När blir etniska svenskar en minoritet?

“Cultural self-confidence is essential for integration, since integrating immigrants inevitably involves some willingness to assert majority culture. Furthermore, the gravitational force of a strong and identifiable national identity in fact facilitates integration, since no one can integrate into nothingness. In Sweden today, there is no roadmap to integration for immigrants, no social contract wherein Swedes accept immigrants as one of their own once certain obligations are fulfilled.

It is this contradiction between reality and elite ideology that is tearing Sweden apart. The political and media elites may love or at least pretend to love the new multiculturalist society, but polls show that the Swedish public was never particularly enthusiastic about it. A recent study found that most native Swedes never socialize with immigrants or do so only rarely. Elites can dictate policy, but they cannot force ordinary Swedes to accept immigrants who have not integrated into their culture.

From the point of view of immigrants, therefore, the Swedish state is warm and generous, but Swedish society is cold and distant. The more Sweden spends on “integrationspolitik,” the worse things appear to become. Sweden takes in more immigrants than almost any other country, but immigrants do not feel welcome here. In response to failed integration, the establishment has redoubled its efforts to push multiculturalism down Sweden’s throat, blaming the Swedish people for the failure of integrationist policies.

Keep in mind that Sweden was never an easy country to integrate into culturally. Swedes tend to be reticent, solitary, and reserved. Theirs is a complex culture, full of subtle rules and opaque codes of conduct. Lutheran Sweden is defined by strong behavioral norms enforced through social pressure. Swedes are conformist and quite intolerant of deviation from group norms, whether it’s immigrants or Swedes who break with protocol. Immigrants who do not conform to expected behaviors are looked down upon and often sense low-level hostility in their private encounters with Swedes. Icy Scandinavia was never a particularly well-chosen testing ground for the multiculturalist experiment.”

If you ask Swedes if they think multiculturalism is good in abstract and undefined term, or if they have a positive view of immigrant, or if diversity enriches Sweden, large majorities of Swedes say yes. This is because multiculturalism is often understood as merely tolerance and anti-racism, and Swedes are tolerant and anti-racist. If you instead ask Swedes about the contents of multiculturalism – that immigrants do not need to adjust to Swedish culture – they soundly reject it. To thake a concrete example, 85% of Swedes reject Burkas. 66% say that there are some groups of immigrants incapable of adjusting to Swedish culture. A slight majority of Swedes says that “immigrants do not integrate largely because they don’t want to”. All these polls include the immigrants themselves.