Swedish school curriculum and school laws require factual accuracy, objectivity, and scientific basis from all teachers. Nevertheless, more than once or twice, Swedish teachers who are also political activists use tax-funded schools for spreding their political propaganda.
Published in Swedish in Svenska Dagbladet: https://www.svd.se/a/vg1455/larare-utnyttjar-skolan-for-propaganda
It was an ordinary Friday in January at an ordinary high school in Stockholm. At the end of a religious studies lesson, which was dedicated to self-study in preparation for a test, the teacher asked the students to direct their attention to a film.
The film showed a speech lasting about 20 minutes. Although it was supposed to be a lesson about Judaism, the film strangely wasn't about Jewish theology, Jewish traditions, Jewish texts, Jewish holidays, or Jewish history. Instead, it showed a radical political speech given in France in May 2024. It was about 'Israel's genocide, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes in Gaza' and Zionism as a murderous ideology that specializes in killing women and infants. The speaker also claimed that the USA, the UK, and France are 'fascists, neo-Nazis, and Israel’s best friends' and that 'there is no freedom of speech in Europe.'
The speaker, a self-declared 'anti-Zionist Jew' from the UK, referred to Hamas terrorists as 'real freedom fighters.' About Israelis, he said, 'they are not only not Jewish, they are also not human,' adding that 'a nation like Israel has no right to exist.'
Of course, the speaker did not mention the genocidal-like Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, nothing about the women, children, and elderly taken hostage, nothing about the lack of democracy and human rights in the Palestinian autonomous areas, or about Islamist terrorism and antisemitism, which have been characteristics of the Palestinian national movement since the 1930s.
Given all this, it is clear that the film did not belong in a religious studies lesson. However, according to a student who was there, the film was shown without context, without discussion, without questions, and without any explanation (except for the claim that it showed 'not all Jews are Zionists').
Moreover, the teacher's deep involvement in the issue and the teacher's personal views became clear as the students watched the video. It included sections with standing ovations from the audience. Belive it or not, one of the people seen cheering in the film was the Swedish teacher, making it clear where the teacher stands politically. When asked about it, the teacher confirmed this.
The incident appears to be yet another case of political activism in a Swedish school, which harms individual students and involves the misuse of the taxpayer-funded school system to spread extreme ideologies. In this case, the teacher is also a union representative and one of the organizers of a discussion evening about Gaza, held in Stockholm last May. As one of 'the union’s internationally responsible officers,' the teacher gave the other teachers an introduction and explained the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The teacher, who has also expressed extremely radical views in other contexts, is clearly not suitable to present a balanced view of the conflict. Yet, the teacher was allowed to do so for other teachers. This may be one of the reasons for other cases where extremist political views have been part of teaching in Stockholm's schools.
Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, Swedish schools have seen many such cases. Last May, SvD published an article about preschool teachers who imposed their political activism on 4- and 5-year-olds. At one preschool in Stockholm, for example, the children made jewelry with paint and beads in the colors of the Palestinian flag and handprints, which they placed on white sheets of paper with the heading 'Support Palestine.' According to a post on social media, the preschool was also involved in collecting money for Palestinian groups. In Jönköping, a couple of preschool teachers had children draw watermelons to 'show love and solidarity with Palestine.'
Older students in 39 Swedish schools were given their share of political propaganda from another direction. According to another article in SvD, these schools are 'partner schools' of Amnesty, an organization deeply involved in political activism focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and far from impartial. These schools use the 'Amnesty model' for teacher training, themed days, reading materials, and lectures. They even participate in global campaigns. Amnesty is known as an organization that disproportionately criticizes Israel, supports boycott campaigns against Israel, almost completely ignores attacks on Israeli civilians, uses information from Hamas propaganda, and some of its overseas partners have connections to terrorist organizations and Islamist movements.
A student at a high school in Stockholm shared that since the lessons on the Israel-Palestine conflict started, they feel 'I have to go to school to defend Israel. It's not that the teacher is lying, but it is very one-sided. For example, we had two lessons on the Palestinian Nakba and only half a slide about the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries.' When students were given texts on the subject, they received study questions like: 'What support is there to describe Israel as an apartheid state?' 'It’s uncomfortable,' says the student, who is concerned about their classmates. 'I feel like I need to present the other side. The others in the class don’t know the full picture.'
A mother of another student shared that her son had lost motivation for his social studies because of how the war was presented. The teacher continuously referred to all of Israel as occupied land and presented Hamas as one of what seemed to be two reasonable alternatives: a terrorist organization or an anti-colonial liberation movement.
Sometimes, Swedish teachers have not spoken about the topic at all but failed to protect students from politically motivated attacks. A few weeks after the war began, classmates of a Jewish boy in a primary school in southern Sweden asked him who he supported in the war. The 10-year-old boy replied that he supported Israel. The two others drew a crossed-out Israeli flag, crumpled it up, and threw it at him while saying, 'We hate Israel.' The teacher present in the classroom did nothing until the student’s mother contacted them.
The mother of a 16-year-old boy from a Jewish family attending a high school in western Sweden shared another disturbing story. She says a girl stood up in class and screamed, 'Slaughter, rape, and torture all Jews' at her son. The teacher did not react, did not stop the girl, or report her to the principal. The other students were also silent
Returning back to the Stockholm case from January, the school refused to disclose what sanction, if any, was taken against the teacher who used a high school classroom to spread extreme propaganda against Israel. The school’s principal says that the school does not comment on potential actions regarding individual staff matters. But it was confirmed that the teacher is still teaching at the school.Thus other teachers, students and parents will have to keep guessing – they know that the teacher exploited authority, a power position, taxpayer money and school infrastructure to advocate for political views that have nothing to do with the subject matter of the teaching. They also know that school curriculum and school laws require all teachers to be factual, objective, and based on scientific foundations. Still, we'll all have to stay in the dark when it comes to the implications of not doing so.
It is important to emphasize that the problem here is not discussing sensitive topics or censoring anyone. Different opinions are welcome, discussions in schools are important, and teachers, like everyone else, have the right to their political beliefs. The problem is the abuse of Swedish schools for pure political propaganda at the expence of the students and Swedish society.
One of the students who took part in the lesson in January has a Jewish background. She is now being taught by another teacher in religious studies. Since the school in this case reacted by separating the teacher from the student, even though it is clear that the problem lies with the teacher and not with the student, one must ask: would propaganda in teaching go unchallenged or without consequences if it concerned something other than Israel and Jews?
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