Who are Swedish democrats and what does their 'victory' symbolize?

The political ideologies which rose to their zenith in the first half of the 20th century are now making a comeback. The most recent example of this is Sweden.

NewsBharati    22-Sep-2022 17:24:25 PM   
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Newton's Third Law of Motion, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The extreme liberal and recently the woke attitude of the western governments have fueled the rise of the extreme right-wing in Europe. The elements lurking in society's darkest corners have now come back under the limelight. The political ideologies which rose to their zenith in the first half of the 20th century are now making a comeback. The most recent example of this is Sweden.
 

Swedish Democrat 
 
In the recently held Swedish general elections, Swedish democrats won 20% of the votes and came second. Sweden was supposed to be the bastion of liberal values and tolerance in Europe. Due to the civil war in Syria, Europe was faced with a wave of Muslim refugees in 2015. Over the course of one year, 1.3 million people fled to Europe; Sweden took in some 163,000 asylum-seekers. As a renowned scholar, Ayan Hirsi Ali has mentioned in her book Prey, most of these refugees are men between the age of 16-45. Most of these men are not here with their families. Usually, refugees, especially men of this age tend to engage in unlawful activities. This analysis has proven to be the most accurate. Sweden has witnessed a meteoric rise in crime. This has resulted in anti-refugee sentiments across Europe but especially in Sweden.
 
 
 
The Swedish Democrats have cashed in exactly this causation to evoke the latent fascist, xenophobic, and bigoted feelings of the Swedish people. Which were forced inside by shaming them after WW2. But now, with the extreme left accepting Muslim men (largely) from the middle east and destabilizing the social balance of race and religion in Sweden, which by the virtue of geography has been one of the whitest Christian countries is now facing an unprecedented challenge to that status quo. This challenge also feeds into the lunatic theories of American White supremacists, which refer to it as the replacement theory where in the USA, the Latinos are trying to replace us (us being the white Anglo-Saxon protestants) or the notorious “Jews will not replace us!” chants in the deep south. This has fueled the victory of Swedish democrats who are not a conservative party against a liberal or a left-wing party, they're purely a Right-wing party.
 
 
Now, the understanding of definitions is also important, the Right-Wing in the European context is purely a fascist, xenophobic, and bigoted phenomenon. The party or the parties which support White supremacy and Christian exclusionary values. Even the term Nationalism in the European context is quite different, especially after WW2. In India, being a nationalist is a proud thing, and rightly so. But in post-WW2 Europe, Nationalism represents the horrors of WW2. (Whether or not that understanding of the term is correct or not is a different matter and not really related to this subject) In this context, an openly nationalist, Right Wing party in Europe should send a chill down the spine.
 
 
The Swedish democrats, Alternative For Deutschland (AFD), and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally are all racist, antisemitic, nationalist (in the post-WW2 European context), and also surprisingly to an extent socialist parties. Their victory cannot be a victory for all Right-wing supporters in the world and especially in India. Simply because the Right-wing is not a globally binding phenomenon like the Left wing is with its universal values. The Right-wing is an extremely local phenomenon with different definitions and meanings, more often than not at odds with the other Right-Wing groups in the world. While Swedish democrats’ opposition to Muslim refugees in Sweden is something that is being celebrated in some sections of Indian non-left sections, they should be cautious. Because for Swedish democrats who believe not just in white supremacy but also in Christian fundamentalism, people of the book (Jews, Christians, Muslims) or monotheistic religions and the people are and will always be superior to the ‘Pagans’ or polytheistic religions and the people. So these Right-Wing Swedish democrats can definitely turn their hatred toward Hindus as easily as they are doing toward the Muslims. And What is worse, Hindus as a community all over the West are much more educated, prosperous, and successful than even the average local white, Christian people. So the same Jewification, what the Nazis did to the Jews, (in which a community is simultaneously the worst of the lot and yet the oppressor by the virtue of it being successful) of Hindus is even simpler.
 
 

Apoorva Sahasrabudhay

Apoorva Sahasrabudhay is a media graduate who writes about politics, international affairs, geopolitics, economics and history. He has a keen interest on tracking sociological data of various countries and societies. He is also interested in psephology. He is meanwhile also exploring his hand in culture and religion.