PeterSweden - A Journey Through Journalism, Politics and Faith in a Changing Sweden

Show Notes and Transcript

PeterSweden, an independent journalist and political commentator joins Hearts of Oak to share his journey into journalism, covering topics like politics, climate change, and the rise of the Swedish Democrats party. 
He discusses challenges Sweden faces, such as gang violence and high crime rates, highlighting the media's portrayal of these issues and the upcoming European parliamentary elections. 
Peter delves into socialism's impact on Sweden's societal fabric, emphasizing faith's importance in addressing challenges and farmers' role in challenging climate change policies. He reflects on the changing landscape of Sweden, advocating for individuals to boldly embrace their Christian values in shaping society's dynamics.

Peter Imanuelsen, aka PeterSweden is a journalist and political commentator from Sweden. 
He specializes in reporting on news that the mainstream media often doesn't talk about.
Peter is a traditional conservative that believes in liberty, democracy and human rights. 
He always seeks do to honest, unbiased news reporting. 
Peter is a firm believer in free speech, no matter what your opinions are.
His work is 100% independent which means that he is not following any corporate agendas unlike the mainstream media. 
You will only get the truth. That's why Peter's motto is: REAL NEWS - INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM.

Connect with Peter...
WEBSITE             petersweden.com
X/TWITTER         x.com/PeterSweden7
SUBSTACK         substack.com/@petersweden
YOUTUBE           youtube.com/c/PeterSweden

Interview recorded   23.5.24

Connect with Hearts of Oak...
X/TWITTER        x.com/HeartsofOakUK
WEBSITE            heartsofoak.org/
PODCASTS        heartsofoak.podbean.com/
SOCIAL MEDIA  heartsofoak.org/connect/
SHOP                  heartsofoak.org/shop/

*Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast.

Check out his art theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com and follow him on X/Twitter x.com/TheBoschFawstin

TRANSCRIPT

(Hearts of Oak)

Hello, Hearts of Oak. It's wonderful to have you back with us. And I'm delighted to have a guest that I have been intrigued following on Twitter for a number of years. And that is PeterSweden. Peter, thank you so much for joining us today.

(PeterSweden)

Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here.

Great to have you. And obviously, people can find you. All the details are on the screen and underneath in the description @PeterSweden7. petersweden.com and obviously your Substack petersweden.substack.com make sure and sign up to that and get Peter's regular input on what is happening in Sweden and I've had a number of individuals from Sweden I've had Ingrid Carlqvist I've had Kent Ekeroth but I'm really looking forward because you cover so much and just your pinned tweet I was looking at no 15-minute cities, reject cashless agenda, I embrace masculinity, anti-socialist, meat-eater, anti-feminist, unvaccinated, I support the farmers, I will expose the WEF agenda. And I think our viewers and listeners will sign up to all of those. So delighted to have you with us, Peter. Maybe we can start, before we get into the politics in Sweden, some of the issues that you're facing over there. Maybe I can just ask you to just take a moment and introduce yourself to our viewers and listeners before we get into the issues.

Yeah so as you said I go by Peter Sweden, my real name is actually Peter Imanuelsen but a lot of people in the English-speaking world have some trouble pronouncing and remembering that name so I go by Peter Sweden. Yeah I'm an independent journalist political commentator, conservative influencer. I talk about, well I began in really some years years ago now back in 2016, 2017, I began seeing a lot of things happening in Sweden that wasn't being reported on the mainstream media, there was shootings, there was bombings going on, cars being set on fire so I just just a regular guy who started posting about it on social media and people wanted to hear the truth and it just grew from there and now I'm talking about all kinds of things ranging from the things happening in Sweden to the climate agenda to the World Economic Forum to the farmers all of those things.

Yeah there's a lot happening and it's always good to hear from a specific European country of what is happening and how they're being impacted by these issues but maybe we can start politically we in the UK have just had a general election called, which doesn't mean much. I know the European parliamentary elections are coming up.

In Sweden, you've had the rise of the Swedish Democrats, which has been really interesting, looking at that from the UK as a conservative. Maybe do you want to let us know what impact they are having on Sweden in the government?

Yeah, so there's been a lot of positive developments after, because the thing is, they are not actually in government. They are propping up the government. There's a centre-right. Well, in reality, they're pretty far to the left, in my opinion. The government itself, it's the centre-right. They call it the centre-right moderate party, but in reality, they're pretty socialist-influenced still. But however, they're being propped up by the Social Democrats, who are a little bit more conservative. So they've been coming with some pretty good things lately. For example, this year they scrapped climate taxes on fuels, which caused the fuel prices to collapse by some 30% almost.

They have been scrapping the Agenda 2030 goals from government directives. And there's more examples as well of things that they've been... For example, they have scrapped their renewable energy plants and are instead going to be focusing on... They actually just announced recently they are investing millions into the fourth generation nuclear power plants, which is a very good thing.

So, yeah, a lot of good news coming out of Sweden. I mean, still a lot of bad things happening in Sweden, but at least there is some positive news going on here. They also go against the cashless agenda. They're looking at ways to strengthen physical cash. So we're seeing some positive developments, but still far from perfect.

Well, tell us, because I think it upset the established parties, seeing the Swedish Democrats rise and do so well. I mean, what is the popularity? Because obviously, Jimmie Åkesson leading, but he has chosen not to take the position of prime minister. He obviously is politically astute and realises that this is a long game and the Swedish Democrats are just rising, rising. But what is their kind of popularity in Sweden? Not only Jimmie, the leader, but the other figures in the Swedish Democrats?

Well, actually, among young people, the Swedish Democrats are very popular, especially among young men. I believe they are either the largest party among young men in Sweden. However, among young women, they are not. Among young women, you have the Green Party and the far left former Communist Party and the Socialist Party. They are the three largest parties among young women in Sweden.

So we're seeing kind of quite a big divide in Sweden at the moment with young men voting right wing and the young women voting very left. So it kind of depends on the person, really, who they're asking if they have a positive view or a negative view. And it's kind of interesting because Sweden has had a socialist in power for many, many decades when they were in power from 2014 up until, oh, when was it? 2022, I think.

During that time, Sweden saw a massive increase in the number of reported rapes. Sweden is one of the countries in the world with the most reported rapes. It's insane and that has been going on under the socialists and yet the young women are voting for the socialists and the former communists. It's hard to make sense of why that would be but I can get into that a little bit later what the or i can get into it now if you want to how the Swedish system kind of works.

Well yeah I do want to know but I know I want to get into to that because it's a issue of huge concern and we see Malmo being mentioned a lot in terms of in terms of gang violence in terms of rape and it's kind of sadly what Sweden is known for in certain areas and that's a huge shame but I mean the European parliamentary elections coming up beginning of June.

How will the Swedish Democrats perform in that? Talk us through that, because obviously in the UK, we've walked away from the EU. You're still in that. And I know the Swedish Democrats are your sceptic party. But how do you think actually the European parliamentary elections will work out for the Swedish Democrats?

I haven't been following the polls that closely, but it looks like they are polling on either first or second place. I believe they're polling in second place from what I lost. So I cannot quote on that, but they look set to be doing pretty good. I mean, compared to some some 10 years ago. So they're definitely been gaining more and more traction as time has gone on. I did see a poll on the general election, I believe, like the general consensus. And they were in second place with about 20% of the votes in the Swedish Democrats at the moment. So, I mean, they are kind of staying steady at around the 20% mark. The thing is, though, when you look at all the other parties combined, when you look at the Socialist Democrats, look at the far-left former Communist Party and the Green Party combined, they do get somewhere around 50% to kind of like split 50-50 in Sweden with the socialists. And then you have the rest 50% that are getting split between the center, center-right and the Swedish Democrats that are more conservative. So you still have a large portion in Sweden voting for socialists, which really boggles the mind. But when you get into it a little bit closer, you can start to understand why, for example, state media in Sweden are just...

So it wasn't officially state media that did this hit piece, but there was a hit piece against the Swedish Democrats in Sweden recently. It's been a big talking point the last few weeks. So the Swedish Democrats, they were exposed for having a troll factory, they said. So basically what they had, so this TV channel in Sweden called TV4, they employed a journalist to try and infiltrate the Swedish Democrats, seeking employment at the Swedish Democrats and so on and well they didn't get in and they had this so called big revelation that the Swedish Democrats were actually having different accounts on TikTok and YouTube posting like meme content and funny videos, so this was this big so called scandal all the state owned media in Sweden and they've been talking about it how the horrible Swedish Democrats have been doing this troll factory, as I call it. But the interesting thing is, so you have the SVT, which is the public state media in Sweden. By the way, 80% of people, journalists working there vote for the Green Party.

So there you go. But the people who did the so-called expose at TV4, they are officially a private TV channel, but they are owned in quite a large part by a company called Telia in Sweden, which in turn is owned in large part by the state.

So that's the kind of thing with the socialists in Sweden. A lot of the things, you say it's a private market, yes, but the state owns a lot of the companies in the private markets. You have this Telia, which is actually a mobile company, a mobile operator, but they also own tv channels and those kind of things, so you have a lot of private companies but in reality when you look at who owns these companies you see that the state actually owns a large share in many of these companies, so it's kind of like a hidden socialism in a way, they say it's private but in reality it's a lot more state-owned than people know.

Well the media I assume that the Swedish democrats are attacked in the media, I assume they don't get a fair ride. How does that work? And how does, I mean, what you're doing, you're a voice of reason, alternative media using alternative platforms. So tell us about the kind of established media, but also what alternative voices are there bringing truth to the people?

Not a lot. There are a few sites, like smaller sites in Sweden that publish alternative viewpoints. There's one called Samnytt, for example, which I know is Kent Ekeroth, that has been a guest of yours earlier.

He's working closely at that site, Samnytt. So there are a few there's also a channel called ricks on YouTube which is in reality and comes from the Swedish democrats so they're providing a lot of alternative viewpoints and so you have that but I mean anything mainstream, no there's, no you don't really have much.

Peter, at the beginning, you mentioned some of the issues that are happening there and the gang crime. Obviously, there are the no-go areas. We hear about the rape gangs.

Tell us about those issues and how the media report on it. Is this one of the reasons why Swedish Democrats have done so well, a failure to address these issues? I mean, give us an overview of how those issues are being addressed.

Yeah, I definitely think that has contributed to a large part in the rise of the Swedish Democrats because they are the only ones that are talking about it. The last ten years or so, the mainstream media, politicians largely try to ignore it. The problem has got so large that they aren't able to ignore it any longer so you are starting to see media reports on it, we are starting to see some politicians talk about it, but again the Swedish democrats have been talking about it for a long time. I can give an example, an incident that happened quite recently the leader of the liberal party, also integration minister in Sweden, he went on the EU election campaign trail, he went to a place that I would consider a no-go zone in Gothenburg, a place called biskopsgården.

He had to cancel it because the security services in Sweden said that they couldn't guarantee his safety while he was out campaigning, so we are now at the point in Sweden politicians cannot go on the campaign trail in certain areas because security services says that it isn't safe basically, they cannot guarantee his safety, that's how bad the situation is and, When you look into it, you see a lot of criminal gangs forming in these no-go zones, doing all kinds of illegal activities, and so bad that the police are losing control in some areas, people don't feel safe at night, walking outside.

I mean, just look at the statistics. I mean, last year we had 149 bombings in Sweden. That is the most for any country in the world that is not at war, so Sweden is topping the bombing statistics, it's topping the rape statistics, it's even topping the shooting statistics in Europe, for the number of young men that are getting killed in shootings in Sweden it's the highest number in all of Europe, so it's really bad, it's really bad and yeah it's I don't know what to say.

Because people think the Scandinavian way of life is very peaceful and relaxed, high quality of living, high incomes. And then you hear this and we've seen, I guess, the clashes in maybe Brussels and Paris. We haven't seen it in London, kind of a failure of integration.

Are things going from bad to worse? is there any desire to address what is happening because Swedes feel unsafe? That's what I'm hearing and no one wants to address it.

Yeah like I said some politicians have started talking about it now, of the student democrats have been pushing for it for many many years, there was an announcement made last year by the government and which seemed promising. I haven't seen much action yet, but they said that they would even deploy the military to assist police in dealing with the no-go zone gangs. So I haven't seen any action of that yet, but they at least went out and said it last year, so we will see where that leads.

I mean, as things get worse and worse, I think hopefully more and more people at least will kind of see what's going on, even though the mainstream media is doing their best to try and hide it.

I think people will start seeing it because it keeps happening so often. I mean, if you live in a city like Malmö and you hear a bombing every other day or at least once a week happening, I mean, people are going to start noticing that there is a problem in Sweden. I mean, it's difficult to hide. In fact, during Eurovision music contest, I don't think it was reported much in the media, but during Eurovision contest, police found a live bomb in Malmö. So they disarmed it thankfully.

What is the response of the public? I mean, and is it a, I know in the UK, we have a massive identity crisis. We don't know what it means to be English or British. The Scots know what it means to be Scottish or Welsh or Irish, but the English seem to have this identity crisis. And into that void, you've got basically chaos. What is it in Sweden? Is part of the problem a lack of understanding what it means to be Swedish? Because Sweden's got a very long history.

Sweden does have a very long history, yes. It used to be a superpower back in the day. I mean, you mentioned the Scandinavian way of life earlier, and... Yeah, it used to be very peaceful. It used to be very nice. I mean, it still is in the neighboring Scandinavian countries like Norway and in large part Denmark. I mean, it's such a big difference if you go from Sweden to Norway. Things have started going a little bit downhill in Norway when it comes to the gun crimes recently, but it's not nearly as bad as Sweden.

When it comes to Swedish history and so on, I mean, Swedes aren't very patriotic, I would say. In comparison to Norwegians who are extremely patriotic, it will be hard to find any country in the world that is more patriotic than the Norwegians, there was recently the 17th of may constitution day and everyone dresses up in the natural traditional natural dress, everyone is out marching with the Norwegian flag, like literally the whole city, entire, like literally every single person in Norway is out marching thousands, tens of thousands, like millions of people are out marching with the flags on the 17th of May. And that's normal in Norway, like that's a normal thing, everyone does it, you're expected to do it. It's not far right, it's not left-wing or anything, it's just normal in Norway. So you have that in Norway, but you don't have the same kind of patriotism in Sweden. Sweden is kind of going very global, I would say.

Instead of having that old Swedish history, Sweden is kind of trying to become more of a global country. Similar to what you perhaps can see in... I went to the Netherlands, and that seemed like a very globalist country. You saw the skyscrapers everywhere. It was horrible.

And you kind of see the same thing in Sweden as well. So, yeah. Yeah, I think the socialists have done a very good job in changing Sweden over the decades. It kind of all began maybe, really began maybe back in the 70s in Sweden. The socialists have been working for decades through the schools and through the media to change the way people in Sweden think. In Sweden, we have something called school duty. Which means that all children have to go to school. You're not allowed to homeschool. You have to go to school. And more or less it's a state school. Like there are a few free schools. But more or less people. Most people put their kids in the state schools. So they get brainwashed there. And then you have the media. Like I said earlier. The state media. The media also owning so-called private media as well. In large parts. So people get continuing the brainwashing in the media. So they have over the decades shaped the Swedish mind to be very conforming, following everything that they're being told.

Yeah, that's kind of what has happened over the decades in Sweden, I would say.

I've always seen Sweden and probably Norway, I mean, probably all Scandinavia, as a high tax, high spend that the state basically looks after you. They take all your money and they will look after you. And is that quasi-socialism even going further than that? I mean is that is that a fair assessment of Sweden over the last few decades?

Kind of, it's a high tax, but do you get a lot out of it?

I've seen a lot of stories about elderly people at elderly care homes they're getting served slop for dinner and so they pay all these high taxes their whole life and they get treated not very good in the care homes. Yeah you get a lot of taxes, Sweden has a very very high tax, Norway doesn't have nearly as high tax actually as we've done, but yeah high tax but in my opinion you'll get a lot out of it like the roads if you go to Sweden, the roads in Sweden are not nearly as good as as other countries in Europe that have lower taxes, I mean you would think with all of the high taxes you will get fantastic roads, you will get fantastic elderly care but you don't really get that as much as you would have hoped for for the spend, for the taxes that you have to pay

Wow I want to pick up on one of the other issues that you've been very vocal on and you mentioned the Netherlands and of course watching the the farmers revolting against the extreme controls and being told that farming, producing food for human beings is now a negative thing and how does it fit in in Sweden is farming a part of the Swedish economy have you seen farmers rise up or tell us what that situation is in Sweden.

Yeah there was actually some farmers protests happening in Sweden as well. Did you not see that on the news, but there were some farmers that were protesting in fact it's been all over Europe there's been farmers protests in Norway, there's been in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Italy.

England as well and many other countries, there's so many I forget now there's so many of them all over Europe basically, but yes they they spread to Sweden as well. I did not get a chance to go to any of those protests in Sweden, I've been talking to farmers in Norway. I've been talking to farmers in Germany, we talked to farmers in the Netherlands and they're protesting for different reasons in different countries. In Norway, they're protesting for better wages. In the Netherlands and in Germany, they're protesting against the climate agenda that are always climate taxes that are going to decimate their business if they go through. Yeah, so the farmers protests and all of these things that are happening as the farmers, I like to call it climate communism. And the reason for that is, you know, Stalin, he called the farmers the enemies of the people. He seized the farmers' lands. Millions of people starved. Now we're seeing farmers getting called enemies of the climate. And in the Netherlands, they actually talked about essentially seizing thousands of farms from the farmers in the name of climate change. Now, thankfully, it seems like that is not happening because Geert Wilders just managed to lead a new government and they are expressing support for the farmers. So you kind of see the result there. They threatened to take the farmers' lands. The farmers were not happy. They protested and the people voted for a new government and the new government listened to the farmers. So it looks like the farmers have some wins there in the Netherlands, for sure.

But back to the climate communism thing, it's all about control. That's what happened in the Soviet Union. Stalin wanted control of the economy.

He wanted a state to be this all-controlling, authoritative state. And we're seeing the same thing happening now with climate change. they're using it as an excuse to be able to introduce authoritarian measures, like for example that with the farmers, carbon tax, I predict that in the future we will see, I mean in Sweden we already had digital id for a long time it will not surprise me if we soon see digital id pad with some kind of carbon fracking eventually ending up in some kind of social credit score system that would not surprise me at all because again it all got back to the control. They want to transfer their wealth and freedom from the people over to themselves. So it's a lot of parallels with communism that we are seeing.

What is the pushback? Because the government is a center-right government, with the Swedish Democrats kind of with them or propping them up, you would expect that they want to give people control, want to have a small state and give people individual responsibility. Are you seeing pushback on some of these issues, especially on the climate nonsense? Are you seeing the Swedish government pushing back on this and saying, actually, we don't want this?

Yes and no. There are... Yes, they are doing things like scrapping the renewable energy plans, focusing on nuclear power, cutting the climate taxes on fuels, but they still have the same talking points, if you will. They still talk about, oh, we need to save the climate, and so on. So they're still talking about it, but their actions are going a little bit the other way, like, yeah going in in a positive direction and but still doing it like under the guise of oh we need nuclear powers because it's going to be good for the climate, that kind of thing, so the narrative is the same but we're seeing some positive development.

I want to finish off talking about faith and I'm always intrigued with guests coming on who are outspoken about their Christian faith, in the UK, we're told you must keep that private. Don't be public about your faith. But looking at some of the census figures in Sweden, 52% say they are part of the Church of Sweden. Of course, that's been falling year by year. How does Christianity fit into Swedish society? And then probably separately, how does your personal faith fit as a journalist who is high profile.

So yeah, that general, how does Christianity fit into Swedish society?

It doesn't fit in a lot, unfortunately.

You mentioned a figure of 50% in the Church of Sweden. Well, it's actually a lot worse than that, because I saw some statistics showing that only 20% of Swedish people believe in God. So you have some 80% that are atheists. And I think this is a very big part as well of the problem in Sweden. And again, it kind of goes back to socialism part, because Sweden used to be a very Christian country. Back in the 70s, on the radio, like the top songs on the radio would be Christian songs. It used to be a very Christian country. But decades of socialism, you know, as you might know, under communism and socialism, they are atheists. Atheism is the religion of communism. You're supposed to worship the state instead of God under communism. I mean, just look at North Korea. They have these massive statues of their leaders that are bowing before. I mean, and that's kind of what we're seeing as well in Sweden with the socialism, over the decades have tried to get rid of God, get rid of Christianity in Sweden.

That has been a big part, I think, of the problems that we're seeing in Sweden, because if you let the state become God, then, I mean, all morality goes out the window.

You need God to have morality. And yeah, we're not seeing a lot of that.

You're vocal about your faith on Twitter or on X or whatever anyone wants to call it. And what does that mean? What is your personal faith? You talk about your wife and her faith, and a lot of, I think, Christian figures hide their faith online, and they do their whatever in the public sphere, but their faith they keep private. But you're eager and willing to talk about your faith, and then that connects with what you do. So tell us a little bit about that, and I guess why you do that.

Yeah. Oh where should I start, well I think a lot of people who see themselves as Christians today they kind of try to hide it, ashamed of it, especially in Sweden, you know, it's very it's controversial in a way.

I feel like it's my duty to speak the truth. It's my duty to tell people what is going on. And I think coming from my faith plays a big part in that, in being able to not be afraid and tell the truth as I see it. And 'not be afraid' comes a large part from my faith. I mean, Jesus is awesome, he has helped me in my life many many times and helped, I mean there's so many things that happen in my life that can only be described as coming from Jesus and yeah it's helped me a lot in my life and the work that I do being able to stand up and, not be afraid because ultimately, what it comes down to is good and evil, you have the good side and you have the evil side and, Jesus is on the good side and you don't want to be on the evil side so, yeah I think if more people would have come and...

You see a lot of the evil things happening in the world, all this Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, all of this stuff happening. I think a lot of the problems in the world would have been solved if people actually came to know God. All of the hatred, all of the fighting, all of those kinds of things, all of the division would disappear if people found God. Because I'm a firm believer in that.

I agree. When Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life, that those people want to know the way, people want to know what truth is, which is under assault, and people want to know what life is all about. So all those are answered in Jesus.

Just to finish off, how does the church connect with society? Because we've seen a massive disconnect in the UK with the church, afraid, either collapsing under the woke agenda or just afraid to speak truth. And, you know, they will talk about it within a church service, but you don't want to actually go outside your four walls of a church and speak truth. And that's kind of the story I've seen across Europe. I'm guessing that it's similar in Sweden with churches afraid to engage on all these issues.

Yeah I think that is one of the big problems that we have at the moment, kind of I've been thinking a lot about that, I think one of the reasons, Christians we are the light of the world We're kind of a light in darkness. We're the salt of the earth. Well, it's supposed to be. But when Christians have lost their salt, they have lost all the light that's gone away, the darkness has come in and taken over.

And I think that is, in large part, kind of what has happened in Sweden as well. As the people in Sweden became more and more atheist, The darkness came in and managed to get more and more hold of Sweden and things have developed more and more in a bad way.

I know in Sweden there was some periods in Sweden where the church was kind of quite outspoken, and there was a lot of good Christians out there that were really not afraid to speak out, and that was in the 90s in fact. And you kind of saw a little bit of positive development, it kind of translated into the culture, into the politics.

Some people say that politics is downstream from culture. Well, I think that culture is downstream from Christianity or from religion and then culture and then politics is again downstream from culture. So you have God at the top downstream to culture downstream to politics. So if there is no God, you take away God the culture becomes really bad then the politics becomes really bad. But you have God at the top influencing the culture influencing the politics. And that is a big problem, I think, we have seen with Christianity as of late. There is a lot of lukewarm Christians, unfortunately, going around, lukewarm churches, even false prophets. I have, in fact, noticed in the work that I do, I have met a lot of resistance from people that are religious, that call themselves Christians, unfortunately. Which is very sad but yeah I think that is a big problem with the lukewarm Christians that we have seen today people need to get back to Jesus, need to be unashamed of being Christian and saying it loudly to the world without any shame whatsoever.

Being unashamed with Jesus and getting back to that is a perfect end to chatting with you, Peter. Really appreciate that. Obviously, to the viewers and listeners, make sure and follow Peter @PeterSweden7 on Twitter and sign up to his Substack, petersweden.substack.com for all those updates. Peter, I really appreciate your time and expanding on some of the issues that you're facing in Sweden. So thanks for joining us today.

Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.