Åkesson: "Egocentric, self-proclaimed guardians of ideas"

A definitional war has raged about Swedishness within and outside SD, largely on social media. The SD leaders Mattias Karlsson and Richard Jomshof have been in focus with their different views, which can be summarized as cultural nationalist and ethnonationalist respectively.

In short, the former means that "the person who meets the requirements regarding language, identity, loyalty and culture is Swedish", as Karlsson puts it. Jomshof's approach is based on ethnic origin: "Sweden is the country of the Swedish people. The Swedish people are Sweden's indigenous population."

During the course of the debate, Jimmie Åkesson has refrained from participating, but on Expressen Debatt he now takes the tone with strong criticism of the ethno-nationalist idea: "Those who believe that ethnicity defines Swedishness will get nowhere," he writes, among other things.

The party chairman expresses understanding that the issue is being discussed in a party with a fundamental nationalist view, and writes that members who do not accept SD's definition have primarily left for the National Democrats and Alternativ för Sverige. The stance of these groups is that "Swedish is something you are born with and therefore not something you can become", as Åkesson describes it and takes a political distance from it.

"Thus, it is citizenship that is politically interesting. Individuals' physical characteristics are not," writes Åkesson, who refers to the line that has been in the party's program of principles for a long time now. It is called open Swedishness and means, among other things, that even non-ethnic Swedes can be Swedes if they speak Swedish fluently, perceive themselves as Swedish and feel greater loyalty to the Swedish nation than to any other nation".

Representatives of the ethno-nationalist line may express their opinions in opinion-forming or philosophical contexts, writes Åkesson in Expressen Debatt, but they do not belong in SD's politics. He finds it "extremely provocative when egocentric, self-appointed guardians of ideas" have views on fundamental parts of SD's ideology or that the party compromised too much:

"Honestly, what the hell have you yourselves achieved?", writes Åkesson.

DN has applied for Richard Jomshof.