The group showed up at the school – after rewriting the ruckus • Advocates race war and clean living
Organized “active clubs” or “fight clubs” are spreading across Sweden.
The clubs have according to Foundation Expo formed by young defectors from the Nordic Resistance Movement, NMR, and are inspired by movements in the USA. The far-right group celebrates clean living and martial arts – and fights against multiculturalism and the LGBTQI movement.
In pictures shared on the Telegram platform, the club members can be seen posing with banners with texts such as “Defend Småland” and “Defend Skåne”, and how they train in hand-to-hand combat.
My Vingren, researcher at Expo, believes that the group’s aim is to prepare for a race war, to take power by force and that they see themselves as a counter force to extreme right-wing “keyboard warriors”.
– They train together, to become strong and build capacity for violence, she tells Expo magazine.
Stickers in Stockholm
In Sweden, Expo calculates that there are six official active clubs, as well as four more ideologically influenced groups that have adopted the concept. Altogether, the clubs are estimated to consist of roughly 90 people.
Earlier in the autumn, the group put up lots of stickers in Aspudden, in southern Stockholm. Schools in the immediate area have subsequently informed guardians to be aware of recruitment to far-right groups.
– All forms of extreme right-wing expressions should be viewed with concern and paid attention to. If you turn to young people, there is a risk that they will be recruited, says Clas Cederlid, security strategist at the district administration.
There is no concrete example of any youth being recruited in the area.
Recruitment attempt in Älvdalen
Last Sunday evening, the group carried out an action against Älvdal School in Dalarna, following media reports about fights between “black and white children”, which were filmed and shared on social media. On the group’s Telegram channel, Aktivklubb writes about how they visited the school to put up posters with a clear message:
“IT’S TIME TO GET TOGETHER AND FIGHT BACK AGAINST THE BLATTEN GANG! As a result of the government’s anti-Swedish migration and integration policy, Swedish children are ending up at a numerical disadvantage in more and more schoolyards across the country,” the group writes, among other things.
“While the adult world turns its back on our young people, we from Aktivklubb Sverige stand behind the students in Älvdalsskolan and hereby announce that the active clubs will back everyone who stands up against Swedish hostility in the schools”, they write further.
Aktivklubb Sverige also encourages students to become active and to visit their website. In addition to the club’s posters, someone had also scrawled racist messages on several walls.
The headmaster: “Very boring”
Torbjörn Martinsson, deputy head of school in Älvdalen, takes a serious view of what happened.
– We think it is very sad that this type of movement comes here. Älvdalen is actually a very quiet and nice place, he says.
The posters were taken down the same evening they were put up, says the school director, who believes that the media image of the fights in Älvdalen has been somewhat inaccurate.
– There have been fights in Älvdalen, but not at school and not during school hours, but it has happened during free time. It has been rowdy and restless among students at our school, from middle school up. But it has calmed down considerably and we do not feel that it is still going on, he says.
Local media write about how several parents chose to keep their children home from school on Monday in protest against the recent row with racist elements.