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Thoughts on the Elections in Sweden
by Fjordman
Sweden held national elections on September 14, 2014. As was expected beforehand, the ruling coalition government of Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt announced defeat and will step down, after having been in power since 2006. Sweden’s likely new Prime Minister is the Social Democrat Stefan Löfven. However, the Sweden Democrats, the only significant political party to oppose the ongoing mass immigration and widely demonized by the mainstream media for doing so, became the country’s third-largest party at nearly 13 percent. They entered parliament for the first time in 2010. Since the other parties have vowed to isolate the SD, this could make the formation of a new government challenging.
The election campaign in 2014 marked the first time when established politicians from other parties admitted that mass immigration actually costs a lot of money. It’s not at all “good for the economy”, a lie that has been systematically repeated for decades. It is likely that the presence of the Sweden Democrats has finally forced the other parties to at least hint that there could be problems related to mass immigration.
The establishment still does not give a full account of just how much it costs, though. Even very low estimates indicate that the current Third World mass immigration costs the country tens of billions of kroner every single year. A higher estimate indicates that immigration could cost Swedish taxpayers a couple of hundred billion kroner annually, after the cost of rising crime and other factors are included in the calculations. The natives are thereby funding their own colonization and gradual displacement. This bill keeps rising year by year.
Over the years, I have probably written at least as much about Sweden as about Norway, despite being Norwegian myself. Sweden is the largest country in the Nordic region. When people from other parts of the world refer to the Scandinavian welfare state model, they sometimes call it the Nordic model or the Scandinavian model. Often, however, they simply refer to it as the Swedish model.
Perhaps that is one of the primary reasons why Sweden is currently disintegrating at a rapid pace. Swedes have created the self-image that their country may not be a very large country, but it is a very important country. A model society for all of mankind, a kind of humanitarian superpower.
The European countries where the ethnic displacement of the native population has gone the furthest are France and Britain, especially England. Yet at least these nations once oversaw large colonial empires in other parts of the world. Sweden has never had an extensive colonial history outside of Europe. Nor is it situated geographically close to Africa or the Middle East, the way Spain, Italy and Greece are. The Mediterranean region is now being hit by a continuously rising wave of illegal immigrants from Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia.
Sweden’s gradual disintegration is primarily due to ideology. Even some illegal immigrants who get a toehold in southern European countries such as Greece quickly want to move on to northern Europe. These countries have more generous welfare states, with Sweden being one of the most generous of all.
The Sweden Democrats have more than doubled in size between 2010 and 2014. Is this good news? By all means, yes. Will it halt Sweden’s descent into the abyss? Probably not. It may not even slow it down by much, since all of the other parties are entirely in favor of mass immigration, including the so-called conservatives. After all, 87% of Swedish voters in 2014 still voted for more mass immigration.
The demographic changes in Sweden that have been set in motion are astonishingly rapid. Absorbing 100,000 immigrants or more every year is a lot for a small Scandinavian nation. Many of these newcomers will bring relatives or spouses from their original homelands. Unless some serious changes happen soon, young ethnic Swedes today will live to be turned into a minority in their own country. A few minor cosmetic changes to immigration policies is no longer enough. The time for that is now past. Of course, neither Sweden nor other European countries can regain effective control over their borders and legislation until they leave the EU.
I have been arguing for a decade now that Sweden’s suicidal immigration policies are so bad that it should be viewed as a potential threat to the economy, stability and security of neighboring countries. I stand by that assessment.
It takes only a short drive by car across one bridge to travel from southern Sweden to Denmark’s capital city, Copenhagen. Finland, too, shares a land and sea border with Sweden. The country that is most at risk of importing Sweden’s diversity problems on top of its own, however, is Norway. Norway shares a land border of more than 1,600 kilometers with Sweden. Due to its considerable oil wealth, it is also the wealthiest of the Scandinavian nations.
Sweden still has money and is not bankrupt. Not yet. The authorities have many productive citizens they can squeeze for taxes to pay the bills. This will not last forever, however. Not under the increasing burdens of costs related to immigration and population replacement.
Despite this, there is hesitation in Norway to talk openly about Sweden’s problems and how this may affect others. Symptomatically, when the Swedish artist Dan Park was sentenced to six months in jail in the summer of 2014 because the authorities did not like his art, this triggered many critical articles in newspapers in Denmark. In Norway, the case largely met with silence.
I called Sweden “soft-totalitarian” in some of the essays I published years ago. Frankly speaking, I am not so sure about the soft part. If a state sentences an artist to six months in jail simply because it does not approve of his art, then it is totalitarian, plain and simple.
I have Swedish friends who are horrified about what is going on and do their best to halt the downward spiral. This is not an easy task in a society where you risk being fired from your job, and perhaps physically assaulted by left-wing extremists in your own home, simply for opposing your own national destruction. I will continue to support Swedes who do good work. However, for outsiders, Sweden is no longer a model country. It has now become a case study in national self-destruction, and a cautionary tale of what not to do.
It is not certain whether even voting for the Sweden Democrats is now enough to turn things around in Sweden. That being said, at least Swedish voters have one significant party represented in Parliament that is serious about substantially reducing the flow of immigration. It is not clear whether this remains true of Norway.
Between 2013 and 2014, the right-wing Progress Party for the first time entered into government in Norway. Admittedly, Prime Minister Erna Solberg is from the Conservative Party. This is also a minority government that needs support from other parties. As the junior partner in a minority government, one cannot expect the Progress Party to perform miracles. Yet they could at least do something. If not, they should acknowledge this and resign. So far, they have done almost nothing to reduce a rate of mass immigration that has made Oslo one of the fastest-growing cities in Europe. The Danish People’s Party in Denmark has had a greater influence over the country’s immigration policies outside of government than the Progress Party in Norway has had within government.
After the partial failure of the Progress Party, many Norwegians ask themselves whether there is a single party represented in their Parliament that is serious about reducing mass immigration. In this respect, Norway could actually be worse than Sweden.
For a complete archive of Fjordman’s writings, see the multi-index listing in the Fjordman Files.
I can think of two times when Sweden (or “pre-Sweden”) was truly important to the rest of the world. The first time was during the Viking age, when the “Swedes” went west while the others raided south to the north coast of Europe and down the coast to what are now France and the British isles. With this choice, they made themselves an immutable part of Russian/Ukrainian history.
The second time was the explosive eruption of Gustavus Adolphus on the scene of the Thirty Years’ War, tipping the scales one more time in the see-saw contest.
That the homeland of the “Rus” has been transformed by what it perceived to be its “humanity” from a formidable warrior society to a haven for PC, MC apologists whose boldest act is running naked from a sauna to jump into the snow is a pathetic comment on the progress of Western mankind.
The only believable solution to slow down and turn the tide is to abolish the so called “welfare” portions of these societies. Fully and for everyone. Since most voters currently are not willing to consider that as the solution for a problem most will not even recognize as such, the observed trends will continue in the same direction. The Balkanisation of the Nordic area becomes more likely by the year, together with other parts of Europe. And that happening peacefully is unlikely.
No no, outleft the Left. Increase the welfare state, or even demand a guaranteed minimum income. Welfare protects against political job loss. Gulf States have welfare for their own people. They are the opposite of multicultural.
The problem with that solution is that eventually “we” will run out of other peoples money to spend, with dire economic consequences during the action. “Free” money is always stolen from someone, through taxes and/or inflation. The receiver being an ethnic nationalist or economic refugee will not change that fact.
Agreed. That’s a hard, hard lesson to learn. But all Western countries will be learning it, within a generation at the outside.
Hi
I´m a Swede and have voted on Sverigedemokraterna since the election back in -98.
Yesterday did I celibrate with champange that we have 13% of the voters and are 3 largest party:-)
Very informative essay by Fjordman, the slow decline of Sweden is an object lesson for other Western societies. I once assumed that the “Anglosphere” countries would be more resistant to the dysfunctions of Multiculturalism, after Rotherham, I’m not so sure.
Mass immigration in the West has two powerful advocates–the business and multiculti lobbies, neither really cares about the increasing tax burden on the Middle Class, since, for different reasons, neither pays anywhere near their fair share of total tax revenues. Sooner or later ‘Middle Sweden’ will get the message, probably far too late.
“A model society for all of mankind, a kind of humanitarian superpower”, that is an important observation which perhaps provides the explanation for the political elite’s refusal to face reality.
I first learned of the transformation of Swedish society by reading the English translations of Henning Mankell’s “Wallander”detective stories.
Very informative article, though Ive known about Sweden’s lamentable decline for some time, it does sadden me still.
On irish radio today there was an interview with the irish times correspondant from Berlin, he spoke of the recent local elections in germany and yesterdays swedish ones….he described the sweden decomcrat party as neo-nazi like and that was what stuck in my mind and probably all listener’s. As an irishman Im truely sick of the left’s blanket approach to certain topics, I see the rapid transformation of my country’s ethnic makeup and no one seems to notice or care what will happen to us, our culture and heritage!!!! I see our young people having to leave through lack of opportunity and at the same time foreigners come in the other door to replace them….
In the 60’s and 70’s Sweden, with international hero Olaf Palme, was the Left’s alternative to the Soviet form of Marxism. All the soft-left Westerners viewed Sweden as the perfect model. Sweden fell in love with its progressive status. Soft-lefties in England, Netherlands and Germany (with New World trend followers) all wanted to outdo Sweden in some way. They discovered Multiculturalism and went at it like there was no tomorrow (no pun intended). England seemed especially keen due to its “shameful” legacy of colonialism. France went Multiculti out of a desire to recapture some international importance or at least some prestige in north and west Africa.
It seems that Sweden (and following suit, Norway) looked on at this and said to itself: hang we’re far more progressive and tolerant than any of them! This is OUR gig being the most moral and kind nation. So in trying to outdo the rest of Europe they opened the floodgates to Arabs, Maghrebs, Turks, Somalis, etc.
Surely at some point some of the saner heads in the mainstream Moderate Party will begin to quietly differ from the consensus and say: maybe the SD’s have a point – immigration does cost us a lot of money.
When such people embark upon lunatic policies there is little chance that something like fiscal reality will even enter their minds, let alone sway them. Only the “pitiless crowbar of events” of which Solzhenitsyn spoke will usher in lasting change.
Look at the avalanche of excellent writing available almost anywhere in the world. Does it threaten any leftist lunatic structure? No. Salvationist parties in Europe and the U.K. measure progress in millimeters.
People will move heaven and earth to appear to be in the right and to be justified and be able to say “I told you so”. So we get he “inversion” where good is evil and evil is good.
The real heroes of society are those who can turn around and say “I was wrong”, these people are very rare indeed, especially amongst well paid, well fed elites who do not have to live in the churning morasses that they have created.
Socialists tend to be proto-aristocrats, they want to be the Lords of the Manor and to practice a ‘noblesse oblige’, and if the ‘working classes’ reject the neo-aristos, then bring in the fuzzy-wuzzies instead.
Spot on as usual Fjordman. I think we can only conclude the Left is both evil and mentally unable to deal with reality. Leftism purports to promote social justice and equality, but in reality it does not. What they want is economic and social breakdown in order to win the “final battle” and inflict totalitarian Communism on the country.
What else explains their behaviour? They claim to love the Scandinavian welfare model, but they are not so utterly stupid that they cannot do some basic maths. If you replace a tax-paying population with a tax-eating population, the economy will implode and the country will be destroyed.
This is not a possibility, it is a 100% fact. Swedish Leftists are essentially pre-revolutionary anarchists who NEED destruction in order to carry out their revolution. As Marx once said (I think it Marx….) “I shall stand astride the wreckage a colossus.”
But unfortunately for these crazed revolutionary wannabees, Islam will eat them. Pure and simple. As I say, they are not just evil, they are insane.
I was asked the other day when I thought [intemperate speculation redacted] would start, given our terrible future coupled with the Leftist refusal to allow us to publicly air our views.
Pretty soon, I replied. It is inevitable. And it is quite possibly the only way the Left will pay any attention whatsoever.
If every immigrant to Sweden was a Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Chinese, and so on, there wouldn’t be too many lasting problems. These people integrate eventually and move up the income scale and off welfare. We all know what the problem is, and it’s Islam.
Yes, some Muslims live quiet and productive lives, and aren’t particularly interested in conquering territory for the expanding Ummah. However, it’s often the case that their children “rediscover” their religious roots, and cause problems. The key is to limit immigration from Muslim countries, even if that discriminates against some people who have no interest in religion or politics.
Only war with a Spanish solution as the endgame stands a chance.