Swedish election puts spotlight on rise of racism in country
When a masked man with a sword killed a teaching assistant and a pupil at a school in Sweden several years ago in a racially motivated attack, the whole world was shocked that this could happen in a country known for its welcoming attitude towards immigrants.
This year’s election, however, is painting a different picture, as all political parties in their campaigning are fashioning a “racist, anti-immigrant” narrative in a country where, according to recent polls, the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats are set to become the second largest party in the Swedish parliament, or Riksdag.
Since the 1990s, racism and discrimination have become institutionalized in the country and are being reinforced in this year’s election as “almost all parties in Sweden, in one way or another, have racist propaganda about migrants and marginalized people being the problem for Sweden,” said Masoud Kamali, an author and one of the world’s leading sociologists who is professor of sociology and social work at Mid Sweden University.
Former Prime Minister Olof Palme, who led the expansion of Sweden’s welfare state, was assassinated in 1986, and since then, the country has shifted towards the US model and American “policy of neoliberalism,” Kamali said.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Sweden started adjusting itself to neoliberal politics and neoliberal ideology, which were dominant in other countries in Europe.
Around this time, the Stockholm-based far-right racist organization Keep Sweden Swedish formed a political party now known as the Sweden Democrats.
The establishment of the Sweden Democrats, who were once banned from politics due to their neo-Nazi ties and are now the poised to become the country’s second largest party, led to “increasing gaps and neoliberal politics in Sweden,” said Kamali.
The neoliberal policies and politics resulted in increasing inequalities and the marginalization of migrants and people with immigrant backgrounds, and “at the same time, racism increased,” he added.
Kamali, who was put in charge by the Swedish government to lead a project on racism, said the ruling Social Democrats did not take warnings by experts like him seriously when they tried to warn them that “there is going to be conflict, there are going to be gangs and murders” because of the increased racism and marginalization.
Racist propaganda in election
“I can say that all parties have accepted or adjusted themselves to these racist policies and propaganda that you can see in all election officials’ election propaganda in this country today,” said Kamali.
For the last 40 years, “I never experienced such racist propaganda in an election that we are seeing today,” he noted.
“You can just see this electoral or election propaganda everywhere on TV, everywhere on radio, in public services. You can see that everything is about a restrictive migration policy, migration should be restricted, criminals, of course, with immigrant backgrounds should be deported from Sweden and Sweden must be tougher on migration,” Kamali added. Read More…
