The Swedish elections are over and counting almost done. From not showing much interest a few weeks and months ago, I suddenly found myself growing more and more interested this week and have spent most of my free time today getting updates.
I wasn't surprised the Socialdemocrats lost, but for them to achieve the lowest number of votes since 1914 is quite a shock. Interestingly however is that among first-time voters, the Socialdemocratic party was the most popular party. Perhaps, the future is bright?
The other news that left me feeling nauseous is that of the Sweden Democrats getting 5.8% of the vote, and therefore getting seats in Parliament. Still I agree with my friend HF who said (and here I am loosely translating):
SD in Parliament...*vomiting*... perhaps it is good that Sweden is forced to confront its inner racist. How many Iranian doctors don't we have who are forced to drive taxis because they are not taken seriously by the authorities. One can't place blame elsewhere this time - Sweden has a racism problem, and now we'll get the opportunity to deal with it.
It is true that there is a huge problem with racism that is often disregarded, ignored, or brushed off. Now it will be a very real and present issue in Sweden and it will be interesting to see if the number of people who start sentences by saying "I am not a racist, but..." will increase, or rather they'll say "I am a racist and therefore...".
I think I prefer the latter. At least then we know what we're dealing with.
For more on the Swedish elections see Kajsa's blog.
2 comments:
I doubt most people will admit to being racist, and I even wonder whether there will be a discussion. I saw a horribly scandalously racist Swedish commercial the other day on Al-Jazeera and was shocked that such a thing would even be allowed to be aired on TV anywhere. Sweden certainly has a big problem, but I think it might take a bigger crisis than this to force the white ethnic Swedes to confront it in a constructive way...we'll see.
Thanks for the link to Kajsa's new blog. I never noticed it!!
Hi! This was basically my husbands views this morning, I tried to convince him to guestblog, but I see now I don' t need to push. I agree that SD in the parliament makes me sick, but that maybe the honesty can lead to some progress...
@Camille, "a bigger crisis" than 5,7% of Swedish voters being racist cannot be had in Sweden unless Allemansrätten would be invoked! This is huge! Still, we have to wait and see.
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