Commie Comicsby
Nima Sanandaji
The last time I traveled to Sweden I forgot to bring my toothbrush. Going into the nearest shop I noticed that the children’s toothbrushes had a picture of a small yellow bear on them. I sighed. The small yellow bear is Bamse. Bamse is a popular children’s comic character who appears in both comics and televised cartoons. He is an ordinary little teddy bear, living with the other nice cuddly animals in the forest. But when the baddies, such as the trolls or the wolves, start hurting the nice animals, Bamse drinks some kind of magical "thunder honey" and uses the super strength that he gains to beat up the bad guys. The comics of Bamse are really about communicating values to small children and Bamse has become an important icon in Swedish society. What is striking about Bamse is that he is a socialist. The bad guys in Bamses world are driven by capitalist greed and lack of solidarity. Bamse regularly stops Krösus, an exploitative capitalist rat, from profiting from hurting other animals. Bamse spends a lot of his time teaching children fundamental socialist values. Joakim Nilsson has written a very interesting essay (in Swedish) where he goes through the various political messages in Bamse. The comics are usually written for small children and have simple storylines (a wolf steals some carrots from the rabbit, Bamse beats up the wolf and gives back the carrots, etc.) but they can be quite sophisticated when it comes to politics. In a comic from 1983 the children can read:
Bamse does not only brainwash children into believing that perhaps the worst genocidal regime in human history is a good one. He also explains to them how greedy and evil capitalists are and the importance of solidarity, high taxes and a welfare state. Bamse is not really a fan of private property or the rule of law either. Already in 1973, there is a story where Bamse becomes a police officer and catches somebody robbing a toy store. However, Bamse realizes that the burglar is his friend who is stealing the toys for her child’s birthday. Bamse sees this as an adequate reason for stealing and releases the burglar. He also promptly tells the owner of the store, who demands that the burglar be punished, to "Shut up!" When Bamse ends up in prison for misconduct as a policeman, he simply runs away. And so the story ends happily. What strikes me about Bamse is how somebody can write a comic for very small children that celebrates genocidal dictators and teaches that stealing and breaking the law is right when there are good socialist motives to do so. This comic teaches us something important. Not only do socialists see the world in a strange and twisted way, but they also view themselves as so morally superior that it becomes acceptable to indoctrinate children with their radical ideas.
May 22, 2006 Nima Sanandaji [send him mail] is president of the Swedish think tank Captus and the editor of Captus Journal. He is a graduate student in biochemistry at the University of Cambridge. Copyright © 2006 LewRockwell.com |
And
if you think that Bamse is restricted to only Sweden, think again.
If I remember correctly, Bamse has even been shown in Iranian television.
The little bear has been around in various comics and TV series
since 1966. According to the site