In the latter half of the 20th century, Sweden was, by most accounts, a prosperous and successful country. Its nanny state society and social harmony were admired, even envied by most other nations. With the exception of the owner of Ikea, almost no-one was really rich, and no-one was really poor. All the blonde, blue-eyed people lived harmoniously in a land of plenty.
But was that good enough for the social democrats and secular humanists who dominated Sweden's politics and public discourse? Certainly not. How can you be a do-gooder if there are no poor and downtrodden people to uplift? What Sweden lacked was an underclass, of the type America has in spades. [Careful there... Ed.]
Having no native-born underclass of its own, the Swedes did the next-best thing, and imported one. Sweden was one of the first European countries to put out the welcome mat for immigrants from the Third World. Underlying their open-door policy is a broad humanitarian desire to do good, combined with the belief that the right kind of social policies – education, welfare, job training – can transform newcomers into Swedes faster than you can say "Sven Svensen".
Unfortunately for them, the Swedes didn't pay attention to the warnings of Charles De Gaulle and Enoch Powell. Why would they? After all, Swedes have never been imperialists, colonialists or racists like those awful British and French. But now their peaceful social democracy is experiencing a reality check!
As a footnote to "Geert Wilders warns USA: Muslims taking over Europe -- you're next!", Walt called attention to last week's riots in Stockholm and other Swedish cities. Who were the rioters? No prizes for guessing they were unemployed "persons of colour" who immigrated from the sandpits of northern Africa and the Middle East.
Why did they do it? In an insightful piece in yesterday's Globe and Mail, Margaret Wente quotes a Social Democratic politician as saying, "This is not a question about immigration, it is a class question." Others blame a lack of jobs, social exclusion, bad schools, poor living conditions, growing inequality, police brutality and racism, and the erosion of the welfare state -- everything but the country's unrealistic immigration policy, about which Sweden's liberal elite is still in denial.
There is an obvious explanation for the recent unrest (Ms Wente continues) but in Sweden, it's almost impossible to discuss. The country has opened its doors to a flood of people from some of the most troubled parts of the world – especially the Muslim-majority countries of Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq. Hundreds of thousands have arrived in the past decade alone. Many will not be able to succeed in Swedish society. They are destined to become permanent wards of the state.
...semi-literate people from the tribal cultures of the Middle East or Africa are not the same as the Western middle-class Chileans who fled Pinochet. The culture clash extends from the importance of religion, the rights of women and the proper way to raise children to the benefits of exercise.... To put it mildly, assimilation is a challenge.
...frank discussions of the country's immigration problems are virtually taboo. Anyone who brings them up is likely to be labelled as a xenophobic racist. When the immigration minister, Tobias Billström, mildly suggested that "we need to discuss the volume" of immigration, his own party nearly disowned him. What accounts for this excruciating excess of political correctness?
The best explanation I have heard comes from Jonathan Friedman, an American anthropologist who is married to a Swedish woman, and lived in Sweden for several years before moving back to California. He blames a "politics of submission by Swedish elites." Continued large-scale immigration...is untenable in a situation of economic decline. But Sweden's elite "refuses to see what is really happening and instead holds on to absurd ideologies of immigration as enrichment." [My emphasis. Walt]
In other words, such outbreaks are bound to happen. And they are bound to create big cracks in Sweden's famous tradition of social cohesion. As Swedes redistribute more and more of their wealth to people whose habits are culturally alien, and who are permanently dependent on the state, the immigration consensus is bound to crack.
Memo to the political "leaders" of the USA and Canada: If you won't learn from the mistakes of the British, the French, be warned by the example of Sweden. If policies of multiculturalism and assimilation don't work there, they won't work anywhere!
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