After Lundagårds article about a discriminating song in Malmö Nation's annual songbook, the nation has now offered an apology online.
Two weeks ago, Lundagård could reveal that a song deemed as discriminatory was printed in the annual songbook of Malmö Nation. The song has been sung in the organization for political scientists and economists, Lupef, in 2020. It is called “Pandemivisan” and has been seen as discriminating towards asian people since it blames the pandemic on “the Chinese”. Now, after criticism of the song being in the songbook Malmö nation has given out an official apology on their Facebook page;
“Malmö Nation wants to address the reactions to a song in the latest edition of our songbook. We want to start by apologizing to everyone who took offense by ‘pandemivisan’.”
In the comments of the post Malmö nation announces that they are now working on a new edition of the songbook where ’Pandemivisan’ will not be included. The comment also states that they will not sell the printed books they have in storage. They explain, in the apology, that including the song in the last edition of the book was not meant to be racist. But rather a parody of people who would believe that an ethnic group of people could be blamed for the pandemic. “We thought that the only way the song could be perceived was satire and a parody of the people who actually believed it”, writes Malmö nation in their apology.
It felt like they were trying to get rid of the responsibility over the song.
Yifeng Xie, student at Lund university, thinks that a better way to apologize would be to recall the songbooks.
– I felt offended by the statement, it felt like they were trying to get rid of the responsibility over the song because they wrote that it was a joke and a parody and that they didn’t mean to offend people, but it did, says Yifeng Xie.
Another student who took part of the apology is Mimmi Shen. She, too, was hoping that the old songbooks would be recalled.
– It feels like the apology was an easy way out, and that they are shifting the responsibility to the ones who got upset. Also the fact that they choose to apologize after they got so many reactions and criticism on this on Instagram for example feels a bit off, says Mimmi Shen.
Mimmi Shen would have liked to see that they really understood how problematic the decision was to include “Pandemivisan” in the songbook.
– I think that their apology reflects white privilege because it doesn’t really show that they stand behind that the song is racist, instead they just acknowledge that it can be interpreted as racist, adds Mimmi Shen.
Lundagård has contacted Malmö Nation, but without response.
