by Daniel Pipes
In the long term, however, things look good for SD, which will likely gain from this undemocratic sleight of hand. Swedes, long accustomed to democracy, do not appreciate a backroom arrangement that almost surely nullifies their votes in 2018. They don't like its bullying quality. Nor do they take well to removing a highly controversial issue from consideration.
Woe to anyone in Sweden
who dissents from the orthodox view that welcoming large numbers of
indigent peoples from such countries as Iraq, Syria, and Somalia is
anything but a fine and noble idea. Even to argue that permitting about
one percent of the existing population to emigrate annually from an
alien civilization renders one politically, socially, and even legally
beyond the pale. (I know a journalist threatened with arrest for mild
dissent on this issue.) The assertion that there exists a Swedish
culture worth preserving meets with puzzlement.
And yet, the realities
of immigration are apparent for all to see: welfare dependency, violent
bigotry against Christians and Jews, and a wide range of social
pathologies from unemployment to politically motivated rape.
Accordingly, ever-increasing numbers of Swedes find themselves --
despite known hazards -- opting out of the consensus and worrying about
their country's cultural suicide.
The taboo on such
attitudes means that political parties, with only one exception,
staunchly support continued immigration. Only the Sweden Democrats (SD)
offer an alternative: real efforts to integrate existing immigrants and a
90 percent decrease in future immigration. Despite an unsavory
neofascist past (not something unique to it, by the way), SD has become
increasingly respectable and has been rewarded with electoral success,
doubling its parliamentary vote from 3 percent in 2006, to 6 percent in
2010, to 13 percent in 2014. All the Swedes with whom I spoke on a
recent visit expect the SD vote to grow further, something recent polls
confirm.
If a party or bloc of
parties held a large majority in Sweden's unicameral parliament, SD
would be virtually irrelevant. But the Riksdag's two blocs are almost
equally balanced. Three left-wing parties control 159 of 349 seats,
while the "right-wing" (from an American perspective, it is hardly
conservative) Alliance for Sweden, consisting of four parties, has 141
seats. This means that SD, with 49 seats, holds the balance of power.
But SD is deemed
anathema, so no party bargains with it to pass legislation, not even
indirectly through the media. Both Left and "Right" seek to isolate and
discredit it. Nevertheless, SD has played the role of kingmaker on
certain crucial legislation, particularly the annual budget. In keeping
with its policy to drive from power every government that refuses to
reduce immigration, it brought down an Alliance for Sweden government in
early 2014. Recent weeks saw a repeat of this scenario, when SD joined
the Alliance in opposing the leftist budget, forcing the government to
call for elections in March 2015.
But then something
remarkable occurred: The two major blocs compromised not only on the
current budget, but also on future budgets and power-sharing all the way
to 2022. The left and "right" alliances worked out trade-offs that
would obviate the need for elections in March, allowing the Left to rule
until 2018, with the "Right" possibly taking over from 2018 until 2022.
Not only does this political cartel deprive SD of its pivotal role but,
short of winning a majority of parliamentary seats in 2018, it has no
meaningful legislative role for the next eight years, during which time
the immigration issue is off the table.
This is nothing short
of astonishing: To stifle debate over the country's most contentious
issue, 86 percent of the parliament joined forces to marginalize the 14
percent that disagrees. The two major blocs diluted their already tepid
differences to exclude the insurgent, populist party. Mattias Karlsson,
the acting SD leader accurately notes that with this deal, his party has
become the only real opposition.
In the long term,
however, things look good for SD, which will likely gain from this
undemocratic sleight of hand. Swedes, long accustomed to democracy, do
not appreciate a backroom arrangement that almost surely nullifies their
votes in 2018. They don't like its bullying quality. Nor do they take
well to removing a highly controversial issue from consideration. And
when the time comes to "throw the bums out," as always it does, the
Sweden Democrats will offer the only alternative to the tired, fractious
coalition that will have been in power for eight long years -- during
which time immigration problems will alarm yet more voters.
In other words, this
blatant act of suppression is spurring the very debate it is intended to
quash. Before too long, the supreme issue of national suicide might
actually be discussed.
Daniel Pipes (DanielPipes.org) is president of the Middle East Forum.
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=11075
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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