When you think of Sweden, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Swedish Fish? An anti-Islam political party bent on overturning decades of Northern-European socialist ideas? Last month, over one-fifth of Swedes voted for the Sweden Democrats (SD), a new party led by a very young, very charismatic, and very far-right leader, Jimmie Akesson. The rise of this party, especially in the nation that took the second most Islamic refugees, has spurred the argument that Sweden, like the UK, Germany, and even the US, will be faced with a shifting landscape leaning farther to the far-right.
This change was initially caused when the Swedish socialist government decided to welcome over 190,000 refugees from Syria, second only to Germany in the number of refugees absorbed; spurring Akesson’s rise to power. Akesson was originally from the Moderate Party, a center party and also the most far-right leaning major party in the parliament. However this was changed when he joined the inconsequential Sweden Democrats party and easily defeated the party leader in 2005. Within five years, Akesson gained 20 seats in the parliament. This year, Akesson’s youth and charisma served him well in rallying many of the disenfranchised Swedes to blame all of their country’s problems on Syrian refugees.
The question that the Swedes have to tackle now is: how will the Socialists recover? It is all dependent on two key factors: a new leader and the assimilation of the refugees. In Sweden, the latter has been very successful. Many young Syrians have embedded themselves in Swedish culture, becoming more Swede than Syrian. Many refugees study in Sweden’s free universities and have found work in its cities. Yet, the fact remains that this assimilation is not happening everywhere. In France, xenophobic and islamophobic cultures run rampant, even in liberal cities such as Paris. In Germany, where the government took over 700,000 refugees, the new AfD Party (also far-right) has stonewalled many of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s proposals to abet the refugee crisis.
These fears have seeped into Sweden, all through the help of the young Jimmie Akesson now positioning himself to be the figurehead in a new wave of nationalism. For the traditional Swedish Social Democrats Party, they will need to be swift and decisive this next election, reinvigorating the same socialist values that helped win so many past elections many years ago to combat this rise of nationalistic fervor.
