Jimmie Åkesson has strong reasons to come down hard on fellow Sweden Democrats who talk about ethnicity, according to Dagens Nyheter columnist Tomas Ramberg. In an analysis published Friday, Ramberg writes that what is at stake is a 20-year effort to rid the party of its racist reputation.
The piece follows a public argument inside the Sweden Democrats over Swedish identity, with Åkesson attacking leading figures and warning that dissenters could be removed. Several Swedish outlets have covered the dispute, including Expressen, Aftonbladet, Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten.
Why it matters
According to Ramberg, the Sweden Democrats' growth has not come from ideological fine points or national mysticism. It has come from a successful campaign to make the party appear normal and to wash away the racist label, which he says drew larger groups of voters to Åkesson's side.
That makes the current argument more than a squabble over wording. If the party drifts back toward ethnic language, it risks undoing the work that made it electorally successful, the DN writer argues.
Ramberg also notes that no other Swedish party is as preoccupied with the question of Swedishness as the Sweden Democrats. For the party, he writes, the Swedish nation is something far larger than the state of Sweden itself — a spiritual entity that does not need to be defined legally or statistically, and is assumed to exist as a historical community among Swedes.
A narrow definition of racism
Ramberg describes how the Sweden Democrats have persuaded large parts of public Sweden to accept a definition of racism narrow enough that the party does not fall under it. By framing racism as a matter of biology and genetics, Åkesson can claim the party is not racist, according to the analysis.
Accusations of xenophobia are no longer answered on their merits, Ramberg writes. Instead, they have become part of the party's narrative of a brave struggle against an elite that, in Åkesson's words as quoted by DN, has "called us ugly things."
Under this view, arguing against the mixing of cultures — and therefore against the mixing of the people who carry those cultures — is not discrimination.
The party's formula for getting around the problem is called "open Swedishness." In theory, anyone can become part of the Swedish nation regardless of birthplace, but the gate is narrow. As the party has put it in a program, qualifying means speaking fluent Swedish, seeing oneself as Swedish, living in line with Swedish culture, treating Swedish history as one's own, and feeling greater loyalty to the Swedish nation than to any other.
A shaky account of the party's history
Ramberg notes that Åkesson himself took part in the party's transformation from older forms of racism to "open Swedishness." When Åkesson now argues, in a long opinion article in Expressen, that the party has "never held racist views," Ramberg calls that a shaky version of history.
The party's own white book, published a few years ago, gave a very different picture, according to the analysis. The Sweden Democrats emerged from the racist organization Keep Sweden Swedish, and the white book lays out without gloss the party's Nazi and anti-foreigner roots, which Ramberg says recurred in both texts and practice during the 1990s.
The shift to "open Swedishness" was a precondition for the party's growth, which is why Åkesson is fighting so hard and threatening to "throw out" members who do not accept it, Ramberg writes.
Yet the party has also flirted with ethnic thinking in recent years, according to the analysis. He points to a line in the party program stating that "there is an inherited essence in every human being." The sentence was removed to avoid criticism, but the party did not retreat on the substance, Ramberg writes.
He also cites the debate over "population exchange" — the idea that Swedes are being replaced by people from foreign cultures, a notion often paired with a conspiracy theory. Both Åkesson and Mattias Karlsson, identified as the party's chief ideologue, have backed the concept and described it as a mathematical fact, according to DN.
Post-election anxiety
Ramberg interprets the renewed debate over ethnicity inside the party as a sign of post-election anxiety. The seemingly endless success has broken, and frustrated activists are searching for answers about how the party should move forward, he writes. Some believe the solution lies in more radical rhetoric — or, in Åkesson's phrasing as quoted by DN, in "opinion sloppiness."
The SD leader warns dissenters, in terms Ramberg describes as not especially subtle, that they will be purged if they do not fall in line. Among those who should feel targeted, according to the analysis, are several leading SD figures, including Richard Jomshof, one of Åkesson's oldest comrades-in-arms.
What is unfolding may be the start of a bruising political reckoning inside the Sweden Democrats, Ramberg concludes.
Watch for how the party handles its internal critics in the coming weeks, and whether Åkesson follows through on his threat to remove members who reject the "open Swedishness" line.
