Thursday, March 28, 2024 -
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Lesson from Sweden

A plea to politicians this election season

As we look to October and election season hitting its full stride, we have a plea to lawmakers and civil society — stop making every issue political and remember that your job is to serve the people.

This may seem a foolish plea, as our divisive times make it somewhat of a pipe dream, but we are moved to do so in light of election results from across the pond. In Sweden, the once-fringe right-wing Sweden Democrats won an astounding number of seats and are poised to play a pivotal role in a center-right government. Its victory shocked and stunned many outside of Sweden, but no one, it seems, in Sweden itself.

Over the past decade, more specifically starting in 2015, Sweden has seen a rise in nearly all types of deadly violence, from knife attacks, gun violence, bombings, even the use of hand grenades! Sexual assaults have soared and Sweden is now a leader in Europe of gun-related homicides. Gang activity has grown and poverty-stricken suburbs now ring the bucolic city centers of European cities — but often mask a more complex socio-economic dynamic.

The Sweden Democrats capitalized on this slide into violence, pinning it largely on the influx of migrants into Sweden. To be sure, there is a strong anti-foreigner thread to Sweden Democrats’ political ideology, with no small amount of racism exhibited among some of its most vocal supporters. They claim that Sweden is not a place for Middle Eastern religions or dress. As Jews, we know firsthand the danger of such rhetoric and we strongly condemn the suggestion that people of a non-Christian faith or non-white skin color have no place in a European country.

At the same time, the concerns of the Swedish people are very real — and cross typical right-left political lines.

We do not claim to be experts on Sweden, but when IJN senior writer Andrea Jacobs visited Sweden in 2015, at the height of the country’s welcome to Syrian refugees, she reported that already then, Swedes were concerned about how the influx of migrants might strain its welfare state institutions, such as pensions and healthcare, and concerned about how the country would promote social integration.

The question we ask now is where has the Social Democrat-led coalition been for the last seven years?

Often, the governing coalition simply pretended the problems were not so severe as they really were. The coalition simplistically branded those who raised concerns about the high influx of migrants as racist or bigoted, even though over three quarters of violent crime is committed by first- or second-generation migrants per Dagens Nyheter. But to point this out was deemed “politically incorrect”; concern over rising crime became a political instead of a humanitarian issue, a genuine policy focus.

The folly of this approach was finally admitted by the two most recent leaders of the Social Democrats.

Both of them conceded that in the last two years the rise in violent crime was a serious issue for Swedish society.

This was apparently too little too late for many Swedish voters.

When politicians ignore the concerns of their people, the politicians will either face an apathetic citizenry or compel their voters to vote for a party that does appear to be listening. In Sweden’s case, this was the Sweden Democrats.

There is a lesson here for US — and Colorado — lawmakers as we face massive disruptions of our own.

Soaring crime, soaring drug overdoses and drug usage, soaring inflation, plummeting affordable housing stock. All of these are deeply felt here in Colorado, which has the ignoble honor of holding the number one spot in the nation for car theft. Par for the course these days, as much of our political leadership — both nationally and locally — falls into strict “right” or “left” camps, with little understanding between the two or interest in compromise. Much of politics has become an exercise in branding and scoring points. The price of gas is just one example. Joe Biden’s fault? The Republicans’? The Russians’? One month Joe Biden does not control gas prices and the next month he is credited with bringing them down. Lost in all of this tedious game of political football is that for most Americans, the cost of gasoline causes economic stress. That’s the part politicians should be focused on — the American people.

If America’s politicians ignore the concerns of its people, they should not be surprised if those same people either stop participating in politics altogether, or get pushed to extremes. For America’s Jews, extremists on either side of the aisle is never good news.

Copyright © 2022 by the Intermountain Jewish News




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