Stieg Larsson, My Friend - Kurdo Baksi [22]
“A quarter to nine is too early for me. Besides, it would be better for a man and a woman born in different countries to go to the ministry.”
I realized that it was a waste of time trying to persuade him and asked the journalist Bella Frank of the syndicalist newspaper Arbetaren to accompany me to hand the petition to Deputy Prime Minister Lena Hjelm-Wallén.
What none of us knew at the time was that it was already fiftysix days since a group of known neo-Nazis had ordered passport photographs and “current addresses” of Stieg, his partner, Eva, and me.
5
Living under threat
In the mid-1930s a terrifying and brutal gang of thugs ruled the roost in Syria. These five hundred dangerous men were led by the unpredictable Amo (Uncle). Every time they raided a restaurant they would instruct all the customers not to move. Then Amo would inspect all present and decide on punishments for them, each and every one. It was usually a question of how many gold coins each individual should pay. Anybody who refused was murdered on the spot.
The story goes that this notorious gang once forced its way into a nightclub in Aleppo that was very popular with well-heeled men in the early hours: they were all entranced by a beautiful belly dancer. But the moment Amo’s gang entered the premises the four-man band stopped playing and everybody froze – including the belly dancer. To everyone’s surprise Amo immediately ordered more music and more belly-dancing. The band struck up again and the belly dancer did her best to satisfy the customers.
When the performance had finished, Amo applauded and announced, “Today I shall only punish the musicians. The band will pay me one gold coin each – apart from the drummer, who will pay me three gold coins!” The poor drummer burst into tears and wondered why he had to pay more than the rest of the band. “You must pay more because I’ve noticed for a long time now that when the rest of the band is silent, the drums keep on disturbing the peace!”
Every time Stieg wondered why he was the one receiving death threats, I would tell him that story. It was an attempt to liven things up in a totally absurd situation. His vulnerability made him receptive to an anecdote that few Swedes would understand.
Stieg was the anti-racist musician who beat the drum whenever nobody spoke up concerning the principle that everybody had equal worth. Whenever silence fell – society so loves to sweep unpleasant phenomena under the carpet – he would be there, drumming away for all he was worth. The fact is that as early as the 1970s he had seen the danger of xenophobic, racist and neo-Nazi groups becoming organized in Sweden and the other Nordic countries. But nobody rewards you with bouquets of flowers for observations like that!
So his question about why he was being singled out for threats was purely rhetorical. Of course he knew the reason for the many long hate letters, and the way in which he was hung out to dry in racist magazines and on Internet sites. What is more difficult to explain, however, is why he replied to every single neo-Nazi, racist and xenophobic lunatic who sent him letters or issued threats. I simply could not understand why he spent hours replying to those people.
“If you don’t reply to destructive people they will turn to destructive actions,” he used to say, looking up from writing one such letter. Then he would carry on, also answering the next one even though it was late at night.
I don’t know when and where these ghosts and phantoms first attacked Stieg, perhaps around the mid-1980s. It is hard to imagine any other Swede being threatened more often than he was during the last twenty years of his life. Nevertheless, he was very good at hiding his worries. Presumably so as not to worry anybody else, least of all Eva.
So what were his crimes, according to the racists? Obviously all