Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Sweden- Humanitarians or Hypocrites?

A Swedish newspaper recently published an article stating that Sweden is the country in the world that exports the most weapons in the world per capita. During 2010, Sweden reportedly exported weapons worth 16 billion Euros.
The second country on the list was Israel…
The fact that Sweden is the first country on the list is quite disturbing, as Sweden internationally, likes to portray itself as a peace-loving and humanitarian country that strives to uphold human rights.
In accordance with this principle, the Swedish government has in fact issued a guideline stating that weapons “will not be exported to countries conducting wars or countries where severe or wide-spread human rights violations occur”.

Nonetheless, the United States, a country that in the last decade has been involved in several wars beyond its borders, appears as the primary recipient of Swedish weaponry. Pakistan comes in as number two on the list—a country with an abysmal human rights record that speaks for itself.

It is time that we break the image of Sweden as a Scandinavian peace-lover. A country which serves as one of the world’s premier weapons exporters needs to be acknowledged as such and not as a guardian of human rights.  

1 comment:

  1. Shalom,

    they are hypocrites for sure and belong to the most double-standard based people I have ever seen in life. Lets not forget that it was Sweden that sold tons of metal to Nazi Germany in World War 2. They like to keep a peaceful face but below the mask it stinks like in a sewer. My wife is Swedish and literally fled the country, dumping her entire family and roots to just get away from there because she couldnt stand the people anymore.

    Keep up the good work!
    Helmi

    ReplyDelete