After massive riots in Sweden where around 100 police officers were injured, Swedes have realized they have an immigration problem. Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson admitted the failure, saying, “segregation has been allowed to go so far that we have parallel societies in Sweden. We live in the same country but in completely different realities.”
Background
The Danish politician and provocateur Rasmus Paludan of the Danish party Strict Course has angered many Muslims in Denmark by burning the Quran publicly. Recently, he moved his book-burning tour to Sweden, where he holds dual citizenship. Sweden has a much larger Muslim population, and the reaction was far greater and more aggressive.
The Quranic desecration triggered the largest violent riot in Sweden in the modern era, with many injuries and significant material damage to cars and buildings in many cities.
From Paludan’s perspective, his tour has been a resounding success. His purpose has been to demonstrate that mass immigration of Muslims is not possible into a Western society because, he claims, radical Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Western values and that integration is, therefore, impossible. The riots are everything he could hope to achieve.
Stockholm Syndrome
The reaction among Muslim immigrants has been so violent and massive that even the world’s most culturally relativist nation has noticed. However, since Sweden is the home of the Stockholm Syndrome, Andersson appropriately pointed the finger of blame at Swedes for failing to integrate the newcomers.
Nevertheless, in a country where it is considered racist to acknowledge that its own culture exists, Andersson’s critique is unusually harsh and enables a non-racist excuse for closing the borders: Foreigners cannot be allowed entry because Swedes are so terrible at integration.
Stricter Immigration Policies
Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson (Photo by Nils Petter Nilsson/Getty Images)
Andersson also blamed the festering of right-wing extremism in her country, which has been the mantra of Swedish politicians for half a century. However, in recent years, the arguments have subtly changed.
Before, the solution to immigration skepticism was always more immigration to teach Swedes not to be so irrationally fearful of the unknown. By contrast, Swedish politicians are now arguing for policies that will not give ammunition to right-wing extremism. In so doing, they tacitly admit that the behaviors of certain immigrants are causing a growing opposition to open borders. They can no longer publicly say that if Swedes were just more exposed to the unknown, they would be more welcoming and less worried.
Drastic policy changes have also backed the new rhetoric. Since more than 200,000 migrants came to the arctic nation in 2015, Sweden has cut down immigration to nearly zero. This may not seem a huge percentage when compared to a nation the size of the United States, but with an estimated population of just ten million, 200K is a significant chunk. When the war in Ukraine erupted, Andersson publicly declared that other countries would have to bear the burden of taking in refugees since they had done more than their fair share in 2015.
Demographic Bomb
More than 20% of people living in Sweden are born in other countries, and the recent riots have shown that many of them do not share the cultural relativism and tolerance of the Swedish elites. As these immigrants have higher birth rates than the natives and refuse to assimilate into Swedish culture, the country is currently sitting on a demographic bomb. Many worry that it may already be too late to defuse it.
