The wind of change

A cold wind is blowing over Europe. A wind of fear, hatred, and despair, and racism is getting stronger than ever. .I'm ashamed to admit that after the election on the 19th of september, Sweden now has a racist parti in the parlament. It doesn't exactly come as a surprise that 5,7 % of the voters are total idiots, but who'd have thought they'd be so extremely organized.
The Swedish political right extremist party, The Sweden Democrats, have managed to cause controversy more than anything else, to gain power among the voters. Their leader, Jimmie Åkesson, recently published a very controversial debate article in the Swedish newspaper "Aftonbladet", where he makes various claims about Muslims being the new threat to the Swedish welfare system.
It is clear that Åkesson use sweeping statements and even direct lies, such as claiming that Europe will have the highest rape statistics in the world, and that Muslim men will be overrepresented. This is nothing new and basically just said to induce fear, the truth remains that most rapes today are commited by white middle-class men no one would expect to be rapists, and neither do they, hence the usual complete denial. A lot of men who are white and belong to the middle-class are rarely convicted simply because the judges still believe them, even when the evidence is mounting, all because they are white middle-class men. We do not perceive them of being capable of raping, even when there is overwhelming evidence presented. The reason why is simply what Åkesson just expressed in his article; we rather believe in the dark ambusher coming from an Arab country, hiding in a shrubbary in the park, or in the darkest corner of the parking lot, just ready to attack.
I live in a pretty immigrant-dense part of my town, and there is a local store here that sell Halal meat. I can’t really say it bothers me more than I think it is unethical to drain an animal of blood while it is still alive, as I consider it a form of animal cruelty. I can't say that I've ever felt less safe than anywhere else, when walking alone at night in my area because of it either. A lot of families with little children live here, and the worst thing I usually experience are teenagers who drive around with their mopeds in the middle of the night. I have also yet to meet a person who is clearly mean to me. I've however met a crasy swedish lady though, who told me that people could easily get murdered in the laundryroom, just because I still had some clothes left to fold when she came in there to start her laundry. The washing machines were empty though, so it's not like I was occupying anything she needed. Hmm, does that mean that all swedish ladies are crazy?
Being blind, I often have to ask people for help; there's simpely no other way to know which train just arrived to the platform, or if the bus I need is second or fifth in line. You understand, that I also need help at the store, since there's no other way to find what I need,, and so on. Well, folks, I can tell you that out of the ones who are most willing to help, and the ones who always offer to help without me asking for it, 90 % has an accent telling me that their origen is not swedish. And as far as the rest goes, well, there's a lot of people around who are fluent in our language, so who knows...
Instead of actually explaining how he would like to proceed to solve the issues with identity crisis among second- and third generation immigrants, Åkesson takes to fear-inducing tactics. What’s worse is the huge support SD have started to gain among the general population, so obviously it is working. I wish people were less blind and could actually see that Åkesson offers NOTHING to solve the problem, he's just stating, time after time, what is wrong in our society. He doesn't have a solution, just empty threats and promises. So what is Åkesson going to do once he get to power? Kick out all immigrants from Sweden? That is obviously not going to work, no matter how you look at it. Other than the obvious reasons, the Swedish birthrate is too low.
I should add that naturally any identity to the grandparents’ country is lost at the third generation as they become completely immersed within their “host” country, so I am not sure what kind of statistics Åkesson took part of, but it’s very contradictory to what I’ve learned. So I don’t see why Åkesson is quite worried. Yes, angsty teenagers in the suburbs are a problem, but they aren’t angsty because they are Muslims, they are angry and lost, because the politicians do nothing to improve their situation and ultimately they become marginalized from society! One would expect our politicians to learn that it doesn’t work to dump immigrants in one dense place. God knows we have enough american tv-shows over here to know what will happen in Sweden in the future if we don’t try to spend money to improve the situation. Or are we so americanized now that we must strive to incorporate ghettos in our bigger citties as well?
Last, there are a lot of claims made about what is Swedish, but neither Åkesson nor anyone from SD ever offer any form of explanation of what they mean by being Swedish. Am I Swedish for having a Swedish name and a Swedish id number. Is my friend Elvira, who was adopted from Vietnam and came to Sweden when she was 3 months old as swedish as I am? Or is she just an evil immigrant here to poison the country and the so called Swedish culture because of her Vietnamees inheritage? Though I guess they do answer that question, since they want to stop all adoptions of children from outside of Europe. Is my niece Nathalie swedish? She has never met her father, but he's part greek, part australian. How does that change things in the eyes of a Swedish democrat? My sisters fiancé is part Moroccan, but I don't think he's even been to Marocco, though I may be wrong, the point is that he's definitely never lived there. Is he swedish? And will their children be considered swedish? Maybe he is less swedish cause he has an arabic name... And what about our european champion of 2008 in the showdown world? Can we say that that possition is held by Sweden, when Claudio is originally from Chile?
I am very concerned about what will happen with the current Swedish democracy and freedom of speech now that the Sweden Democrats have their seat in the swedish parliament. I do not deny Åkesson’s right to voice his opinions, but I do deny him the right to get into the Swedish parliament and I have actively done so by refusing to vote for him and his party, and by joining every organization that I've been able to find that is going to work against their atrocious values. Any person who only argues for the right for his own freedom of speech and his own social rights is only fooling himself if he claims to support a democratic society where everybody is equal.
I do agree with Åkesson that our current immigration is a huge issue and that we have yet to learn how to manage to deal with all the angry teenagers living in the suburbs. Clearly what our politicians are currently doing isn’t working, but this also includes Åkesson and his followers!
It should also be noted that SD got strong Christian roots, and they don't have any problems what so ever with defending their homofobia with that: "The bible says so." We're talking about that they want to deny homosexual women the right to insiminations, because gay people aren't fit to be parents. And they also want to prohibit marriage between people of the same sex. Is it really that strange that the 94,3 % who didn't vote for this stupidity think that the ones who did must be out of their minds? How is it possible to cast ones vote for such a retarded party that make claims of how dangerous Islam is and that the Koran is so dogmatic and then come running trying to say that the bible is better cause at least we got the New Testament which teaches people about turning the other cheek! Yeah, right, Cause that’s exactly what the Sweden Democrats are doing, right? Like referring to that passage in the NT ever stopped Christianity from oppressing societies here in the West in the past, or in the present for that matter. Cherrypicking, cherrypicking. Of course, Åkesson wouldn’t define his homophobia as oppressing, the Bible says so and therefore it is right. Now, maybe Åkesson should take a look at himself first and the claims he and his party make regarding domatism, before they have the right to critesize Islam.
If that isn't hypocrisy, I don't know what is! And one more thing people. Last time a party gained success using this kind of arguments, it ended with the murder of 6 million people in concentration camps all over europe. The second world war ended little more than 65 years ago, and you're already more than willing to buy the same bullshit! Shame on you!