Professors blogg: Wikileaks cable on procedures at UN Women would help explain Sweden’s feminists campaign against Assange

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Wikileaks cable on procedures at UN Women would help explain Sweden’s feminists campaign against Assange

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Among the most recent cables disclosed by Wikileaks I found this amazing cable 2009/12/09, here below in excerpt:

Source

http://wikileaks.org/cable/2009/12/09STATE125216.html

SUBJECT: USUN INSTRUCTION: SWEDEN'S CANDIDATURE FOR UNIFEM

CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE

¶1.(U) This is an action request. Please see paragraph 4.

¶2. (SBU) The Consultative Committee (CC) of the United

Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) is a committee...

...REF WEOG requests the

endorsement of the candidature of Sweden. A silence

procedure will begin December 8, with an election (likely by

acclamation) on December 14.

¶3. (SBU) USG considers Sweden a strong candidate to work on

the CC while UNIFEM transitions into the new gender entity.

¶4. (C) USDEL is authorized to not/not break the silence

procedure, and to support SWEDEN in the election for the CC

of UNIFEM.

CLINTON

As described in the cable above, UNIFEM (UN Development Fund for Women) was in transition to become a new structure at the UN and that received the name of UN Women - the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.

Sweden was finally elected with a seat in the privileged executive board and in representation of the cohort Western Europa. In fact, later in the new organization UN Woman, Sweden was given the Vice-Presidency of the Executive Board. "The assignment gives Sweden an unique opportunity to actively contribute during the critical consolidation phase of the new organisation", informed the Swedish Mission.

As the new organization UN Women 2011 is a merge from other four organizations operating in similar terms or aims than UNIFEM, it is assumed that UN Women will continue the paramount activity of improving gender equality in the frame of the Human Rights, which of course it deserves warm support. However, the feminist movement in Sweden is heterogeneous, and there is a variety of ideological agendas ranging from the classical equality formulations to the extreme positions of radical feminists.

These sectors have - for instance - a) equated Swedish men with the Taliban, b) advocated for a "man Taxation" (all men should pay a tax to the Sate to compensate generations of "patriarch oppression"), c) struggle for the juridical and social decimation of the nuclear family as a central societal structure, or d) have in occasions put forward also culture-racist arguments as when treating the issue of "honour cultures" (hederskultur) - an euphemism used mainly by the some extreme immigrant-hostile sectors in Sweden. (However the issue of criminality associated with "honour cultures" should be drastically addressed, in my opinion).

Based in this distinction between a sound, "classical-feminism" Swedish posture associated with issues of equality and human rights, and for the other part the extreme anti-gender posture of radical-feminists, it would be of the case to review the ideology most represented in the Swedish political delegation in such organizations. This mainly because the international influence of such organizations would do to the target nations or cultures very good, alternatively very bad, depending on the quality and ideology of the message designed to be spread and to educate in.

Beyond doubt, such organizations operating under UN are a platform for cultural activism particularly in countries of the Third World, which is i it self a mission to praise provided the message is correct, democratic and respectful of the host cultures (there is nothing evil per se with the practice of acculturation).

My query here is instead: Could be any hidden State-feminist agenda possibly be traced to the composition of the Swedish delegation elected 2009 at UNIFEM or thereafter at UN Women? b) In which feminist ideological platform are based, or are related to, the Swedish PMs, propositions and other documentation presented at UNIFEM or UN-Women?

To these ends I directed four simple questions (9/ 9 2011) to Mr Erik Scheller, political adviser to the Minister for Gender Equality. After listened to my queries Mr Scheller said he would surely answer them but not by the phone. He asked me to put them in written form and email to him. So I did. And I was left waiting for the ASAP answer we agreed on the phone.

According to our recent telephone talk

Marcello Ferrada de Noli to erik.scheller

show details 15:41

I hereby put my written questions, according to our recent telephone talk. 1. Who was the Swedish delegation elected in the UNIFEM 2009
2. Who is in the current delegation at UN Women?
3. Is Margareta Winberg still president of UN-Women Sweden
4. Where could I find on-line material regarding the contributions of such Swedish delegations at the UN?

The reasons of my enquiry are that I wish to update a blog-post I have authored on the US-supported election of a Swedish executive in the UNIFEM 2009

With best regards and in hope of an ASAP reply

Marcello Ferrada-Noli

...

Could we infer from these information if there is any (ideological) State-feminist agenda from the part of Sweden? In waiting for answers, the only thing that so far I have been able to establish is that top social democratic politician and former Swedish Ambassador Margareta Winberg was the ”President of UNIFEM National Committee Sweden, part of UN Women”. This reported by FOKUS - Forum for Women and Development - on the 15 September 2010. The addenda ”part of UN Women” was there, as explanation UNIFEM would become part of of UN Women from the 1 of January 2011.

Secondly, it is also a fact (known to me after I delivered my questions to Erik Scheller, as above) Margareta Winberg is currently the President of UN Women Sweden. In the Wikipedia article about Margareta Winberg is inferred that she would have been President of UN Women Sweden up to this year (”Ordförande för UN Women Sverige, -2011”). However she still occupies such position, read in a press release (1 of September 2011) of that organization.

The unique with Margareta Winberg is that she is the most conspicuous political and public figure among the radical-feminists in Sweden that sat in practice the State-feminist concept. Margareta Winberg is a social democratic politician and has been Vice Prime Minister in the Swedish government. She has been signaled as the politician that did enable the establishment of the radical-feminist ideology as an official part of the Swedish government and Swedish institutions.

Some of the the radical-feminist positions of Margareta Winberg are analysed in a Professors blogg previous post: Rigged documentary on Julian Assange in the Swedish National Television. Part 3: ”Men are animals”. A journalist account of the ”men are animals” is found in the English journal on-line The Local. The position ”men are animals” is held by leading Swedish radical feminists such Ireen von Wachenfeldt (she declared so in the said documentary), at the time president of the national women-organization (financed by the Swedish government) ROKS.

Around the sending of such debatable documentary, the recently Vice Prime Minister of Sweden Margareta Winberg declared in a press interview (Aftonbladet 21 May 2005) that ”It is strange that not even more women hate men” [”Underligt att inte fler kvinnor hatar män”]. In the interview Winger wishes to clarifies that she herself ”does not belong to the group that hate men”. However, under her direct influential position Roks would obtain in 2006 ten million euro (the equivalent of 100 milllion Swedish kr) from the public funds. This after an agreement between her party (Social Democratic Party) the Eviromental Party and the Left (the former left party communists,VPK).

Roks was originally founded to offer clandestine refuge to women that have reported rape or assault. However, the organization has been also disclosed (e.g. Swedish National Television, SVT, documentary The gender War) as operating illicit or improper activities to those ends. Margareta Winberg has been close associated with ROKS and their extreme ideology, and for which she has been publicly praised by the leaders of ROKS. Eventually, ROKS gave Margareta Winberg their 2003 ”Woman-Achievement of the Year” Award (Årets kvinnogärning).

...

.. ............................................nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXRetribution time?

The second aspect to consider is the possible impact that the above has had in the official case of Sweden against Assange.

I would be natural to understand that if any agreement was behind the US support to Sweden for the developing of the new Feminist organization at UN, then we could expect some form of cooperation, and to certain extent retribution from the Swedish part (the State-feminism establishment, in this case).

Nevertheless, even if a retribution issue is also the case, this retribution could have been done in other levels or common activities with USA. Yet, a variety of activities - e.g. feminists campaigns such as Talk-about (#prataomdet) and other media initiatives - deployed in the Swedish case against Assange with the public intervention of known Swedish State-feminists, would indicate the existence of a factual motivation or cause so far unknown to my analyses. It would also at the same time explain the irrational and at times nonsense aspects of such "hatred" personal campaigns against the founder and main symbol of WikiLeaks.

It is quite possible that State-Feminist Sweden would now be showing their gratitude to the State Department - the governmental institution most affected by the cable leaks - for USA's political endorsement which gave Swedish State-feminists crucial international positions (UNIFEM and UN Women) for the further spreading of a their radical-feminist agenda. Note that however the election of the US endorsed Swedish delegate to UNIFEM occurred at the end of 2009, the process and political discussions for the election of members at the Executive Board of UN Woman (where the Swedish delegate was chosen) would have been initiated around July 2010 and formally finalized in the begining of November 2010. This would coincide with a time-period of important diplomatic activity from the part of the State Department around the WikeLeaks disclosures (and the case Assange) among which visits and discussions on the subject where held also in Stockholm, as informed then by the press.

The resulted outcome for Sweden in the struggle for influence positions at UN Women is that the Swedish delegate Magnus Lennartsson was finally voted nothing less than Vice-President of the Executive Board 2011. It is a highly privileged position thinking that over forty countries are represented in such board. One fact is in any case beyond discussion: The State Department instructed in a Confidential cable to the US delegation at the UN to specifically support SWEDEN for the post at the highest board of the UN organization on women issues. They perhaps felt also the need of balancing the election as President of UN Women of Dr Michele Bachelet, the former Chilean President and ex-political prisoner during the USA supported Chilean military dictatorship.

As I have not yet studied the process of such elections I ignore which are the countries (the other candidate countries) that USA did NOT endorse. And one thing is that political agreements between Sweden and the USA might very well exist on the aspects presented above. That is what normally happens in international politics. But it cannot ruled out that USA would have opted for Sweden out of a pragmatic assessment: to choose among the possible European candidates a country with a reputed tradition in the managing of issues of gender equality.

However, a) If the scenario of political reciprocity would actually exist in this case between the USA and Sweden (a most likely scenario judging from the new Swedish foreign policy and their ostensible practical collaboration with NATO), and b) if in the implementation of such agreements the radical-feminist were called to have a role, then this would provide a possible explanation to the harsh and effective mobilization the intellectual Stoßtruppen at the Swedish State-feminist core (lawyers, journalists, politicians, doctors, etc.) have performed in the orchestration of the delivering of Julian Assange's head in a juridical silver-plate. By far, even if that would be in fact the case, this in any case should not be seen as the only tenable explanation for the Swedish eagerness in the prosecution of Julian Assange, but it would be indeed a central contributing factor. I had anticipated it all in the Newsmill article The Swedish political crusade against Assange and Wikileaks of 11 January 2011:

"My point is – in the context of the Swedish case against Assange – that this seemingly phony case fits too well in the agenda of the political movement controlled by fundamentalist-feminists, and hence, it is used by them for own political and ideological aims. Considering all in all, besides of vendetta subject (from the part of a Swedish government infuriated by the Wikileaks disclosures), the figure of Julian Assange seems to emerge from this political pandemonium as guinea pig, scapegoat and pilot-case for several reactionary political factions. . .

For some – the superpowers and their satellite marionettes - the aim is the decimation of the political and financial impacts of Wikileaks, for others – the journalists – the liquidation of their most potent competitor in the production or transference of political news. ..

As for fundamentalist-feminists, the celebrity of Assange is the worldwide locomotive in which they travel as free passengers spreading opportunistically the catechism of their fanatic faith. They should be ashamed."

Marcello Ferrada-Noli

Other articles on the Swedish case against Julian Assange in the Professors blogg:

1 comment:

Anders said...: Very well written and keep up the good job.; 8:52 pm