It started as a rumor about justice in the Swedish countryside: Shoot, dig, shut up. Today, the same dark solution is heard formulated in ordinary people’s conversations. When completely ordinary, law-abiding Swedes begin to fantasize about firing squads, it is a warning signal that needs to be taken seriously.

The author and jack-of-all-trades Jens Ganman recently released his book Skjut, gräv, tig (Shoot, dig, shut up). The title is not plucked out of thin air. In a conversation I and Jens had several years ago, he told about how farmers on farms far beyond the reach of the Swedish police’s long arm handled the gangs that stole both the farmers’ machines and the tractors’ diesel.

Sure, one could call 112 and ask for help from the police when one discovered how someone was standing and siphoning diesel behind the barn corner, but the nearest patrol would probably be several hours away. Since in practice all farmers were also hunters, and therefore had gun cabinets full of moose rifles and shotguns, there was a principle that applied: Shoot. Dig. Shut up.

According to the rumors, that procedure has stopped thefts in many villages in the Swedish countryside.

The Balts, Romanians and others who might be thought to lie buried are no one looking for, so they will get to lie where they lie.

Skjut, gräv, tig has been on Adlibris’ top list for many weeks now, and it says something about the state of Sweden and the Swedes: The principle that may already have been applied in remote, Swedish countryside, appears increasingly appealing to more and more, even for those who find themselves in the relative civilization.

Shoot. Dig. Shut up. And if that thought has taken root, it is only a matter of time before it goes from thought to action.

Shoot. Dig. Shut up.

My friend is a clear example that the thought no longer only exists among marginal groups of extremists, but also among completely ordinary, middle-aged, university-educated, Swedish middle-class women.

When we talk about the situation in Sweden – and we do that quite often – it not infrequently ends with her stating what she would like to do with all the rapists, murderers and terrorists who are allowed to walk among us.

– I know what I think should be done, she usually says.

– Line them up against a wall and shoot them.

She is always quick to add that she herself of course could not do anything against them.

– But if I did not have a family… If I really had nothing to lose. Then maybe…

My friend however thinks bigger and does not limit herself to only the perpetrators. She also includes all the politicians, journalists and authority activists who made their advance – and the nation’s decay – possible.

She calls them “traitors to the country”, all those who through active decisions or passive enabling have contributed to the Sweden she and I grew up in no longer existing: Politicians in all camps. The media profiles. The authority heads. The officials. The so-called “celebrities”. All those who have contributed to Sweden, in just a few decades, being transformed from an international role model to a deterrent example.

And she – a neat, well-articulated and full-time working mother – believes that they should be treated in the same way as Vidkun Quisling, Amon Göth or Nicolae Ceaușescu.

Is she unique? No. I do not think so. I know that the resignation and desperation she expresses is something that more and more Swedes feel. I know that what she says when no one else hears is such that many more think.

But there is at the same time another group that shares exactly the same thought.

That group consists of precisely the power holders my friend wants to place in front of the firing squad – and in that group’s worldview it is instead people like me, my friend and others with politically incorrect value base who are the problem. During the last decade we have therefore experienced how we have been dismissed from jobs, excluded from trade unions and had our accounts in social media deleted.

One can erase a human being in many different ways. And if they could, they would probably have lined us up against a wall and shot us long ago.

We are not there yet. But the polarization increases every day and the hatred is chanted openly on our streets and squares.

Two groups with different goals for Sweden. Two groups with different views on nation, identity and future. Two groups who both believe that the solution to the problem is that the other group is silenced, or preferably disappears.

It is nothing new. We have heard it before.

Line them up against a wall and shoot them. And if that thought has taken root, it is only a matter of time before it goes from thought to action.

The question is only who will stand with their back to the wall, and who will have the finger on the trigger.