What happened
In a review in Dagens Nyheter, critic Helena Lindblad writes about the Swedish thriller ”Nipster”. The film is about a quiet teenager seeking solace at a summer camp against clear-cutting. There, the person is instead drawn into an environment characterized by manipulation, hate, and right-wing extremism. Lindblad describes the film as uneven but chillingly suspenseful in how it depicts radicalization behind a nature-romantic mask.
Our analysis
In the Swedish debate, radicalization is constantly discussed as a problem belonging to new Swedes and in the suburbs. The common perception is that the threat always comes from the outside. But the far right's hatred has always thrived perfectly well in the Swedish soil, wrapped in outdoor life, local heritage, and beautiful forests.
When racism is packaged as care for Swedish nature, it becomes more dangerous. Old Swedes recognize the comforting surface and lower their guard. At the same time, it is new Swedes who are ultimately singled out as the threat to pure nature and the allegedly authentic people.
While politicians compete to surveil and cast suspicion on residents in the country's vulnerable areas, right-wing extremism is often allowed to grow in peace as long as it wears a knitted sweater and picks berries. It is not nature that is threatened by new Swedes. It is human dignity that is threatened by racists in green garb.
Explained
Ecofascism is a movement within the far right that links environmental protection with racism, where nature is considered to need protection from people with a foreign background.