Behind the headlines about recurring murders, bombings and new forms of welfare crime, there is a search for answers: What went wrong with the integration of large groups of immigrants?

Over the past three years, I have traveled throughout western Sweden describing life in some of the fifty-nine counties that police describe as vulnerable. There, in the highly isolated cities, there is crime, unrest and suspicion, but also the strong will to stand up binds people together.

In Sweden 2024: Stories of a Country in Crisis, I describe the main problems caused by the deep segregation that characterizes the vast majority of Swedish cities, with segregated and impoverished slums, often dominated by people who have immigrated from Sweden. Other countries.

Equal multiculturalism

The rise of organized and increasingly violent crime has overturned all the stones.

One question illustrates how the debate has shifted: Is racism the main problem in Sweden, or is the poor integration of certain groups due to the fact that they prefer to live in their own enclaves?

Behind the war headlines, a deeper cultural debate is taking place. For fifty years, Sweden has had a dominant history of multiculturalism. It was a vision of self-enhancement and enriching cultural growth in which Swedish culture was simultaneously called into question. Yes, is there really a separate Swedish culture, and is it “good”?

In a government study”The Black Book of Integration“Since 2006, there has been no doubt that this culture was ultimately deeply racist. Therefore, it became necessary, as Committee Chairman Masoud Kamali saw, to deal with the prevailing cultural pluralism.

It was supposed to be based on the fact that Swedish culture was better than others: “This essentialist cultural way of thinking meant that ‘mångkulturalism’ and ‘mångfald’ became key terms to describe the condition in which other groups belonged to ‘other cultures.’” Living Among Us In a multicultural society.”

The committee calls this phenomenon “cultural racism”, which it also believes is based on the false idea that culture is fixed – and that it also ranks different cultures with Swedish culture at the top.

The Committee specifically addressed honour-related violence, finding that no distinction should be made between violence against women by “immigrants” and “Swedes”. The stigmatization of certain groups of immigrants must stop.

The committee's many proposals were not followed up immediately, but the ideas gradually took hold. In particular, the public debate was characterized by the idea of ​​a comprehensive restructuring of integration policy in order to deal with racism and discrimination. It is time for minorities to educate the majority community.

Self-driving separatism

Gradually, opposition to this categorization of Sweden as particularly racist emerged, although there are many individual examples of racism found in Sweden today in my book – among others seen through the eyes of Somali Yusuf, a city council representative for the Center Party. In Trollhattan.

However, the focus was gradually directed towards the minorities themselves. Does this contribute to integration in a good way?

In the book “Separatism in Sweden” (2023), cultural and religious characteristics within specific groups are highlighted, especially those with origins in the Middle East and North Africa. Here, a picture of a culturally and economically isolated Sweden is painted.

The book's editors are immigrants from countries outside Europe (Mauricio Rojas, Chile, and Robert Hanna, Syria) and parliamentary representatives of the Liberals, perhaps the most liberal party on immigration in the country. They claim that certain groups want to live separately from the majority population.

They claim that religion and tribalism are the drivers behind this self-motivated separatist tendency. Here, the grip of Syrian-Assyrian Christian clans on Södertälje and mosques and associations dominated by political Islam, for example in Gothenburg, is on display.

In these cities, the full range of services is provided to citizens by their own institutions in competition with the Swedish state. In addition to schools of worship and religious schools, there were also social services and cultural performances in their associations. The book claims that these environments are hotbeds of organized crime and recurring waves of violence.

Thus the focus of the book is reversed: now it is the majority society that must influence the minorities. An end to homophobia, honor killings and tribal affiliation are the demands. Stop demanding special rights. Now you must become like us!

Culture war

Deputy Prime Minister and Christian Democrats member Ebba Bush added fuel to the fire during the EU election campaign. So: “If you think it is right and proper to expel homosexuals from high-rise buildings… then you can go back to Iran or Sudan.”

In this way she joined the ranks of people, especially within the Sweden Democrats, who wanted a Christian cultural settlement with large parts of the immigrant population of over two million people. This reminds us of the culture war we know from the United States.

This is how Sweden closed the circle in the 2000s. There was no equality between equal cultures in practice. Now, on the contrary, the country is witnessing a debate about whether Swedish culture and values ​​should become dominant, also in isolated, densely populated and vulnerable areas.

A parallel to this discussion can be found in the almost complete absence of agreement on what integration should mean in post-work practice, as many have mentioned in my book.

Yes, some people think that the whole idea of ​​complementarity between equal parties is an illusion. Others agree with Norwegian writer and politician Abid Raja when he writes in Aftenposten that he does not believe this will happen on its own as long as we give it enough time and tolerance.

New proposals for work constantly

It is a well-known phenomenon that the diaspora becomes more dominant and distant as it grows, and this increases the danger of an “us and them” mentality. When vulnerable Swedish areas feel increasing pressure from tougher crime control and debate over new measures, it is not surprising that residents themselves believe they are being stigmatized as a group.

Critics believe that proposals to create safe zones, demolish mosques, and require public officials to report illegal immigrants to the police go beyond what a liberal democracy would allow.

When social democrats also talk about No to “Somali cities” It is proposed to dismantle the open-plan housing pattern in order to break apartheid, but there is no way back.

The clear political majority is constantly presenting new proposals for action.

Should pupils be bused from east to west, as I observed in Trollhättan, one of Sweden's most segregated cities?

Should those receiving support from Nav be refused relocation to at-risk areas?

Should pre-school be compulsory from the age of three?

Should private child care institutions be taken over by the public sector?

Should the state “mix the population,” as a social democratic group has suggested?

There can be many more questions and proposals for measures, but the most important thing is probably that the answers spread in all directions. The only thing that was agreed upon was to fight crime more stringently.

It's a long way to reach an agreement

Swedes engage in polarizing self-examination, and it does so in an uncompromising climate.

Issues of identity and culture are not issues that can be separated, as in salary negotiations. The danger of vicious cycles exists in both the short and long term.

There is still a long way to go before agreement is reached on the principles that should underpin integration – and perhaps even further until particularly vulnerable migrant groups are practically integrated into society. Who wouldn't?