The Domenic Johansson case crops up again

I was interested to see that on several home education lists in this country, attention is once again being drawn to the case of Domenic Johansson in Sweden. As some readers may recollect, this boy was being home educated by his parents in Sweden, who then attempted to leave the country to travel to India with their son. Since then, almost four years ago, the child has been in foster care.

What fascinates me about this business is the way that the story constantly changes and mutates, until you simply do not know what to believe. For example, when first we heard about it in 2009, it was a simple matter of the Swedish authorities not approving of home education and seizing the boy so that he could be sent to school in Sweden. However, the latest twist is that this does not appear to be what happened at all; at least according to his mother. See;

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2138545/Norway-kid-row-replay-Sweden.html


This is the first time that I have read an interview with the mother. All the other information about the case comes from either the father or from various American Christians. You will note that the mother does not seem to think that home education has anything to do with the authorities taking her son. She believes it was because he appeared to be neglected or that she and her husband were too poor to look after him.

There is mention of the famous earthquake in this article, according to which, ‘her husband was forced to return to his native country as his family had lost everything in the calamity’.  I have heard half a dozen versions of this story too, including two different ones from the husband himself.  In one version, he lost all his money and possessions not in the earthquake but by being robbed when he was in a taxi on the way to the airport to return to Sweden. In another, told to an American pastor, he tried unsuccessfully to get to the earthquake zone as he hoped to help there. The mother’s family claim that he was running a travel agency and lost the business as a result of the earthquake. I exchanged emails with Christer Johansson a few years ago, asking what had actually happened. He told me that he could not remember!

I would advise home educating parents in this country to be a little cautious about being drawn into this saga; at least until they have a definitive version of events. There is probably more to this case than meets the eye.

A prominent supporter of the Johansson family

I am always delighted to see particularly awful examples of hypocrisy and double standards. A few days ago, somebody posted on the Badman Review Action Group list, denouncing me and providing a link to a piece which he had written about me. You may find it here;

http://freesweden.net/smear_campaign.html


The author, Christopher Warren, says of me; ' Smearing and slandering innocent people is, in my opinion, a diabolical act.' Plain enough. Later on though, he quotes approvingly a 'representative of the homeschooling community in Britain' who says of my daughter ' his daughter is older now and I am very sad to report is as mad as he is.' So slandering and smearing people is diabolical, but it's OK to describe a seventeen year-old girl as mad if you dislike her father? I think I get it!

I have written before that those organising the support for the parents of Domenic Johansson, setting up websites, circulating petitions and so on, are working to a very different agenda to that of which home educators in this country are aware. They are, to begin with, all Christians. Nothing wrong with that; I go to church every Sunday myself. The problem is that these people are deliberately concealing their true motives and opinions from those whom they approach about the Johansson case. Let us look a little more closely at Christopher Warren and see what he is really up to. His Free Sweden Net website, set up after the Johansson case became public, seems innocuous enough. He says that he is a writer and lecturer. In the section about religion, he mentions that he is a Christian, but says that he has gay friends and that he would describe himself as a 'Christian Humanist'. This is to be found in the section about his 'Personal Agenda'. So far, so good; nothing to scare the horses here! he has even written a report about home education and sent it to the Swedish government. He mentions a teaching career, writing and being a lecturer. Now let us see who he really is. This is a website which he set up to express his real views;

http://www.nccg.org/warren.html


At once, we notice something very odd. He has been the Pastor of various Evangelical churches for the last quarter of a century. In fact he is a full-time Minister of Religion. How is it possible for such a man to write a 'Personal Agenda' of his religious views on the Free Sweden Net site and forget to mention that? The answer is that it is not possible; this is deliberate deception. Free Sweden Net has been set up to appeal to home educators and he felt that mentioning that he was a Minister might put people off. I can tell readers that Pastor Warren wrote everything to be found on the NCCG site and pretty interesting reading it is too! To begin with, it is a compendium of crackpot, New Age beliefs. Flying saucers, levitation, astral travel, the New World Order; it is all here. Pastor Warren levitates, he has visions, Jesus tells him that there is going to be an earthquake, he sees UFOs. I have to tell you, much of this reads like the ravings of a complete lunatic. Still, we all have our own opinions; this is all harmless enough. It is when you start looking at the sections on homosexuality and feminism that the alarm bells really start ringing for many reasons. Remember that this is a man who described himself on the site for home educators as being a Christian Humanist with gay friends? What does he really think about gays? Let's see. It seems that;

'Homosexuals have sex in the same manner as animals, (front to back or oral sex), rather than in the natural way of God's creation.'

We learn that;

'The AIDS virus has come from the perverted life style of homosexuals and drug addicts. (The curse is in their blood). They need help. They need to be taught that their life style is an abomination to God and how to come out of it. They must come to understand that homosexuality is not an alternative life style but a perversion.'


And I bet you didn't know that;

' The disease of AIDS is spreading rapidly because homosexuals will not change their life style. They are even trying to spread it into the heterosexual community so that more money can be appropriated for seeking a cure.'

This is not a man whom I would personally care to be in the same room as, let alone be his friend! It is this man, the levitating, flying saucer seeing, gay hating full time Minister whom home educating parents in this country are being invited to cosy up to. Nor is he the exception among those active in the campaign about Domenic Johansson. It is people like this whose word is believed when he posts on BRAG. Why I wouldn't take this man's word for it if he told me the sun was shining!

In addition to the fact that he has gone to great lengths to conceal the fact that he has for twenty five years been a Pastor, there are serious questions about his past career. In his submission to the Swedish government, he claims that he was for ten years the Principle of a private school. Elsewhere, he specifies that this was St Albans College in Oxford. The problem is that he only left Oxford University in 1977, when he was twenty three. He moved to Norway in 1988. On the NCCG site, he says that he studied theology at Cambridge University after leaving Oxford and then trained to be a Systems Analyst in Business Computing. Cambridge do not do mail order degrees and so we must assume that he went to live there for at least a year or two. Then training to be a systems analyst; when did he manage to fit in the ten years as head of an independent school? We will leave aside the implausibility of any independent school appointing as its head a twenty four year old man with no teaching experience or even a qualification in teaching.

There are many more questions to be answered about this strange man and I hope to look into his background in more detail. In the meantime, I would caution readers to be very careful about giving their support to any campaigns run by such people.