There are many things in Jacobson's article that are of dubious factual character, and I would like to begin by correcting one of them. He claims that one of the main reasons behind the anger displayed by the violent demonstrations in Gothenburg is that the Swedish people have been forced into EU, "the union of the rich" as he calls it, against the will of the majority. Need I remind him that we held a popular vote about Sweden entering into EU? The figures were 52.3 percent for, and 46.8 percent against (with 0.9 percent being blank votes). I leave it as an exercise to the reader to draw his or her own conclusions on this.
Another aspect I am amazed at is his strong, almost vehement, aversity toward the police, and his claims that having a police force is a step away from democracy. Perhaps we would not need the police if we lived in a perfect world, but the fact is that we really do need some kind of organization to keep criminal, violent, and dangerous elements in society at bay. The police have not always made the right decisions, or made the right thing, but would we be better off without them? They are a necessary evil; a small restriction that we need to keep democracy working. They need to be checked by other instances in society, but in my opinion they are part of a practical, working democracy, not a step away from it.
These two issues aside, Jacobson turns his sights on what he calls the devaluation of the word "violence" that is being made by the common, "bourgeois" press. This is a central theme in his article. He gives his own definition of what violence really is, naming, among others, the Israeli occupation of Palestine, starvation in third world countries versus the fattening of the industrial nations, etc. What irks me is his last statement on the list:

It is violence when the global capitalism humiliate, torment, and profit on us all for a miserable pay, or no pay at all; destroy our common lives with alienation, emptiness, and hopelessness.

What world is Jacobson living in? What we do with our lives is our own choice. It is not governed by some grand, capitalistic, overarching hand. Our will is our own. Granted, multinational companies have power, but that power has been given to them by us, the consumers. If he had been talking about third world countries his arguments would have carried more weight, but he isn't.
The thing is, no one is saying that the things he lists as "violence" are not bad things, or that our world does not need improvement. Not even the common press is saying that. In fact, would we even be aware of the worldwide situation he describes if it were not for the media?
All his arguments in the article lead to a single, final statement: that the violent demonstrators in Gothenburg and Genoa were justified in their displayed anger, and that this display was even a positive one. What is that violence, compared to the global injustices that happen every day? My answer to that is that if Jacobson is so concerned about democracy, he should take a closer, more critical look at the methodologies of these shrouded activists. Either they work within the framework of democracy by demonstrating and debating peacefully, or they work outside it. By using violence these groups have gone the way of terrorism and nihilism, and are therefore working against Jacobson's treasured democracy. His argument seems to be that the lesser evil has a justified existence simply because the greater evil exists. I say that that is like comparing apples to oranges, and, using his own words; devaluates the word "violence".

Summary of the article About Violence and "Violence"
In an article in SvD, August 2, Staffan Jacobson argues that the violent demonstrations in Gothenburg, and later in Genoa, were the justified, positive results of frustration emanating from the global misuse of power by the capitalistic forces in society. The vessel to his arguments is the devaluation of the word "violence" made by the common press.
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