Palma de Mallorca

Once on the ground in Palma, Sofi and I went for a walk through the narrow alleyways that were jam-packed with cruise ship tourists and climbed all the 215 stairs up to the roof terrace of the La Seu cathedral. In between, we of course had a caña or two with light lager and some Tortilla Española. Having stocked up on enough reprint postcards from the 1950s, we then returned to our 16th century olive oil factory turned hotel by Gert Wingårdh.

At the hotel, I learned that one of my former students had contacted our director of studies, complaining that my classes had not been “objective” and that I had said that the Sweden Democrats do not share the fundamental democratic values of the Swedish society. Though I think the student may have misunderstood a few details as I really tried my best to understand the roots of resentment, in particular the growing urban-rural tensions in Sweden, I am otherwise guilty as charged. In fact, I would be much more worried had I not been speaking out. Despite their large electoral gains, there is no reason whatsoever that we should normalize the existence of far-right views or not point out the obvious parallels to the 1930s in a class on political ideology.