The Use of Class Memory in Transnational Political Resistance

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This week, the photo I selected is an image of a protest that our group found in the personal files of Olof Palme, the former Prime Minister of Sweden. Palme graduated from Kenyon College in 1948. This photograph stood out to me because I encountered it twice during our research. The first time, I overlooked it due to confusion and lack of context. The image did not contain any direct information about what the protest was about, where it took place (although I suspected it was at Kenyon), or who the demonstrators were targeting. As we explored another file detailing Palme’s biographical history, the context began to emerge. We learned that Palme was a radical social democrat known for his outspoken political views, and he was assassinated under ordinary, everyday circumstances. Based on this additional information, we now believe that the photo captures a protest that occurred during Palme’s graduation ceremony at Kenyon in 1948. Although we are still investigating the exact cause of the protest, we suspect it was related to Sweden’s opposition to U.S. foreign policy in Vietnam and the emerging tensions that would escalate into the Vietnam War.

In The Struggle for the People’s King, Yazdiha (2023:72) outlines three central dynamics in the use of collective memory: relationality, temporalities, and perceptions. She explains that “by linking their identity to collective memory, a group makes clear their place relative to other groups in society.” This framework helps decode the meso-level dynamics of the public sphere, inspiring me to think beyond how actors themselves hold independent agency but also embedded in relationships with other groups. This idea also connects to temporalities, which means that understanding collective action requires historical awareness of each group’s development and position over time, especially in relation to power structures. Last but not least, Yazdiha (2023:41) also emphasizes that “social reality is filtered through an individual’s socialization and cultural embeddedness—the cognitive frameworks and cultural frames individuals draw upon to make sense of the world around them.”

This photo demonstrates how the three concepts intertwine to form a symbolically rich web of global politics. One of the protest signs reads: “ILA JOINS SWEDEN’S WORKERS SAYING NO DEGREE FOR OLOF.” Here, the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) aligns itself with Swedish workers, constructing a transnational coalition of working-class resistance against liberal politics. This alignment reveals how the selective use of memory and the construction of collective identity can transcend national boundaries, connecting individuals who, while geographically distant, share common class interests. In my view, this suggests that Palme had become a symbolic figure in the broader geopolitical tensions between Sweden’s political position and U.S. foreign policy. More broadly, the protest illustrates how the strategic use of class memory can serve as a powerful tool for cross-border solidarity and political resistance.


Reference

Yazdiha, Hajar. (2023). The Struggle for the People's King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Cvil Rights Movement. Princeton University Press.

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