The Invisible Party (''Osynliga partiet'') was a
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
conceptual
Conceptual may refer to:
Philosophy and Humanities
*Concept
*Conceptualism
*Philosophical analysis (Conceptual analysis)
*Theoretical definition (Conceptual definition)
*Thinking about Consciousness (Conceptual dualism)
*Pragmatism (Conceptual pr ...
anti-capitalist
Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and Political movement, movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. In this sense, anti-capitalists are those who wish to replace capitalism with another type of economi ...
media campaign masquerading as an "organization" with the purpose of connecting all anti-capitalist action, however small or without actual realization, to an "invisible"
political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...
.
Although it called itself a party, it did not have official members but instead had ''participants''. It could not, and did not wish to, participate in elections. The professed goal of the group was to undermine the
capitalist system. It was founded by different parts of the Swedish extra-parliamentary left, in particular the
Swedish Anarcho-syndicalist Youth Federation
The Swedish Anarcho-Syndicalist Youth Federation, (Syndikalistiska Ungdomsförbundet) (SUF) is a youth-based group in Sweden that supports independent working class struggle.
The federation was founded in 1993, in part rooted in the militant au ...
.
The Invisible Party "disbanded" after a September 16, 2006 press release by the "central committee" behind the campaign declaring that they would discontinue their activities:
Ideology
The Invisible Party can be seen as a shared
concept
Concepts are defined as abstract ideas. They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks of the concept behind principles, thoughts and beliefs.
They play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied by s ...
, a symbol for a struggle against capitalism and the perceived exploitation of the workforce. Participation in the party has involved
strikes
Strike may refer to:
People
*Strike (surname)
Physical confrontation or removal
*Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm
*Airstrike, military strike by air forces on either a suspected ...
,
blockades,
flyposting,
sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. One who engages in sabotage is a ''saboteur''. Saboteurs typically try to conceal their identitie ...
,
shoplifting
Shoplifting is the theft of goods from an open retail establishment, typically by concealing a store item on one's person, in pockets, under clothes or in a bag, and leaving the store without paying. With clothing, shoplifters may put on items ...
,
riot
A riot is a form of civil disorder commonly characterized by a group lashing out in a violent public disturbance against authority, property, or people.
Riots typically involve destruction of property, public or private. The property targete ...
s, and other radical tactics.
Anna-Lena Lodenius, a Swedish author on political extremism, has described the Invisible Party as follows:
The
leftist
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
website Motkraft described the views of the group as follows:
Methods
After the
Centre Party proposed a special youth contract for those under 26 (similar to
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
's
First Employment Contract
The ''contrat première embauche'' (CPE; en, first employment contract) was a new form of employment contract pushed in spring 2006 in France by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. This employment contract, available solely to employees unde ...
policy), activists claiming to be members of the Invisible Party responded by vandalizing Centre Party offices throughout Sweden. The Centre Party was in opposition at the time.
Activists under the banner of the Invisible Party continued the vandalism throughout the 2006 Swedish general election campaign, hitting the offices of the
Christian Democrats
__NOTOC__
Christian democratic parties are political parties that seek to apply Christian principles to public policy. The underlying Christian democracy movement emerged in 19th-century Europe, largely under the influence of Catholic social tea ...
, another opposition party, as well.
As of 2006, the
Swedish Security Service (Säpo) was gathering information about the Invisible Party and its supporters.
Controversy
The Invisible Party was widely misunderstood outside the extra-parliamentary left. Media presented the party as an actual organization with members in the strict and traditional sense. Because of the actions against the Centre Party the party was vilified by Swedish media and presented as a violent and anti-democratic organization. This led to the true purpose of the campaign becoming even more obscure than before. The winner of the Swedish political reality show ''Toppkandidaterna'' (The Top Candidates), Petter Nilsson, donated 100,000 of his 250,000
SEK prize-money to the project. After the actions against the Centre Party, the party demanded that the license-funded public broadcaster
SVT should ask Nilsson to repay the money, and the
Centre Party Youth
The Centre Party Youth ( sv, Centerpartiets ungdomsförbund ; CUF) is the youth organization of the Centre Party in Sweden and is a liberal, green
Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by l ...
claimed that SVT was "responsible for the attacks", but SVT chose not to take any action against Nilsson.
''sr.se'': Prispengar från SVT stöder protest mot c
See also
* Anarchism
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessa ...
* Alter-globalization
Alter-globalization (also known as alternative globalization or alter-mundialization—from the French alter- mondialisation—and overlapping with the global justice movement) is a social movement whose proponents support global cooperation and ...
(or Anti-globalization
The anti-globalization movement or counter-globalization movement, is a social movement critical of economic globalization. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalist m ...
)
* Direct action
Direct action originated as a political activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest, in contrast to those actions that appeal to oth ...
* Distributive justice
Distributive justice concerns the socially just allocation of resources. Often contrasted with just process, which is concerned with the administration of law, distributive justice concentrates on outcomes. This subject has been given considera ...
* The Invisible Committee
The Invisible Committee is the of an anonymous author or authors who have written French works of literature based on far-left politics and anarchism. The identity of the Invisible Committee has been associated with the Tarnac Nine, a group of ...
* The Global Economy
* Politics of Sweden
Notes
External links
*
News about activity in the Invisible Party
*
Newsblog about the Invisible Party
*
Motkraft.net
*
''Resumé'': "SVT bekostar 'Osynliga partiets' sajt"
* {{in lang, sv}
''SvD'': "Osynliga partiet bjöd på saft"
''The Local'': "More Centre Party offices vandalised"
''The Local'': "New attack on Centre Party offices"
Anti-capitalist organizations
Autonomism
Political organizations based in Sweden