Out new Scandinavian correspondent Bogiman sends an analysis of the current Swedish political crisis, and traces its origins back almost a century to Sweden’s Folkhemmet.
Swedish Democracy in crisis
by Bogiman
Sweden has been a byword for a modern, liberal and progressive country since the middle of the last century. The ‘Swedish Model’ welfare state set a glowing example for the rest of Europe to emulate. But behind the facade of this idyllic Scandinavian nation lurks a dark past and the promise of a very bleak future indeed.
In recent years the spotlessly clean stainless steel and glass cities have been slowly transforming into shabby, crime-ridden third world hellholes surrounded by ghettoes where the police, fire brigade and ambulance services dare not go except in force.
Riots, arson and pitched battles with the police have become a feature of Swedish city life and wise Swedes keep well away from the ghettos. The less wise who do venture too close can find themselves beaten and robbed. Women who walk the streets alone or innocently wander into one of the once peaceful parks and gardens that are a feature of many Swedish cities can find themselves violently attacked, beaten and raped. Swedish rape statistics are the worst in Europe and one of the worst in the world.
The transformation that has taken place in Sweden in just a few decades is startling and in order to understand what has gone wrong it is necessary to look into Sweden’s past.
In 1928 the politician and future prime minister Per Albin Hansson introduced the concept of the ‘Folkhemmet’ or ‘Peoples Home’ into Swedish politics. His revolutionary vision was to transform Sweden from a poor and class-ridden country into a model society where all citizens were equal and everyone worked together for the common good. And Hansson’s vision succeeded far beyond his dreams.
Sweden was rapidly transformed into the most modern and progressive country in the world. With everyone, from labourers and cleaning ladies to technicians and managers feeling they were all part of the same great enterprise, poverty was all but banished from Sweden. Free health care for all and a comprehensive benefits system was paid for by rapidly expanding industry as standards of living rocketed.
Sweden truly became the envy of Europe. But there was a dark side to the success story.
Throughout the periods immediately before and after the Second World War Sweden was in the grip of a racial mass hysteria. There was to be no place in the Folkhemmet for inferior races who would pollute the Swedish stock or for degenerates and non-conformists who would upset the harmony. Dark hordes of sub-humans were seen as a threat to the Nordic ideal.
To protect themselves from this threat, the Swedish parliament in 1935, without protest or opposition and with the blessing of the State church, passed laws calling for the sterilisation of inferior racial types, vagabonds, gypsies and the socially undesirable.
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Perhaps even more chilling, if that is possible, ‘showing opposition to authority’ was considered evidence of ‘feeble mindedness’ and could lead directly to the operating table.
The racial purity policy continued until 1976 and during this time the health service apparatus, doctors, nurses and officials, complied without question or complaint in the forced sterilisation of 60,000 people, mostly young women and girls.
Thoughtless submission to authority and a weakening of individual identity was one of the results of having been raised in the Swedish Folkhemmet. It came to be regarded as a virtue. Swedes became terrified of being thought different and their highest ideal was to be like everyone else. If any unfortunate person went against the consensus and questioned or, even worse, opposed authority he was immediately branded a dangerous idiot. He would be shouted down by all and everyone, who by doing this could show their solidarity and identification with the ‘sensible’ majority. What constituted ‘sensible’ could never be questioned, since anyone who did so, by definition, was not ‘sensible.’
This mindless conformity is a very dangerous state of mind and can lead to catastrophic social and political consequences. It is a state of mind that is now leading to the destruction of Sweden as a nation.
After the racial purity sterilisation programme was abandoned in 1976, Sweden, suffering from pangs of guilt, did a 180 degree turn and decided to become the world’s conscience. Sweden was to become the most tolerant country on Earth. The gates were opened wide to third world immigration.
From being one of the most homogenous countries in Europe, Sweden was to become multicultural and the whole nation enthusiastically embraced the new ideology as only Swedes can do.
As immigrants and asylum seekers flooded into the country in massive numbers to enjoy the bonanza of lavish benefits a generous Swedish government showered upon them, the nature of Sweden began to change. Ghettos sprang up around the main cities and parts of Sweden began to be more like Mogadishu, Algiers and Baghdad than Sweden. But this did not deter the Swedes. United behind the new national project, newcomers were enthusiastically welcomed in however large numbers they came.
Dissenting voices were shouted down with howls of ‘racist’ and ‘xenophobe’ even ‘Nazi.’ No criticism was permitted as Swedes competed with each other to show who was the most tolerant and multicultural. In a remarkable display of national debasement and commitment to the new diverse Sweden, the Swedish Parliament even abolished Swedish history.
In a motion to Parliament in 1997 the Swedish Government declared that: ‘Because a large group of people have their origin in another country, the Swedish people do not have a common history. Being a part of modern Sweden and identification with its basic values therefore has more relevance for integration than a common historical origin.’[1]
Inevitably, as the quality of life in Sweden has deteriorated and as its economy and social services groan and creak under the burden of massive immigration, some dissenting voices are beginning to make themselves heard.
But in ultra-conformist Sweden, no dissent is tolerated.
In a climate of repression more reminiscent of the old Eastern European Communist states, the entire Swedish establishment has mobilised to neutralise all critics. Democracy itself is coming under threat in Sweden and free speech is being closed down.
The situation in Sweden has become so intolerable that Sweden’s neighbours are becoming uneasy. Fears have been expressed in Denmark and Norway about the coming Swedish elections, in which the small immigration-critical party, the Sweden Democrats, are facing censorship and exclusion more worthy of a Communist dictatorship than a Scandinavian country.
Representatives of the governing parties in Denmark have said that freedom of speech and the electoral process are under threat in Sweden and have called for election observers to be sent there to ensure that democracy is upheld. In Norway a spokesman for the second largest party in the Norwegian parliament has said that there is something seriously wrong with Swedish law if it supports such censorship.
The Swedish elections to be held on 19-9-2010 are of immense importance not only for Sweden, but for the rest of Europe. The unheard of criticism of a fellow Nordic country by Sweden’s neighbours, together with the Sweden Democrats possibly gaining some seats in Parliament, might just break the hypnotic spell of multiculturalism that has held Sweden in its grip for over two decades. If it does not then Sweden will likely disappear forever as a modern, European nation.
[1] | Regeringens proposition 1997/98:16 Sverige, framtiden och mångfalden — från invandrarpolitik till integrationspolitik — Author’s translation. |
If the elections were held 19/8/2010, what was the outcome then?
From the article, “In a motion to Parliament in 1997 the Swedish Government declared that: ‘Because a large group of people have their origin in another country, the Swedish people do not have a common history. Being a part of modern Sweden and identification with its basic values therefore has more relevance for integration than a common historical origin.’”
But in another thread, Zenster denies that racial/national origin of a country’s citizens should have any relevance to the heroes they celebrate, the history they learn and the traditions they honor.
Zenster thinks the Swedes should have demanded that the Muslim immigrants adopt Swedish history, culture, etc. But how? Would he have had the Swedes teach swarthy little Mohammed about his blond, burly forefathers who terrorized the North and manned the longboats until Christianized in the 10th century and recruited for Crusades against the Muslims into the 12th? Really? How long do you think even a 6 year old Muslim boy would believe a farce like that? It’s just embarrassing.
pete —
Sorry, that was a typo — my fault. When I formatted the date I messed it up. It should have said September 19.
Bartholow-
If a country’s cultural identity is so repugnant that an immigrant can’t possibly integrate then why did they move there? The answer is painfully obvious…
You talk of a “Muslim Boy” that couldn’t possibly relate. Well, there are plenty of countries in which he could “relate” a whole lot better. Why didn’t his family settle there?
Can you answer that? I can…
This goes to show that, if you make a mistake or commit a sin (as with the racial purity and eugenics), the proper response it NOT to turn around 180 degrees only to commit the OPPOSITE sin (in this case, welcoming one’s enemies into one’s bosom).
Because a large group of people have their origin in another country, the Swedish people do not have a common history.
BTW, I find this to be some of the worst tripe and horribly destructive garbage that I have heard in a long time.
Basically, the power elites are saying that any and all history of this proud nation is now out the window because they have allowed an unsustainable number of immigrants into the country to destroy their cultural identity…
This is OK? Because of why??? Because a young muslim male doesn’t want to identify? Send the whole family back to their cultural roots. Although poverty stricken, they will be much more comfortable there culturally…
I think the larger question is why does the western culture think they need to capitulate to others, refugees from failed states?
Do you really think western culture needs to bend to the sensibilities of its immigrant populations? Is that really the best course of action?
If their culture were so great they wouldn’t be flooding western nations with immigration. Does that make any sense at all to the power elites? Or is this just about power and votes and we have bent ourselves around the bush to such a degree that the common man is talked into this type of accomodation at the expense of his great western heritage?
Apparently, the Swedes who have settled in America are made of sterner stuff. There is enormous pride in being Americans of Swedish decent. They are a manly race among men in this country. But then, most Swedes came over to America in the 19th century, when people of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds tended to be made of sterner stuff. Even the French!
Babs wrote,
“If a country’s cultural identity is so repugnant that an immigrant can’t possibly integrate then why did they move there?”
Well, this is the hazard of continuing one thread onto another. My apologies.
My point was actually the opposite, Babs. The immigrants are not coming to Sweden because they “want to integrate” and trying to force them to integrate, a la Zenster, is impossible anyway for the reasons I and the Swedish Parliament itself cited above.
The answer? Send them home. And yes, of course it’s possible. Following World War II, tens of millions of people were shuffled across Europe. Many died, that’s true. But many are dying now, and I am not one of those who value the lives of innocents less than the lives of the guilty.
bartholomewscross: How long do you think even a 6 year old Muslim boy would believe a farce like that? It’s just embarrassing.
You are using a strawman argument:
Would he have had the Swedes teach swarthy little Mohammed about his blond, burly forefathers…
Exactly whose “forefathers” are you talking about? Your recent immigrant, “little Mohammed”, certainly had no Swedish “forefathers”, so the entire question is both irrelevant and misdirecting.
What it would help for “little Mohammed” to learn about is Sweden’s native culture and, as a newly minted citizen of that country, how to feel some pride for being a member of such a nation of achievements.
Or, put another way:
babs: If a country’s cultural identity is so repugnant that an immigrant can’t possibly integrate then why did they move there? The answer is painfully obvious…
Which was largely how I put it over in the “Strangers in Our Own Country” thread: (which should have been linked to)
“What’s more, the simple fact remains that immigration to the West is a frank admission that Western culture is superior. Those who seek to maintain otherwise even as they arrive on Westerrn shores are the worst sort of hypocrites and, all too frequently, seditious traitors.”
You can’t have it both ways. Immigrants cannot hope to find a better life in the West while simultaneously importing their corrupt, graft riddled, illiterate cultural norms with them and then not expect to encounter some hostility.
Even relatively hardcore Liberals usually cannot stomach the realities of their own Multicultural preachings. I don’t see many Democratic party members encouraging their daughters to marry Somalian immigrants so that they can validate their Liberal credentials.
Much of this nonsense arising from importing cultural enrichers is just as often accompanied by a hefty dose of NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard). A trait that Liberals are particularly famous for.
bartholomewscross: My point was actually the opposite, Babs. The immigrants are not coming to Sweden because they “want to integrate”…
Then they’re not really immigrating now, are they?
Call a spade a spade and enough with all this prinking about over semantics.
A vast majority of the time Muslims are not “immigrants”. They are colonizers. In fact, those Muslims who do manage to integrate are MINOs (Muslims In Name Only) and more pious Muslims would just as soon kill them.
Intentionally or not, you continue to muddle the discussion by splitting hairs where there are none to be split.
It also came across as a bit disingenuous to say:
Well, this is the hazard of continuing one thread onto another.
When, in fact, you were the one to do so without the courtesy of providing a link. You did have the decency to apologize for it so I’m not going to make any more of an issue over it.
babs: You talk of a “Muslim Boy” that couldn’t possibly relate. Well, there are plenty of countries in which he could “relate” a whole lot better. Why didn’t his family settle there?
Can you answer that?
babs is not the only one who is curious about what your answer might be.
In hoc signo vinces
… Sweden was in the grip of a racial mass hysteria. There was to be no place in the Folkhemmet for inferior races who would pollute the Swedish stock …
So what was the cause or motivator of their racial mass hysteria at that time?
4Symbols: So what was the cause or motivator of their racial mass hysteria at that time?
The Swedish eugenics movement probably served as a binary component of disguised racism that was, later on, fully stigmatized by the Nazi Aryan ideal.
While Denmark − and it’s blond-haired, blue-eyed population − very bravely showed Hitler the rigid digit, Sweden had a far less “neutral” role in WWII than many might assume.
The Swedish Institute for Racial Biology was opened in Stockholm in the early 1920s. It emerged as part of a worldwide interest in eugenics–the notion that human stock could be improved by selective breeding, much like cattle. From the start, the Swedish institute was fascinated with the notions of racial purity, which were to be made notorious by the Nazis. The Swedish institute invited German speakers on Aryanism. [emphasis added]
Lingering guilt may well have seen Sweden’s moral steering given a 180 degree turn in yet another bad direction towards indiscriminate admission of immigrants. This is much in the same way that other European nations opened their doors in atonement for previous colonial misdeeds (perceived or otherwise).
Considering that Sweden continued its nasty eugenics policy all the way until 1976, this might explain the significant over-reaction that is now seen.
In hoc signo vinces
Thanks Zenster.
So in (false)atonement the Swedish elite reached for the multicultural hemlock.
What is striking is the apparent ease that the political elite moved from one extreme to the other in a relatively short period of time.
I didn’t know about Sweden’s “recent” past with Eugenics etc, it was an eye opener for me.
Still, I can’t understand why so many of the European cultures, the Swedes, Dutch, French, Germans, English, etc. all seem to have such self loathing, such little regard for, or pride in their own cultural heritage, that they seemingly allow their cultures to become infected with an ideology as insidious, obnoxious and barbaric as Islam. I just don’t get it!
Pete, please see the 60s Baby Boomer counter cultural New Leftism.
Then realize that these folks have marched through our insitutions, especially the media and education systems.
Dissenting voices were shouted down with howls of ‘racist’ and ‘xenophobe’ even ‘Nazi.’ No criticism was permitted
As a Gen X’er.. this was my experience in the public school system. After reading the above article, I now refer my public school days as my own personal Sweden.
Given the horrible group-think of so many of my generation, it will be a miracle if the entire country does not go the route of Sweden.
In a rigid society, social change happens rarely, but with the energy of a major earthquake. (See history of Japan). When Sweden abandoned institutional racism/eugenics, the old political leadership will have been thoroughly discredited, and faced with the choice between abject surrender to the new order, or oblivion and decimation of reputation, or worse. After the death of Stalin, a similar choice will have faced the upper crust of the communist party.
Perhaps the culture enrichers are doing us a favor – destroying a cancerous tumor within the body of western civilization and at the same time stimulating the immune system of that same body.
The Swedes would have been better off reading ‘THE COUNTERFEIT TRAITOR”.
And saying no to cultural suicide, post-1976.
Inviting in those who will replace them may be a temporary tool to soothe their guilty consciences, but it will also end their national existence.
A devil of a bargain to atone for a bad period in one’s history.
Zenster wrote,
“What it would help for “little Mohammed” to learn about is Sweden’s native culture and, as a newly minted citizen of that country, how to feel some pride for being a member of such a nation of achievements.”
As I’ve said repeatedly, little Mohammed cannot feel pride in a nation of which he is not a member.
You casually tell him to be proud of being a member of Sweden…as if it were his choice? As if he could just decide to be a Swede? He can no more decide to be Swedish than he can decide to have an IQ of 150 or decide to be a descendent of Leif Erikson. It’s a matter of birth, not choice. I really cannot make this any clearer.
Zenster wrote,
“You can’t have it both ways. Immigrants cannot hope to find a better life in the West while simultaneously importing their corrupt, graft riddled, illiterate cultural norms with them.”
Oh for crying out loud, do you think I’m some leftist? Let me put this as clearly as I can: Neither their culture nor their persons belong in the West, period. Third World immigrants should not be coming into Europe. And those that are there should go home. Why? As I keep trying to tell you, those immigrants will bring their culture with them, every time. They will not teach their children absurd falsehoods about being descended from Vikings, or whatever. They will tell them their own true heritage (Turkish, Arab, Nigerian, whatever), and once they fully replace the native Europeans, the native European cultures will be gone, finito, terminated.
Babs asked,
“You talk of a “Muslim Boy” that couldn’t possibly relate. Well, there are plenty of countries in which he could “relate” a whole lot better. Why didn’t his family settle there?
Can you answer that?”
Indeed. He and his family didn’t settle in another Muslim country because they couldn’t make as much money there.
bartholomewscross: Oh for crying out loud, do you think I’m some leftist?
No, but you keep on conflating honest immigration with Islamic colonization (i.e., hijra). Please stop blurring these two entirely different matters.
One has the possibility of being useful and constructive while the other clearly does not.
“laws calling for the sterilisation of inferior racial types, vagabonds, gypsies and the socially undesirable”
Well, the swedes weren’t the only ones, and euthanasia was a everywhere. Not remarkable at all, of course; unless you grew to believe the dogma that Hitler was a rightist; he was a socialist – meddling fools love to meddle: whether it is the economy, the culture or the climate, statists think the state should and could build the ideal word. With them at the helm of course.
Well if Hitler was a socialist, then it is necessary to define the word socialist. Is a socialist in this context the same as a communist?
I’d say Hitler was a fervent anti-communist. The Nazi party’s main enemies in Germany in the 1930’s were all communists and leftwing agitators. Communists were also executed in Germany during WW2 simply for being communists, the Nazis fought the communists of Soviet Union in WW2 and they also believed in the superiority of the chosen few, unlike the communists whose ideology claimed that all men were equal.
The majority of the tens of thousands of foreigners who joined the German army during the war also did so to fight the aggressive communist expansion into Europe. Would they do so if Hitler was a socialist?
I’d say it would be more accurate to label Hitler as an anti-communist.
National Socialism was the winner of WW2 in Europe.
Then the Cultural Marxists came along.
And here we stand today.
Kritisk borger: Hitler was a socialist and an anti-Communist. Communism and fascism are both heresies of socialism.
Similarly, Martin Luther was a Christian and an anti-Catholic.
“
No, but you keep on conflating honest immigration with Islamic colonization (i.e., hijra). Please stop blurring these two entirely different matters.
One has the possibility of being useful and constructive while the other clearly does not.”
I think bartholowmewscross’s fundamental point is that the religion of immigration is irrelevant; it’s their ethnic origin that makes them incompatible with the European West. Blood is thicker than water as they say, and when you look at the Islamic world, you see that it’s not as unified as the Islamic propagandists claim. The Islamic world is rife with ethnic tribalism and loyalty, and immigrants from the Third World, whether Christian, animist or Muslim, will not integrate but rather import their own tribal identity into the West.
AgentChameleon87: The Islamic world is rife with ethnic tribalism and loyalty, and immigrants from the Third World, whether Christian, animist or Muslim, will not integrate but rather import their own tribal identity into the West.
At which point they are no longer immigrants but stinking colonists and can bloody well piss off.