Yesterday I made a post in reference to a debate article in Dagens Nyheter and I referred to Sverigedemokraterna (English description for non-Swedes) as Sweden’s racist party. I was verbally (or, textually, really) berated by two individuals (one of them, of course, was anonymous and went by the name “illwill” because why use your real name when you’re a racist belittling someone on a website? You know, they might actually respond to you or something, and you wouldn’t want to get outed) who called me “ignorant” and questioned my Swedish skills among other things. Being new to this whole anonymous public criticsm addressing my intelligence, I decided to actually do some research into their claims. Most of their claims I’ve heard before from my very own racist party, whose pundits and adherents even now are trying to blame Swine Flu on illegal immigration and suggest the US should close its borders. So, despite the fact that I’m familiar with the arguments and mentalities, I just have a hard time not engaging–even though they have used hurtful, and misguided ad hominem attacks.
So, claim #1 is that Sverigedemokraterna is not a racist party. I whole-heartedly disagree, and I think their official party platform has a few issues with it. SD claims openly to be a “nationalistic” party, but they deny claims (regularly) of being racist. Like the majority of smart, modern racist parties, Sverigedemokraterna has couched their racism in the language of “national freedom,” which is a curious way to do this:
Grundläggande för den nationalistiska principen är att inget folk har rätt att kränka ett annat folk, varken kulturellt eller territoriellt. Varje folk har rätt till frihet och självbestämmande, till sin identitet och till sitt eget land. Varje folk och varje kultur har också rätt att utvecklas utifrån sina egna förutsättningar.
Translation:
The foundation for the nationalistic principle is that no people has a right to violate another people, neither culturally or territorially. Every people has a right to freedom and self-determination, to their own identity and to their own land. Every people and every culture has a right to develop from their own conditions.
Yup. There we have it, I think this is pretty straight forward. The fascinating combination of the folkhemmet idea and the argument, subtly, against “non-Swedish” immigrants having the right to their own cultures, just not in Sweden, is a fascinating one. There isn’t much more to say, other than that I think this is pretty much proof that these gentle fellows are separatists like the KKK, for example. There of course is a debate as to whether all separatism is racism, but I think in this situation the root of the feelings here become clear from the statements of one of the said individuals (the one who was man enough to leave his name), JE:
In our neighbouring country, Norway, they are more open about all the problems multiculturalism creates
In their capital, Oslo, blacks (plus some northern africans) actually accounted for more rapes than the ethnic norwegian men. This was in year 2007. Norwegians accounted for 27% of the rapists in Oslo. Almost all of the other rapists came from either africa or the middle east.
That is to say: foreigners are criminals! But not just foreigners, BLACK foreigners (or, North African men in this case) and ARAB foreigners! The idea seems clear to me and it’s racist. It has been pretty well shown through research that poor, oppressed groups tend to have much higher crime rates due to a lack of access to resources, living in bad neighborhoods, and in a country like Sweden where there are generally underlying racial stereotypes and where it’s much more difficult for these people to get jobs, into educations and so forth, then there are going to be more problems. In Sweden’s history there have been other groups that were also oppressed and seen as the criminal elements: Finns, for example, and the Samí, as well.
Of course, in a desire to point out that I should know better, JE pointed out the “negro problem” that we have in the United States. Of course, the Sociology of Race, which I have been involved in due to helping research a forthcoming book (that I would gladly allow Mr. Eriksson to borrow from me when I get my copy), has pointed out; race and racism have to do with power and domination and cannot be extracted from discussion of class. For example, research that shows that crime rates for poor whites are actually very similar to crime rates for poor blacks in the US. A bigger issue is that the schools that young black students go to are horribly underfunded and there are many issues getting into better educations, getting good jobs and so forth. African Americans are often considered to be outside of “American norms and values” and our racist culture has continued that. For example, banking institutions have consistently practiced “red lining” thereby segregating blacks from whites, despite it being illegal. Blacks, despite the fact that they are now represented among the highest earners in the United States, still do not have the wealth of white Americans. America’s problems with African Americans being overrepresented among criminals has a lot more to do with the conditions that African Americans are subjected to and the opportunities they are given than it does to do with their “culture” or their race. It is racist to couple race and crime together and in order to imply that this is the primary problem, and that it has nothing to do with the other problems that these people are facing.
I think that anti-immigration claims in the majority of Europe and the United States are basically racially motivated. Like claims in the US have long been, actually. We had no problem with Scandinavian immigration, but on the other hand we didn’t want any of those Chinese people (except the ones who built our railroads) and we banned them, and any other Asians, until the mid-1950s. Don’t forget that Italians and Irish were also demonized for stealing jobs, not learning the language, etc., etc., and now they are “cultural Americans,” many of whom hate black people. What’s the difference? Skin color, I’d say. Because I’ve met plenty of second and third generation Swedes of multi-racial backgrounds or with Arab names, for example, who still complain about discrimination despite being fluent in the language, dressing and acting like other WHITE Swedes of their age bracket, i.e., are “culturally Swedish” like the Sverigedemokraterna claim they want these people to be. It’s pretty clear to me that this is racism.
I could actually go into a lot more detail, but I also want to point something out to all of my readers who are opposed to SD, are Swedish and are worried about said party being elected: 20 September 2009 is the kyrkoval, and SD is trying to get themselves elected to kyrkomötet. If you’d like to keep this party, which is trying to make Svenska kyrkan oppose gay marriage, and is pretty openly homophobic as well, then I suggest you vote. Svenska kyrkan is still an institution that receives taxes from a very large percentage (74.7% – 2007 See stats in PDF format) of the Swedish population–use your right to control who controls policy within the church.
All that said: just because a party is racist doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be allowed speech, right? So, I guess the question still stands. So, in the Swedish context, does money and rights to commercial time count as “free speech” or can that simply be controlled by a TV channel?
