Stieg Larsson, My Friend

possible.

“We must write a forceful manifesto. It’s important that all well-known homosexuals, immigrants and women sign it,” said Stieg, looking hard at me. “You can fix that. You know them.”

“In that case I must have the final version as soon as possible so I can read it out to them. Damn it, it’s the middle of summer – it won’t be easy to get everything sorted at short notice.”

That was all Stieg needed to hear. He raced over to my blue Apple Mac and seven minutes later he had finished our first joint petition.

All the celebrities we managed to get hold of signed it and on 7 July, 1999, the “Stop the Neo-Nazi and Racist Violence” petition was published in Aftonbladet:

A neo-Nazi terrorist movement has grown up stealthily in Sweden. The worst fears seem to have been confirmed by the attempted assassination of the journalists Peter Karlsson and Katarina Larsson. Nevertheless, the recent car-bomb attack is only the tip of the iceberg. According to Sapo [the Swedish Security Service] 327 cases of assault on racist grounds took place in 1997.

Peter Karlsson and Katarina Larsson are among the few who have blown the whistle on right-wing extremism in our society, which is becoming increasingly unsafe. And now, if not before, it is clear that it is not sufficient to talk about “drunken misbehaviour”, “youthful folly” or “routine criminality”, as we often hear from the police and authorities.

We, the signatories to this petition, therefore demand:

• That the security services finally acknowledge and prioritize the neo-Nazi terror and support the police in their work.

• That the police give adequate protection to people who are threatened by right-wing extremists.

• That the Minister of Justice draws up an action programme to get neo-Nazi and racist violence under control.

• That a crisis centre is established to assist the victims of racism.

Break the silence! We all have a responsibility to combat racism and neo-Nazism.

Everyone who wishes to live in a tolerant, democratic, humane and multicultural Sweden is urged to sign this petition…

Within twenty-four hours over a thousand signatures of ordinary Swedes were added to the petition. I asked Stieg to accompany me to Rosenbad, the prime minister’s office, the following morning in order to hand over the list.

“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-Wallen.

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 the critical articles he wrote, his knack of seeing through their networks and activities. But his worst crime was probably that he was a blond-haired Swede who both supported and did his best to promote a “multicultural society”. It was as if he had betrayed the racists.

The Swedish National Encyclopedia defines a traitor as “an individual who betrays a person or thing to which he or she is expected to be loyal”. Perhaps that is how the racists regarded Stieg. Some countries only resort to the death penalty in cases of one kind: treason. Vidkun Quisling is in many ways the perfect example of how a person can betray his country. The way in which Stieg so doggedly opposed people and organizations who spoke about their country under the influence of their twisted view of humankind – well, it is easy to understand how he became a symbol for them. A symbol and a quarry to be hunted down.

I would even say that Stieg had a couple of bad habits. On the one hand, he was so considerate that he would often exaggerate threats aimed at people close to him. On the other hand, he would trivialize nearly all threats aimed at himself and did not take many precautions to protect himself from people who considered him to be dangerous.

He was shadowed by neo-Nazis whenever he travelled on the underground; racists kept an eye on him when he walked around Stockholm. They knew exactly where they had him. “I get off a stop before the one I’m actually going to,” he would say diffidently. I sometimes felt like grabbing him by the shoulders and giving him a good shake. His unruffled behaviour, so typical of the north of Sweden, where he was born, could drive me up the wall. But he refused all suggestions – to keep changing his address (which I did at the time and still do), to accept free hotel passes (which I used to give him when things were especially threatening) or to go off on holiday when the