The Swedish Democrats (SD), a blatantly racist party that bases its ideology on Neo-Nazism and which drives its politics on an openly racist and anti-immigrant platform has, for the first time, entered the Swedish Parliament with 20 seats after garnering 5.7% of the vote.
Since the Party was set up in the early 90s, it has consistently advocated for the repatriation of immigrants back to their countries of origin, pursued a policy of zero asylum to those fleeing persecution and war, blamed every Swedish economic crisis on immigrants, openly propagated anti-Muslim sentiments, held Immigrants responsible for unemployment in Sweden and blamed rising crime in Sweden on “foreigners exporting insecurity” in the country.
For the Swedish Democrats, every rape case in Sweden is the product of a primitive immigrant defiling an innocent Swedish girl while every immigrant is apparently draining State resources because of welfare handouts. For these idiots, all asylum seekers are bogus refugees trying to take advantage of Swedish generosity, all Muslims are terrorists while Africans are lazy niggers seeking out Swedish women for sexual pleasure or “making papers” in an organized “use and dump policy”.
During a debate on Swedish National TV, a member of the SD once said that if the Party could have its way, all immigrants who immigrated to Sweden since 1973 could quickly be repatriated to their home countries because they are a burden to society. This is despite the fact that it is a widely accepted fact that “without immigrants, what is known as the Swedish society could literally grind to a halt”.
Traditionally, SD has been a Neo-Nazi terror organization that has had the option of violence against Immigrants (and pro-Immigrant Swedes alike) as a Party policy to intimidate immigrants to return to their countries of origin. SD’s rhetoric has been openly racist while the Party’s politics is deeply rooted in the supposed “superiority of the White race” which, apparently, is being contaminated through intermarriages and other “dirty unions” between whites and lesser races.
The Swedish Democratic racists hate homosexuals, not because of the “repugnance of homosexuality” but because the position from the point of view of the Neo-Nazi ideology is that White homosexuals are a disgrace to society because they contribute to the diminishing of the white race by virtue of not being able to produce children and multiply to sustain the race.
A popular ruse used by Swedish Democrats in their propaganda is that if immigration is not checked, the white Swedish race will eventually become a minority race (or even extinct), Sweden will be taken over by Immigrants and that anything considered “Swedish” will eventually suffer a slow death.
When it comes to SD’s Neo-Nazi propaganda, Muslims are the most affected. Apart from every Muslim “being a potential terrorist” in the eyes of SD’s members and supporters alike, Muslims are also supposedly very dangerous because they always try to Islamize their environment by setting up Mosques, demanding Halal food to be sold in supermarkets, setting up Islamic kindergartens “to brainwash young kids”, undermining the rules of the system in favour of Islamic practices and always seeking to practice “Sharia Law” wherever they reside. The religious policy of Head scarfs for Muslim women is routinely cited by SD’s propagandists as evidence that the agenda of Muslims is to ensure that Islam is practiced everywhere.
Collapse of the Welfare State
If you ask a Neo-Nazi bone-head deeply schooled in Swedish Democrat’s political propaganda, the subject will probably be glad to tell you that Muslims should not be welcome in Sweden because they always try to subdue other cultures (read white culture) by pushing their Muslim culture as the superior one. For SD’s the bone of contention with Muslims is that they are anti-democratic, dogmatic, obsessed with religious fundamentalism and that they become totally intolerant when their religion is challenged in any way.
However, the lowest group, from the point of view of SD members, are Africans because according to their Neo-Nazi ideology, Africans are monkeys who should be jumping from tree to tree in Africa, not riding in the underground train “going to work”. Some brainwashed SD members actually believe that Africans are wild animals and they even wonder how these animals managed to get into an aircraft to fly to Sweden and why they were never taken to the zoo by the Swedish department of Wild life upon arrival in Sweden because that should have been their “natural habitat”.
The above background is important because these are the guys who have entered Parliament after some naïve Swedes were convinced by their propaganda. The rising unemployment in Sweden is a direct product of the general crisis of capitalism in Sweden (and Internationally), not a creation of Immigrants. Majority of those who live on Welfare are actually Swedes whom, as opposed to immigrants, never take up any job in the name of survival.
In as much as it might sound unreal, majority of crimes committed in Sweden are committed by Swedes, not Immigrants. Some of the most sophisticated crimes (like the recent and sophisticated helicopter bank robbery which made history) was not an immigrant affair. If the statistics of rape cases are examined, it will not be surprising to discover that a larger portion of these cases are committed by psychopathic Swedes.
The media is always awash with tales of Swedes killing Swedes, fathers raping daughters, husbands killing innocent wives, banks being robbed by Swedish gangs, kids murdering schoolmates, financial scams being committed by Swedes and other wearied scandals linked to blond haired, white skinned, blue eyed Swedes. Take it from me that majority of people sitting in Swedish jails are Swedes, not immigrants!
This is not to deny that Immigrants have their share of the crime cake. The point is that the general economic, political and social crisis in Sweden is not a purely Immigrant affair and regardless of the number of times the Swedish Democrats blame it on Immigrants, the truth will never die – that the crisis in Sweden is not an Immigrant problem but a political problem connected to a failed right wing ideology that has also failed to move society forward at this point in time.
The Swedish Democrats have entered Parliament for the first time in history because of two reasons. At the political scene, there is no clear political alternative to the crisis of capitalism that has largely contributed to the current state of affairs.
Although the Neo-Nazis associate the collapse of the Swedish Welfare State with “Immigrant parasitism”, the reality is that the Welfare State became unsustainable due to a consistent policy of privatizations occasioned by the “bourgeoisieficaction” of the Social Democratic Party following the assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986. The established political parties that were expected to show direction especially the Social Democrats have, with time, moved so much to the right that the informed voter can no longer draw the distinction between Social Democracy and pure Capitalism.
Another reason that could explain why SD made it to Parliament is that there is a growing number of naïve Swedes who are genuinely affected by the crisis of capitalism in Sweden by way of unemployment, lack of housing, declining living conditions, privatized health care and dental services, attacks on pension schemes, close down of youth centers among others.
These are Swedes brought up believing that the Social Democrats are the fixers of the country’s problems. After a series of trials when the Social Democrats were voted in and out of power, this layer of Swedes has become convinced that the Social Democratic Party can no longer solve the crisis.
In the absence of credible political explanations and a clear alternative on what needs to be done to reverse the trend, this ignorant layer of gullible Swedes swallowed SD’s propaganda, eventually voting for them in protest. The entry of SD in Swedish Parliament is a serious development which requires informed analysis and there will be need to return to this topic in the future because it is as wide as it is complex.
Okoth Osewe
About the Author
The far right seem unaware that the mass influx of immigrants and asylum seekers is a product of capitalism. You’ll notice the rise has occurred after the Social Democrats began moving right. A capitalist economy wants cheap labor, it has no patience for retraining, entire industries can vanish quickly as they’re moved to other countries, and lastly countries like the US, UK, and their European allies want access to markets and resources around the world. Their latest endeavors in the Middle East have resulted in many people fleeing the war that the west brought. The Swedish government has been a silent ally of the US for most of the 20th century and even more so for the past 20 years.
Global capitalists and those they’ve influenced in economics, finance, government, want the whole world to resemble America. No one has a sense of community. Everything is entertainment and products to enjoy as tourists on vacations. They want mass uncontrolled immigration to drive down domestic wages and benefits (the cost of labor) as well as ease of outsourcing and moving production to play countries against themselves. We’ll be one world of consumers with no cultural identities, just those endlessly purchased, fighting against each other to get scraps.
The soft left, like Social Democrats and supporters, only view immigration and the situation with asylum seekers (in Sweden and elsewhere) as a matter of race. If they even entertain the idea that there is a problem, they won’t be forward looking “progressives”. None of the left parties want to touch the matter. They’re either hoping to get those votes or are afraid of being labeled racist like the Swedish Democrats. The soft left in democracies often fail in this regard and then you have the rise of far right parties with more racist, far-right ideas (in terms of economics, religion, etc.).
Bork, very good intervention. Besides, Social Democracy has failed throughout Europe and the degeneration of Social Democrats in Sweden, coupled with their subsequent ideological movement to the right is not interpreted by Social Democratic Party supporters to mean that the era of Social Democracy in Sweden is over. The pathetic illusion many disenchanted Swedes cling on is that the good old days of the Welfare State will return. This layer does not understand that the crisis of Social Democracy is due to ideological disorientation and not a question of policy stalemate.
Although the systematic shift of the Social Democrats to the right has been overt through privatization of some of the most profitable State enterprises, attacks on workers interests and dismantling of the Welfare State, some naïve SDP voters believed that the trend could somehow be reversed to bring some order in the system. In the absence of a credible political alternative that can clearly show the way out of the crisis, SDP voters are either confused or just fed up with politics.
The situation is exacerbated by low political consciousness especially among the Swedish youth living lives of misery as a result of the crisis. Although there will never be any empirical data (due to secret ballot) to help understand the voting trend in terms of age-groups, my guess is that many of those who voted for the racists are frustrated Swedish youths who are venting their anger after lapping the propaganda that Immigration is the genesis of the social and economic crisis in Sweden.
The win by the racist Sweden Democrats (SD) party has been influenced by various factors such as the hardening of attitudes towards immigrants in neighboring Denmark, Norway and Finland, which have far-right political parties calling for strict control on immigration. Also, there is an ongoing general propaganda against Muslims in the Western world, without distinguishing between the extreme and moderate ones, a fact that SD capitalized upon.
Some legislators in Folkpartiet (the Swedish Liberal Party) like Minister Nyamko Sabuni and Party Leader Jan Björklund, have been toying with matters that border more upon copying the far-right immigrantion ideologies, than their Party policies on integration.
Nyamko Sabuni is known to be combative when it comes to the Swedish-Muslim community and immigrants in general, yet she is a Muslim by religion (though non-practicing). Her rallying calls for proof of knowledge in the Swedish language before citizenship, has been opposed by many fellow party members ever since her party joined the Alliance to lead Sweden in 2006. She’s seen by a large number of immigrants as an African underdog wagging her tail to please the Whites in the ruling Alliance.
Lately, Jan Björklund has been on the forefront in pushing for banning the “burqa” (a combination of head, face and body garment won by Muslim women). Although it has remained on the debate level, it is supported by certain naïve Swedes who find the act of covering the whole body very strange. This example shows how the Liberal Party campaigned indirectly for the intolerant Sweden Democrats, who oppose virtually everything to do with Islam.
Opinion polls had for a long time predicted the entry of SD in Parliament. However, apart from the ruling Alliance and the Red-Green Opposition shouting that they would not collaborate with them in case of a win, what did they do to stop them? Maybe not much, because there is indication that some immigrants ignorantly voted for SD, believing they were the Social Democrats (Mona Sahlin’s party).
Both Alliances should have worked very hard to sensitize such immigrants, to prevent SD from making inroads into mainstream Swedish politics. The landscape has changed completely, since Sweden is now part of “the politically extremist Europe”.
The ruling Alliance and the Red-Green coalition ought to have countered the tactical campaigns by the savvy SD who managed to gather 20 parliamentary seats. What went wrong?
It is a fallacy for SD to blame immigrants for the declining Swedish culture, yet some Swedes have generally moved away from their own traditions. Sometime this year, a Swedish church leader said that the decline in Swedish reproduction is the reason why most of their big churches remained empty, and urged them to procreate.
Immigrants (regardless of their origins) have always been a backup force in the Swedish labor market that lacks the numbers for its operations. Even if SD were to have the mandate of repatriating all the immigrants, there is no way the Swedish economy could survive without foreigners.
In 2006, many Swedes voted for the Alliance because they were tired of the former Prime Minister Göran Persson who did not campaign for more employment opportunities. They felt he had shifted from being the “workers spokesperson” to a capitalist, who did not mind owning a huge retirement home worth millions of Swedish kronor.
Prime Minister Reinfeldt successfully copied some of the Social Democrats’ rhetoric of workers concerns and ended up as the “better devil”, thereby delivering upon his campaign promises, come the recent elections.
The truth that we also see in the so-called “egalitarian Swedish society” is that many are still not ready for a female Prime Minister. This is a controversial point, yet if one read through the lines during the ended campaigns, the mainstream media was harsh on the Social Democratic Party leader, Mona Sahlin, for her past political blunders like using the taxpayer’s money for her trip to Mauritius, and to purchase Toblerone chocolate, more than Reinfeldt’s ministers who were involved in various scandals before he appointed them. Some Swedish people (men and women), were very clear on this basis that Mona Sahlin was not “as strong as Reinfeldt” in representing their interests during the recent campaigns.
Quite a number of immigrants voted for the Alliance because they felt that the delivery of basic services has improved since they began ruling and job opportunities have increased, compared to the Social Democratic era, which favored the welfare system that offered handouts (bidrag) to foreigners.
It is a wait and see situation as the ruling Alliance tries to find its way around by roping in the Green Party for political collaboration, and hopefully not the neo-Nazi Sweden Democrats.
Ahem! So now the Swedes are protesting against the Sweden Democrats party? This is a big joke since they knew of their intention to join Parliament after tasting leadership at the Municipality level in various parts of Sweden.
Were the Swedes ready for a female Prime Minister? Maybe not, yet Sweden forms what is rightly called an equal society for all, regardless of gender. My guess is that if the Social Democratic Party was still being led by a man, many Swedes would have voted wholeheartedly him. Past Social Democratic male leaders weren’t saints, yet kept being voted back. Although Mona Sahlin was already accepted within the Party, there was a personalized feeling on the ground that Reinfeldt was a better leader, and did not need to be replaced by a woman.
In terms of efficiency of service delivery, I see things moving much faster in the current Alliance Government compared to the past Social Democratic leadership. For example, asylum cases are expedited quicker nowadays, instead of taking years then applicants are rejected and subsequently deported, after having adjusted and felt at home in Sweden.
I agree with Makosewe and others that Social Democracy has failed in Europe. The centre-right is gradually taking over by forming coalitions with various political parties. Britain’s recent elections produced such an outcome, a likelihood facing the Swedish ruling Alliance.
For the Swedes to have voted back the Alliance, they have confirmed that they are no longer interested in the Social Democrats, who have always represented solidarity and equality. Although irregularities have been detected in the recent elections, the results still reflect the position of Swedish voters, which is similar to other western Europeans.
It should be noted however that, since the rise in popularity of the New Right and neoliberalism, a number of prominent social democratic parties have abandoned the goal of the gradual evolution of capitalism to socialism, and instead support welfare state capitalism. As noted by Makosewe, the welfare state is not going to survive for long, a notion that the Swedish Social Democrats seem to be clinging upon whenever they search for votes.
Many small business people, especially among the immigrants, are quite satisfied with the improved business environment created by the Alliance, and were recently quite cross with Mona Sahlin’s Party that campaigned on the platform of higher taxes, to maintain the welfare state. How many foreigners want to depend on minimum handouts yet the Alliance is demanding that they should work? Quite a majority wish to work than to depend on ‘bidrag’. Mona Sahlin should have dug deeper to understand such issues before launching her campaign.
A very interesting observation was the “human face” given to Prime Minister Reinfeldt’s campaign posters which portrayed him as the working class representative. His New Moderate Party (in reality the new Conservative Party), was first cleaned up to bear a soft face before his election win in 2006. The hardliner old men were completely phased out and in came a group of young men and women.
Maybe the Social Democrats ought to have shaken up their party leadership and possibly even dropped Mona Sahlin. They could have picked Maria Wetterstrand, the young and articulate Green Party co-leader who collaborates with them. Mona Sahlin is 53 years old, and has been in politics since the age of 25 years. Voters might have been tired of her usual rhetoric, believing that there is nothing new to produce for a progressive Sweden. Although the Green Party is a minority in the centre-left coalition, a drastic political strategy of bringing in a new and scandal-free face like Maria Wetterstrand, might have convinced the Swedes to usher in the Red-Green alliance into Government.
Below is a record of Mona’s political scandals according to a Swedish newspaper. I think the media has also been harsh to her, by reviving these scandals during the ended campaigns.
“Sahlin’s rise to prominence was such that she soon became favorite to succeed Ingvar Carlsson as party leader. After he announced his resignation Sahlin soon became the sole candidate to take over.
That the party would soon receive its first ever female leader seemed little more than a formality.
But it was not to be. At least not yet. In October 1995 a scandal broke that almost ended her political career.
During the ‘Toblerone affair’, as it came to be known, it emerged that Sahlin had purchased a range of goods and services for private use on her ministerial credit card. The chocolate bar that symbolised the scandal was far from the most expensive item on the charge sheet.
She also made thousands of kronor worth of cash withdrawals and paid for private rental cars at her employer’s expense. Sahlin maintained that she intended paying the money back but by then the damage was already done.
In the wake of the initial scandal she was also found to have hired a child minder off the books and had neglected to pay her television licence, offences that cost the careers of two ministers at the beginning of the current government’s term of office.
Unpaid parking and daycare fines were also held up as examples of why she was unfit to lead the land.
Having taken a few weeks off work to consider her options she announced in November 1995 that she was withdrawing her candidacy for the post of party leader. It was only then that Göran Persson stepped up to the breach, before holding on to the top spot until the September 2006 election.
Sahlin gave up her seat in parliament in April 1996, although she did retain her position on the party’s executive committee.
In 1998 she returned to the parliamentary fray. Göran Persson brought her back into the cabinet, where she remained an ever present figure until the party’s election defeat in 2006.
Despite playing her part in successive governments, most recently as minister of sustainable development (2004-2006), many observers considered her days as a major political force to be over.
Even when it became obvious that the Social Democrats wanted a female leader, Sahlin’s troubled past seemed to rule her out of contention.
In fact, during the summer of 2006 she was so far off the pace that bookmaker Ladbrokes was offering odds of 1000/1 on her succeeding Göran Persson as party leader.”
http://www.thelocal.se/6136/20070118/
Sweden Democrats dared to discuss the thorny issue of open-ended immigration, something that neither the centre-left nor the centre-right have tried to touch. The far-right is very present in Belgium and Holland, so Sweden was bound to be influenced with the wave. As discussed by other KSB commentators, the European Social Democrats have lately been losing out or ruling as a minority, thereby opening up grounds for other political parties that work on European sentiments concerning immigration, especially the influx of Muslims.
France, for example, has been facing the wrath of the racist National Party led by old man Jean Marie Le Pen, which has a good presence in regional politics, having garnered almost 12 per cent of the votes in March 2010, after being dismissed as a dead party.
Meanwhile, the French President Sarkozy, is partly blamed for propagating a French “National Identity”, a fact that has driven many French people towards the extremist National Party. The sense of nationalism is also known to continuously affect European sentiment, mostly when a political leader touches upon the increase of Muslims. The French National party is known to support Sweden Democrats.
Recently in the United Kingdom, the British National Party has been open about its position against immigration, a position supported by the Sweden Democrats. Sweden has been dealt a blow by the win of the SD, yet this is also a wake-up call for the Swedes to discuss the ongoing internal and international wrangles concerning the Neo-Nazis.
Hello,
Interesting reading
Tony
An excellent article makosewe. Am glad we have people like you who see capitalism for what it is.
Sweden Democrats are not the problem:
Sweden has joined Europe’s fastest-growing political club: anti-Islamicists who feel they are tapping into the national mood.
They defy social taboos by linking foreigners and violent crime and claim to be standard-bearers of a new patriotism. “What is going wrong with our country?” asked a Swedish commentator yesterday.
In fact, there is trouble brewing on the right in many EU countries. President Sarkozy’s deportation of Roma was intended to send a signal to French National Front sympathisers; in Germany, the theories of a maverick central banker, Thilo Sarrazin, about how immigration is lowering educational standards, have become a rallying call for conservatives.
A similar scenario exists in the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Hungary and elsewhere- and the fundamental error of mainstream parties has been an inability to grasp the nettle of immigration.
Throughout the EU, centre-right parties have been drifting closer to the centre left.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/far-right-growing-fastest-in-europe/story-e6frg6so-1225927315530
Considering how Sweden tries to be like America – as opposed to say Britain, this is quite the opposite of the way they should be going. Anyway – think about it this way, there are some people with certain views and there are enough of them that you shouldn’t really shut them down, let them come out with their views. If we don’t like what they say and everyone else other than the people who voted for them like it, then it’s a form of instruction for us on what to do to be better, and since they are not and will never be a majority, let’s not deny them their voice, if you bottle something down it will explode, so let them have their say. Right now they are the nazi party and they need to prove that they are something other than just nazi so we immigrants don’t have to get so scared since this is Sweden and it takes awhile to sway people. If you had people with feelings like this feeling like they didn’t have a voice, then I think things would be worse for us immigrants. Let’s trust that our ideas and intentions are enough – good enough, inclusive enough that SD does not win the heart and mind of Sweden itself even if they win what 4% – still let’s not minimize that. One of the issues they might bring up is resistance to integration by foreigners – you want to re-build your little village wherever here in Sweden, and yet you left it because you don’t like it. How many of you have Swedish people whom you can call true friends? If you don’t then you should be ashamed of yourself because you are the reason SD is in parliament. You have chosen to live here so build it, and don’t build it into a little version of what you escaped back in Africa that sent you running to this very cold country otherwise you shouldn’t have left in the first place and you might as well go back home – which is how SD is getting it’s votes. The message of this election is integrate, not just for immigrants, but also for Democraterna, whatever you were doing is not enough, you need to reach out to a wider demographic – this is the message.
Immigrants should come forth politically but please make sure you really want to be a part of Sweden and you are not living on “Immigrant Island”, you should be Swedish as in have Swedish friends and connections. Being Swedish does not preclude being African. Can you imagine doing in Kenya what Kenyans do in Sweden? You wouldn’t get anywhere in Kenya – insulated and anti-social towards the natives, speaking the local language with a horrible accent and not bothering to try to improve it, utnyttja the natives and appearing not to form real personal connections with the natives who are in fact human beings and not animals. Let’s act like people who know about human emotions and aspirations and not like animals in survival mode thinking.
Yes, basically I am saying you’re the reason SD is in parliament, now do something about it.
The SD party is not racist! I love it when people are called racist because they don’t agree with you. The SD party wants to preserve Swedish culture. Why is that racist? Do I have to mention the countries where you are not allowed to even be a different religion than the State religion? Why don’t you call them racist? Oh and by the way, exactly what race are immigrants? The SD party has Jews and Muslims as well as many other minorities. How are they racists? Oh right, you don’t agree with them.
If the ‘left’ stopped peddling spurious arguments about the alleged ‘benefits’ of mass immigration and ‘multiculturalism’ then parties such as the Sweden Democrats wouldn’t register any votes at all.
The problem with the pro-immigration lobbyists is that they have no valid arguments to support them, hence they resort to screaming ‘racist’ or ‘Nazi’ at anyone who disagrees within them. They ignore the threat to secularity brought about by ‘multiculturalism’, they ignore the environmental and social problems of continually increasing population density. They ignore that many people simply want their own country to retain its distinct linguistic, national and cultural heritage, as those who resisted the Nazis wanted to do.
There is one point in this I think should be looked at.
It is true that most Swedes will not help someone get a job. When I say help, I mean sit for ten minutes at a computer with someone to show them were to find jobs at online sites, such as arbetsförmedligen (the labor office).
In my case, I have had three Swedish friends point me to work through there contacts. I have also had two friends from SFI point me towards work.
In my case I have always had a large social circle, so it is a bit easier for me in Sweden. However, someone who is not used to dealing with different cultures or people outside there own tight circle is going to have real problems in Sweden.
In Sweden everything is about contacts. If you have no contacts in Sweden, getting a job is close to impossible. You have to be very determined, organised and directed to get a job in Sweden without contacts.
Also in Sweden, there is the issue of blatant ignorance on the part of Swedish personal managers. If a person does not get a post, they do not even send an email or letter telling them they have not got it. Most CVs are sent and no reply or acknowledgement of any kind is recieved. On that issue Swedes need to be taken to task.
In Sweden there is way to much union influence that keeps out good, experienced and qualified workers. They put up deliberate barriers to stop other EU workers getting jobs in Sweden, let alone immigrants from outside the EU.
The other thing that needed in Sweden is a minimum wage. There is a serious level of abuse of immigrants and young people in Sweden by employers. That needs to be stopped by a minimum wage enforced by law.
Yep, Sweden is for the Swedes!
I’ve felt quite outside of the working society in many ways.
I came here age 26 with a 10 year successful career in computers behind me. That was 1988 and as a young skillfill professional I was earning £1 000 a week in London. (That was 10 000 SEK a week back then). The Swedish embassy told me they “always needed computer professionals in Sweden.
My first meeting with the job centre here: They didn’t understand how someone at 26 had already worked for ten years. Where was my education? Well I did it hands on in London, as a trainee I was shown what to do and learnt from the others. By showing a natural talent I was able to advance whilst I was earning. It was the way it was done. But not here. I was totally out of synch with the Swedish way and nobody here could even explain that to me. The job centre advised me to learn more Swedish and gave me the number to the local welfare office to apply for welfare benefits. I refused and said I’d do any job thinking it would help me learn the language.
So my first job here was cleaning feces and puke from the train toilets as I worked as a train cleaner for my first 18 months. Quite a difference from London and £1000 a week but hey it was a job and I thought well “someone’s gotta do it”.
After 18 months my Swedish was judged to be on a par with Swedish “gymnasiet” gradutates so I started applying for computer jobs around the country. My CV had no education listed after 16 years old. Two months later and no job interviews I left the trains and went to go back to school and enrolled on a computer course. On the second day the teachers realised they could learn more from me than they could teach me. They kicked me off the course and employed me on a short term contract to do some computer database security work. This happened 4 times on four different courses. Catch 22, they refused to teach me what I already knew and I couldn’t get a proper job in computers because I hadn’t been to school to learn my Swedish. I logged my future job applications. I applied for 1472 jobs between 1991 and 1998. I was called to 12 interviews. 11 times the job was down to me or a single Swede. On each occasion the Swede was given the job.
I have jumped around from project to project and local jobs with state support through the local job centre and government schemes. I am now 49 and have a contract working with the largest cycling touring company in Scandinavia. Since moving from the UK I have NEVER had a proper permanent job.
Looking back, what I should have done is taken a grant and done a proper uni course and kept my mouth shut about how much I already knew. I could have pretended to study for three years and that would have given me the important bit of paper to prove it.
The phrase I hate the most here “This is the way we do it in Sweden”.
SD are not racists – they’re xenophobic. I suggest you read up on their party programme since none of the points you made in your article is correct. They do not want to stop immigration – they want to decrease the number of immigrants.
When even “gangsta rapper” Ken Ring (whose father is Kenyan btw) says there are too many immigrants in Sweden you know something’s up. Fact of the matter is that Sweden takes in far too many immigrants from cultures far too different from Sweden. This leads to segregation and mass-unemployment. Sweden should lessen immigration so they are able to integrate the new arrivals and the people who are already here.
If you disagree with this you must really be living in your own little world. SD have some extreme ideas (when it comes to Islam) but I definitely understand why they got voted into parliament. None of the other parties talk about integration as a problem in Sweden and this is leaving people with no other option than to vote for SD to show their displeasure.
Why is it that people only complain about immigrants in times of economic downturn? When Swedes were too busy pushing paper to pick potatoes, they were ´open minded´ enough to exploit immigrants’ low-waged labour… Stop bitching. In % terms Sweden is still ridiculously homogenous.
When the majority of Swedes refuse to embrace christianity, and younger generations grow from homes with neither credo nor belief which is genuinely theirs, then these young generation of swedes become gullible and open to the so called islamisation.
It is a shame that SOME Swedes are now blaming Muslims for believing in a Creator whose existence is questioned and spawned by a Majority of Swedes because of the IT revolution and Scientology.
If you can’t build your own churches and actually populate them with practising Christians, then stop blaming Muslims for doing what YOU cannot do-.i.e acknowldege the existence of god.
It isn’t long ago that one pastor lamented in a local paper that Swedes should start going to Church and refrain from Islamic influences. I simply scoffed at his naivety to really believe that for Swedes who dont believe in God, it takes a snapping of the fingers to order them to church to counteract the Muslim surge in YOUR OWN BACKYARD
Islam is not an issue. It is a tool of the neo-fascist movement underpinning the Sverigedemokraterna and their European cronies.
No international connections you say? Wasn’t it their brethren in Denmark who hopped into the argument about their television ads? Effectively demonstrating foreign control of the supposedly nationalist party?
“The party was supported financially in the 1998 general election by the French National Front,[49][50] and for the 2004 European election by Belgian Bernard Mengal.[51][52]” English Wikipedia
Don’t fear the followers of any religion – fear those fanatics who are willing to use fear to gain power. Those who are ideological disciples of Hitler and his followers.
Sverigedemokraterna are vile, evil and disgusting. They are not a political movement or a political party – they are the thin edge of the wedge that very nearly tore the world to pieces during the second world war.
An example of a racist remark by a Sweden Democrat politician, Per T K Wahlberg:
“”For many thousands of years, the Negro could chill out in the heat, eat some bananas, rape some passing woman or child, fight with other negro males and eat them up, play the drums a little, run around a bit, catch an antelope, eat a few bananas, love a bit, get drunk on fermented fruits or herbs, and so on. This has been going on for millennia without any evolutionary pressure in the form of environmental factors forcing the negro to develop in another direction.”
http://current.com/news/92652996_africans-have-child-rape-gene-sweden-democrat.htm
Malmö shooter targeting immigrants: police
Police in Malmö now believe that a dozen or so unexplained shootings which have taken place in the city this year may be connected.
In nearly every case, the shootings have taken place just after nightfall and have targeted people with immigrant backgrounds, Skåne County police spokesperson J-B Cederholm told reporters during a Wednesday morning press conference.
“The two most recent shootings look exactly alike: men of colour have been shot from behind near a bus stop,” said Cederholm, according to the TT news agency.
“One theory is that a single assailant, or several, are focused on people with immigrant backgrounds,” said Cederholm.
http://www.thelocal.se/29720/20101020/
Sverigedemokraterna – vägen till riksdagen 11/11 SVT1 – 21.00
Svensk dokumentärfilm från 2010. Följ med bakom kulisserna hos Sverigedemokraterna. Vi får på nära håll följa deras arbete under valrörelsen 2010 – hur de lade upp sina strategier, hur de hanterade sina kriser och vad media skrev och inte skrev.
Även i SVT1 senare idag, SVT2 13/11 och SVT24 18/11
Textat sid. 199
http://svt.se/2.8742/tv-tabla
Jimmie Åkesson, leader of the racist Sweden Democrats (SD) party, was recently interviewed on BBC’s HARDtalk and he made a real clown of himself with his racist remarks against immigrants in Sweden. Watch the video below.
Some of the commentators who gave support to Åkesson’s bizarre ideology earlier when Osewe wrote the above article on how SD won, I hope you will revise your thoughts because in his eyes, you remain in the eyes of the racists, a mere blackhead “svartskalle”.
HARDtalk video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grtTzSdL22Q
The ruling Moderate Party is a reflection of the SD in its immigration policy. A recent WikiLeaks cable quoted Carl Bildt, the Swedish Foreign Affairs Minister, and Bilström, the Migration Minister, as having said that a majority of Iraqi refugees coming to Sweden after 2003, are valueless to the Swedish economy because they have no qualifications and have difficulties integration because have poor knowledge of the Swedish language.
Original leak in Swedish at Svenska Dagbladet:
“Ministrarna ska enligt amerikanerna dessutom ha påpekat att de flyktingar som anlänt till Sverige efter 2003 var svårare att integrera i samhället, eftersom de kom ”blottställda, lågutbildade, och utan yrkes- eller språkkunskaper”.
Sweden Democrats reject Norway attacks blame
26 Jul 11
Sweden Democrat Erik Hellsborn has written on his blog that the twin attacks in Norway are the fault of “mass immigration” and “Islamisation”, denying that he feels any shame for sharing the same views as the perpetrator.
Hellsborn’s party colleagues have however condemned his argument.
“If there hadn’t been any Islamisation or mass immigration then there wouldn’t have been anything to trigger Behring Breivik to do what he did,” wrote Hellsborn, who represents the party in Varberg in western Sweden.
“The ultimate responsibility is with the perpetrator, but if you are to discuss the underlying reasons which motivated him then it was caused by multiculturalism,” Hellsborn explained to the local Hallands Nyheter daily.
Hellsborn furthermore writes that he feels no shame or guilt that he and Anders Behring Breivik share the same nationalist ideology. Those who should feel guilt are those he calls “cosmopolitans” and argues that “in a Norwegian Norway this tragedy would never have happened”.
The political agenda detailed in Anders Behring Breivik’s “manifesto” bears striking similarity to the ideology professed by the Sweden Democrats and when asked if the the party should shoulder some responsibility, Hellsborn replied:
“No, Breivik is a product of the multicultural society. If Europe had not become multicultural then the shootings would not have happened,” he told Hallands Nyheter.
Sweden Democrats party secretary Björn Söder on Tuesday distanced the party from the Hellsborn’s comments.
“The party does not stand behind the analysis. One should be very careful conducting an analysis at this early stage. And that is something we have communicated to Hellsborn,” Söder told news agency TT.
“Of course no one other than the perpetrator has responsibility for what has occurred,” he said.
The party and its rhetoric has had to shoulder the blame in some quarters of the public debate for contributing to the ideological climate which allowed Behring Breivik’s hatred for society turn into violent acts.
While also recognising that it is Behring Breivik who his responsible for his actions and noting that most of the mainstream anti-Muslim movement discounts violence as a legitimate working method, the anti-racist magazine Expo, is one of the groups who share this view.
“It is impossible to disregard the ideological environment where Behring Breivik has structured his views on society if you want to understand the causes behind the terrorist attack in Oslo the 22 of July,” Expo wrote in a statement on Monday.
“This ideological environment is built up around blogs, websites, networks and ideologues. It reaches into the various european populist right winged parties.”
Björn Söder rejected the assertion that Behring Breivik’s terror manifesto echoed the ideas of the Sweden Democrats, its view on Islam for example, which party leader Jimmie Åkesson has identified as “Sweden’s greatest foreign threat”.
“It’s a big mishmash of lots of things that will justify what he has done. It is especially the contempt of democracy and a fetish for violence that pervades the entire manifesto,” Söder said.
“But of course there is criticism of immigration, but there is also freemason mysticism and conservatism and liberalism. You try to pick parts out of context and attack us, and I think this is just as wrong as when Hellsborn says that multiculturalism has created Breivik,” he said.
Sweden Democrat MP Kent Ekeroth also courted controversy on the evening of the attacks when used his twitter to ask: “Anyone care to guess who is behind the bombs in Norway?.
He was warned by party secretary Björn Söder not to speculate before the cause of the attacks was known, but proceeded to write: “No I am not going to call you Islamophobes”.
Press secretary to Jimmie Åkesson, Linus Bylund, was also quick to draw conclusions, tweeting: “The next bastard who gushes about how sad it is for the nice Muslims when bleeding Norwegians are all over the streets will be blocked”.
By Peter Vinthagen Simpson
Sweden Democrat: ‘a negro is a negro’ to me
Published: 28 Nov 11 16:42 CET
A Sweden Democrat politician in southern Sweden recently made the papers after saying on Facebook that the word “negro” is not a racist term.
“No, for me a negro is a negro. There is nothing negative with that at all,” Annika Rydh of Älmhult, Småland, told local paper Smålandsposten on Monday.
The debate kicked off after Rydh answered the query “Is it racist to say negro?” in a Facebook post. To her, the answer is no.
According to the paper there have been many reports to the Swedish Equality Ombudsman (Diskrimineringsombudsmannen, DO) pertaining to the word and several companies and government agencies have been made to pay damages to people who feel discriminated against when that particular word has been used.
But Rydh told the paper that it is not the word but how it is used that is important.
“It shouldn’t be an insult to be called a negro. There is the red race, the yellow race, and then there’s me, who is of the white race. A negro is a negro. There is nothing demeaning with that,” Rydh told Smålandsposten.
Rydh also told the paper that things have gone too far and that if it continues in this fashion it will soon be impossible to say anything at all.
“We do have freedom of speech in this country, after all,” Rydh told Smålandsposten.
According to Rydh, despite the fact that some may feel the word is demeaning most of the people she knows wouldn’t mind at all. But these are no people of colour, the paper pointed out.
“No, I don’t know many negroes, there aren’t that many in our area,” Rydh told the paper.
She retained the firm belief that it is the context that should determine when it is acceptable to use the term, and if someone feels insulted they should just say so.
Annika Rydh is one of two Sweden Democrats on the municipal council in Älmhult.
The Local/rm
Rydh är “white trash” vita som oftast kommer från “broken homes” or alcoholic homes with abuse of many kinds…she is most likely sexually abused of her own bilogical father/step(plast pappa). this people with this kind of boxminded mentality are not the normal people from loving homes!!!!.
This people always feels comfortable opressing others without feeling guily…they were never given love,and most likey they dont know what love,compassion is.
NORMAL swedish from normal homes are very different and they have EMPATHY and cant even mention the N word because their own värde cant allow them to put those words in their mouth. Even a “normal human being” will feelbad/think twice before vomiting some words….
My BIG QUESTION IS…. there is no “barn aga” in Sweden..but DET FINNS MER SJUKA FOLK HÄR ÄN NÅGON ANNANSSTANS?? värför??? vad är det som hände i deras hem som vi inte vet som gör att nästan alla här är sjuka psykist på ett eller annan sätt?????? vem ha svaret??
om menar att om man slår sina barn,..de blir sjuka i huvud i framtiden??ok man slår inte barn,men hur kommer det sig att Sveriges befolkning är så sjuka? pyskist,pedofiler,alcohol,spel,shopholic,sexmissbrukare,… name it. såna här borde inte förekommer här??
Rydh och company ha svaret…vad blir ni utsatt för som barn som gör att ni blev som blev`?? white strash…loosers…?? berätta för oss kanske vi kommer att förstå er bättre.
kalamari
Sweden Democrats in bid to ‘help’ immigrants leave
Published: 5 Mar 12
Share27 The Sweden Democrats’ youth wing wants to entice jobless immigrants to leave the country by offering them “goodie bags” complete with tips on how to facilitate immigrants’ departure.
The project, entitled “There’s no place like home” (‘Borta bra men hemma bäst’), is designed to allow immigrants the opportunity to better understand the options and possibilities available to help them return to their home soil.
“We are convinced that among the many immigrants in Sweden who have ended up in alienation and social isolation the dream of being able to go back to their home land and reunite with their countrymen is still alive,” wrote the Sweden Democrat youth organization (Sverigedemokratisk Ungdom – SDU) in a statement.
Plans call for the party to distribute 10,000 “goodie bags” filled with USB memory sticks, DVDs, and other information in various languages about how to apply for repatriation grants.
In order to pay for the project, the SDU has applied for 100,000 kronor ($14,957) from the Swedish Migration Board (Migrationsverket), which allows any organization to seek support for repatriation projects.
Should the funding request be approved, the SDU plans on targeting immigrants who have been granted permanent residency in Sweden but have not paid taxes over the past ten years.
“It’s aimed at those who haven’t succeeded in getting a job and fitting in to Swedish culture,” SDU head Gustav Kasselstrand told the Expressen newspaper.
But Migration Board spokesperson Johan Rahm dismissed the SDU bid as mere “propaganda”.
“This looks more like some sort of propaganda statement where they’re trying to persuade people to go back,” he told Sveriges Radio (SR).
According to Rahm, the agency generally receives funding requests from organizations with “deep” ties to other countries that are focused on helping diaspora populations and people that were forced to flee from their home countries.
Speaking with Expressen, Rahm argued that SDU’s plans were “a way to draw attention to their politics, not to help people who dream of returning” to their home countries.
The Local/og
‘Ban Islam in Sweden’: Sweden Democrat
Published: 26 Aug 2012
“Ban Islam in Sweden and deport those who persist in believing in the religion”, said Pär Norling, group leader of the Sweden Democrats (SD) in Bollnäs, in an interview with national broadcaster Sveriges Television (SVT).
The neo-nazi Swedish Resistance Movement (Svenska Motståndsrörelsen) marched in the central Swedish town of Bollnäs earlier this summer, after a controversial rape case had rocked the community.
On Saturday they marched again and anti-racist protests were held nearby.
Swedish Democratic Norling said he disapproves of Nazism, but by and large considers it a by-product of immigration. He also agrees with the neo-nazi movement that Islam has no place in Sweden.
“That can exist elsewhere but in Sweden it doesn’t fit in,” he said to Sweden’s national television SVT.
When asked what ought to be done with those who still want to believe in the religion, despite it being banned, Norling responded:
“Then the solution is deportation.”
This is the second time in just days that Swedish Democratic politicians have landed themselves in hot water.
On Friday, the Swedish Democrat Sven-Erik Karlsson commented on the harassment Somalian families have been suffering from teens in the town Forserum, in southern Sweden, saying that all Swedish municipalities ought to have gangs to harass refugees.
After the furore that followed, Karlsson resigned his position on Saturday.
TT/The Local/cg
‘White working-class men drive European fascism’
Published: 20 Nov 2013
Are the Sweden Democrats a one-trick pony? And if not, are they left or right or something else? A new report from liberal think tank Timbro into their actual policies tried to find out.
Eva Cooper, the journalist who penned the new report “Folkhem Populism in Practice” (ed’s note: Folkhem is the old Swedish term for the welfare state), examined the party policies on labour, taxes and welfare. She found a mixed bag. The ensuing panel, with reporter Ann Tiberg and author Marcus Uvell, also tried to locate where on a traditional left-right political scale one can place the Sweden Democrats.
Being a one-trick pony has its problems and according to the report, the party has tried to be place itself in the political middle in other areas in order not to scare off voters. In her report, Cooper identified three subsections of Sweden Democrat voters – former Social Democrats (workers’ party), former Moderates (conservatives), and former non-voters.
The average voter is male, European-origin, and working class. Not surprising, author and debate panelist Marcus Uvell pointed out at Tuesday’s event.
“Across Europe, ‘fascism’ is driven by white working-class men,” he said, embracing the word fascism with an air quote. Yet he was also quick to debunk the idea that all Sweden Democrat voters are racists. “Maybe 2-3 percent of the Swedish population are hardcore racists. Others may be prejudiced or feel fear and worry. They might be scared of Islam, but have nothing against a person with darker skin.”
Cooper added that many readers who contacted her, in her role as political editor at a local paper, pointed out they weren’t really voting for the Sweden Democrats, but were disgruntled with mainstream politics and thus “voting against the other parties”.
TV4 News political reporter Ann Tiberg, one of the panelists at Tuesday’s debate, said an opinion poll carried out by the party itself a few years ago found 25 percent of the Swedish people were “potential” voters. How to appeal to that one in four Swedes demographic? the party asked itself. One way was to not be a one-trick pony.
“They time and again try to lower the thresholds to attract voters whose main issue is not migration,” Tiberg said.
For example, the party this year said it wants the state to go in and help the counties and municipalities shore up full-time employment for its employees. That is a battle fought traditionally by the left and for women, the panelists pointed out. One third of Swedish women work part-time, while one in ten Swedish men do, party leader Jimmie Åkesson wrote in an op-ed this year.
“Åkesson himself said it was time to appeal to women,” Cooper pointed out.
They may also, Uvell argued, be able to attract some old-fashioned Swedes like his own father – a man who wants low taxes, a strong military, and thinks quota system for women on company boards is fiddlesticks. The kind of voter that thinks the Moderates – in charge of the current conservative coalition government – is too meek (imagine Tory backbenchers).
“There is a potential for value-conservative voters,” said Uvell.
Yet in reality, which Cooper’s report showed, the Sweden Democrats tend very clearly to the mainstream left on the scale when it comes to one area – labour. For example, it wants to curb labour migration in favour of temporary guest worker visas – a line touted by the main blue-collar trade union LO.
So how do you shrug the one-issue stamp? There are other examples, the obvious being the Greens, who like the Sweden Democrats do not fear (at times, Tiberg pointed out, even appeared to relish) playing across party boundaries both to the left and right.
The panelists said many one-issue or mono-profile parties became acceptable to a wider audience only after cleaning up some of their more hardcore ideas. For the Greens, it was their criticism of economic growth. For the Christian Democrats, the panelists said that perhaps it was letting go of the party’s anti-abortion stance that earned it Svenssen (Average Joe) credibility on the Swedish political landscape.
What would the Sweden Democrats need to do to clean up their act in the eyes of a larger swath of the voters?
“Maybe if they said they wanted to cut immigration by 30 percent rather than 90 percent,” TV4 political reporter Ann Tiberg queried. “If they became more realistic.”
Ann Törnkvist