It is Saturday and a Swedish newspaper sends out its newsletter. "Good morning! Measured differences in IQ between countries and ethnic groups are among the most sensitive questions in science. But what are they really due to - heredity or environment? Read at Kvartal" (31/10).
They're right, it's a bit sensitive. Or at least it has been. In his new book "Gifted. An essay story about heritage and environment", sociologist Roland Paulsen discusses how after the fall of Nazi Germany a "veritable cancel culture" developed around racial biological reasoning, but that the taboo began to be dismantled before the turn of the millennium. "Hereditary ideas about the importance of genes for human behavior grew strong and again tipped over into racial biological ideas about intelligence variations between population groups," he writes.
Five years ago, the editorial writer Per Gudmundsson quite rightly tweeted that it was sad that contemporary Swedish opinion pieces had "lost 20 to 50 IQ points". He said he was not sure that it had "to do with immigration", but still wanted to raise the issue with the help of a comparison between Stig Strömholm and Irena Pozar.
Gudmundsson had to apologize, but the wind continued to blow. Today, Donald Trump, Elon Musk and similar figures constantly return to the abundance of "bad genes" in the United States. "The explanation for that is strictly racial biology: that the wrong migrants came to the country and that the smartest Americans do not multiply as quickly as the dumbest," writes Roland Paulsen.
Perhaps it was simply time that a public battle about, well, racial biology, would sooner or later flare up within the Sweden Democrats. You know, the party that was once born out of the Swedish white power movement.
Have you been following along? The Sweden Democrats' Richard Jomshof wants "Swedes to form the majority of the population in their own country". A cat that settles in a stable does not become a horse, as it is usually called in such circles. Mattias Karlsson thinks it is a "respectable stance" and believes that Swedishness is about fulfilling requirements regarding "language, identity, loyalty and culture".
The blood and soil phalanx and the assimilation phalanx have long been able to coexist within the party, which as recently as 2019 had writings about "inherited essence" in its program of principles. But bad numbers create a bad mood, put things on edge.
Perhaps it was simply time that a public battle about, well, racial biology, would sooner or later flare up within the Sweden Democrats.
So Jimmie Åkesson writes a hundred thousand characters in Expressen that Swedishness should not be determined by "blood ties" (30/10). An interesting aspect when Åkesson puts his foot down is that on the one hand he condemns the idea of "ethnified legislation" on a strictly principled level, only to in the next breath speak of politics as a pragmatic art where you get to choose your battles as long as you don't have your own majority. A few months ago, Jimmie Åkesson considered that Sweden was his country because his relatives had once "eaten bark so that we can have this little piece of land" (DN, 10/3).
Well, the decisive thing in Åkesson's current attempt at an illusion number is to present cultural nationalism as the reasonable and moderate alternative. So, for example, the political scientist Ann-Cathrine Jungar interprets this as the SD leader wanting to "clean up in front of his own door" (DN, 30/10), while the editorial writer Susanna Kierkegaard dismisses the talk about opening up Swedishness as rhetoric and theater (Aftonbladet, 30/10). They are both right, and at the same time miss something essential.
This is nothing less than a totalitarian fantasy where human thoughts, feelings, values, beliefs, memories and identities are made a state concern.
Namely that the Sweden Democrats' "open Swedishness" is also an extremist construction, which does not belong in a democracy. "As assimilated to the Swedish nation, we count those with a non-Swedish background who speak fluent Swedish, perceive themselves as Swedish, live in accordance with Swedish culture, see Swedish history as their own and feel greater loyalty to the Swedish nation than to any other nation", as stated in the party's program of principles.
This is nothing less than a totalitarian fantasy where human thoughts, feelings, values, beliefs, memories and identities are made a state concern. Swedishness may be open, but those who manage to squeeze in there must not bring anything of themselves. As recently as last spring, the SD leader said, for example, that it is "difficult" to be a devout Muslim and a Swede at the same time (SVT, 31/3).
It doesn't stop there. In an interview with Dagens sammähle from 2013, Åkesson said that "many Swedes would also have to be exposed to assimilation policies" in order to "regain their own identity and pride in being Swedish". For the Sweden Democrats, Swedishness is a matter of political obedience. In an analysis of the ongoing dispute, DN's Tomas Ramberg describes how the SD leader is now warning dissenters in the party that they will be "purged if they do not adapt to the party line" (30/10). Think like us - otherwise. In a broader perspective, there are quite a few of us in this country who can feel hit by that warning.
