The opinion: by Ayfer Selamoğlu

It was a cold and breezy evening. The thermometers were around 6 degrees below zero…

Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme and his wife Lisbet were eating at home. While chatting, they decided to go to the movies. The films “The Mozart Brothers” and “When I Was a Dog” were screened at the Grand Cinema. They couldn’t decide between the two films. Olof Palme phoned his son Marten. He learned that his son and daughter-in-law were attending the “Mozart Brothers”. They were still undecided. He hung up, saying to his son, “Maybe we’ll see you in front of the cinema”…

Olof Palme wore a black coat and a sizeable Russian ushanka. On the other hand, Lisbeth Palme wore a brown and fur suede coat. Olof and Lisbet Palme walked along Vasterlang Street and Yxmed Street to Gamla Stan Metro Station. There were about 20 people on the platform. The number 17 train they were on was full. They walked up to the subway station on Radman Street. They met with their son Marten and his wife Ingrid in front of the cinema and bought their tickets. They were going to watch the movie “The Mozart Brothers” together. They went into the living room and took their seats. They had no bodyguards with them. But black shadows were watching his every step for days…

Outside, the killer’s forehead shone with sweat, waiting for the movie to end. The windows of the car were fogged up. He played with his gun. He was ready to act…

The long-awaited moment had finally come. 23.15, the movie ended, and those leaving the cinema filled the pavement. No one noticed the black shadows waiting outside. Olof and Lisbet Palme started walking, looking at the shop windows. Suddenly, two gunshots were heard in the silence of the night. And a painful cry of a woman. The dark shadow approached Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme from side to side, then shot him in the middle of his back from a distance of about 30 cm. The powerful bullet shattered the spine and main artery, and Olof Palme died before he hit the ground. The date leaves were showing the date 28 February 1986…

The killer also fired a shot at Lisbet Palme but failed to hit. The bullet had slightly scraped off her skin as it passed under Lisbet’s shoulder blade…

Palme’s assassination ended in history as Sweden’s JFK case (Kennedy Assassination). The dark forces behind the trigger are still unknown. File closed!

Olof Palme was a modest person who often walked or biked to his home and work and lived with the people and the working class. From an aristocratic family, Olof Palme preferred independence and strength, staying out of the Cold War binary bloc. He criticised the USSR and the USA and refused to be a satellite of both powers. While trying to keep out of the cold war dynamics, he did not want to be a member of both NATO and the Warsaw Pact. He opposed economic and social inequalities at home and the American model, which was highly intrusive internationally. Olof Palme argued that without solving the imbalance of income distribution and imperialism between the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere, economic and social justice could not be achieved in the world, and he made this one of the basic principles of the Socialist International.

He was harshly critical of the US action in Vietnam. He reacted similarly to the US-backed Chilean coup that overthrew the Allende government and the US interventions in Central America. He was against nuclear armament. He was trying to end the Iran-Iraq War. He condemned the Franco regime in Spain and the Soviet Union’s invasion of Czechoslovakia (today’s Czechia).

In a global order where the right is on the rise and the neoliberal system has settled, could a leader like Olof Palme be tolerated?