11
votes
Swedish rightwing on verge of narrow election win but waits on final tally – bloc including far-right Sverigedemokraterna on course for one-seat majority
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- Authors
- David Crouch
- Published
- Sep 12 2022
- Word count
- 683 words
No matter the eventual distribution of mandates this is just disappointing to me. It isn't a great surprise the right wing Sweden Democrats (SD) got a lot of votes, but it saddens me as a proponent of an egalitarian society. To me they represent the total opposite of where society NEEDS to move in order to manage the problems ahead. Narrow-minded bigotry, distrust and conservative stances not backed up by any empirical data.
Disappointed in my fellow countrymen.
But the empirical data does point toward a significant rise in crime accompanying increased immigration, and data shows that Swedish residents of Middle Eastern or North African perpetrate crimes in disproportion to their demographic size. There is abundant data showing that integration has not been successful.
I think that the fact that voters are willing to gloss over extremist aspects in favor for practical platform points is telling of how much the political left may have under-addressed certain concerns. And it is the function of a healthy democracy for its leaders to be practical and adapt to its electorate's concerns instead of being obstinate.
I'm fairly liberal and a son of immigrants and generally in favor of immigration. But I think there are also some alarming signs that immigration in Europe has not been as well executed as it could have been. Stricter policies for better filtering for immigrants for their ability and potential to integrate would likely lead to better outcomes. There seems to be a low likelihood of integration for someone doesn't speak Swedish or even English, doesn't have a high level of education, and has social views sharply opposed to those held by Swedish society at large.
It seems that the best countries for immigrant integration are… countries which have been recipients of massive numbers of immigrants; e.g., the United States, Canada, Australia, Argentina, etc. Historically, most of Europe was a source of immigrants, and you just didn’t see many people moving to there the same way they did to those immigrant societies (especially prior to WWII). The anecdotal example I remember from Wikipedia is that in 1950 there were only around 20,000 non-white people in all of Britain. Compare that to a population of a little over 50 million in their 1951 census.
It doesn’t help that Europe is likelier (due to proximity) to receive poorer immigrants from the Middle East (who are going to trend more devoutly religious) versus North America, where a plane ticket is required. But even comparing our equivalent situation (Latinos; broadly, the rich ones go to Spain, the poorer ones come here), I think we’ve done a better job integrating them into American society.
Indeed. I think there are several factors:
Maybe now, but not historically. During the Great Irish Famine, more than a million people emigrated from Ireland to the US in the span of about five years - and those were largely people who were sick and starving to death. A lot of the immigrants who came especially in the 19th century were poorly educated economic refugees and fortune seekers, which is not so different from many immigrants from the Middle East/Africa to Europe today.
There was also a lot of prejudice, ethnic ghettos, poverty and crime associated with immigration. Sweden has only seen significant immigration in the past 50 years or so. A lot of the same issues that exist there today existed in North America 50 years after the start of mass immigration, and for a good while after that. Those permeable membranes you talk about took a long time to establish.
Another dimension is race. I don't know quite how to put it, but basically, I think historically racism worked in favor of immigrants in America. The majority of them came to be absorbed into the self-identified white European dominant social class; after all, a Pole or Irishman was better (in the eyes of the white Americans who called the shots, obviously not my own opinion) than a Black or Native American person. In Sweden today, it's the opposite: the immigrant is the Great Other.
Obviously this is a simplification, and there were immigrant groups who were not accepted into the category of white Euro, but very broadly speaking I think it's true. It's a lot easier to shift people who are somewhat like you into the group of "people who are like me" when they stand in contrast to a group who is seen as "completely unlike (and, frequently, beneath) me", but in Sweden, the immigrants are the group that are seen like that.
Historically, immigration tends to flow towards places with more and better jobs (or economic opportunities), except when it's blocked.
My guess is that the recent far right victories are related to those problems ahead - but I’m not sure I can actually draw the relationship beyond “scared people aren’t generous”.