August 9th, 2015
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#1
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Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2013
Location: France
Posts: 5,779
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Sweden's Folk Musicians Against Racism join chorus against far right
Quote:
Stockholm festival sees people of all ages gather to take Swedish folk music and traditional costume back from the anti-immigrant SD party
On the cobbles in front of Hasselby castle – a peach-coloured 17th-century confection run these days as a hotel – around 70 musicians play a stately polka on fiddles, nyckelharpa, clarinet, flute and
accordion. The youngest looks about five, the oldest in his 80s, and a handful wear Swedish traditional costume: the women in full skirts, aprons, lace collars and red woollen stockings, the men in
waistcoats, shorts and socks with ribbons. Nearby, a Danish klezmer band on a big sound stage is lifting an crowd to its feet.
But music wasn’t the only thing on the agenda at this year’s Stockholm folk festival. The mass play-in on the cobbles was a demonstration organised by a group called Folk Musicians against Racism (FMR)
and their outrage was directed squarely at the third-largest party in Sweden’s parliament, the far-right Sweden Democrats (SD), who won nearly 13% of the vote in last year’s general election.
Earlier in the week, an advert on Stockholm’s metro paid for by the SD, addressing tourists in English, said: “Sorry about the mess here in Sweden. We have a serious problem with forced begging.
International gangs profit from people’s desperation. Our goverment (sic) won’t do what’s needed. But we will!”
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Sweden's Folk Musicians Against Racism join chorus against far right | World news | The Guardian
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