We're becoming more like Lebanon
and Brazil in certain aspects. There's a sadness, a profound
sadness in the whole of Swedish society. Hello and welcome to UnHerd, I'm
Freddie Sayers. Up until recently, Sweden was a country
that anyone on the Left of the political spectrum held up as a
hero. Then COVID happened and their more liberal response was
quite controversial, to put it mildly. And now, as of the past
few days, there is a new government in charge in Sweden,
which consists of the Right-wing parties in coalition and
alongside them, but not actually in government, is the Swedish
Democrats, which are often called far Right. And we'll
investigate whether that's actually true. Happily, this
weekend, here in London, we are joined by Ivar Arpi, who is
normally resident in Sweden, where you run your blog, Rak
höger, and podcast alongside it. But you're here in town so we
thought we had to catch up and find out what your perspective
was. What does this mean for populism for Sweden, for
democracy and the rest of it? So welcome, Ivar. Thank you. It's very nice to be
here. Two days ago, a new agreement
was signed among the Right-wing members of the new coalition in
Sweden. This means Sweden no longer has a Left or Centre-Left
social democratic government. It has a Right-wing government.
Tell us about that. Is this a new Right-wing government and
how Right-wing is it? Yes, this is a new Right-wing
government. But to be Right-wing today is to have firm stance on
crime on migration, especially migration. So everything is
about migration. If you're pro migration, pro generous
migration policies, then you're Left-wing, even though you might
be a neoliberal when it comes to economic policies, and you want
flat tax and stuff like that. So the Centre party that was part
of the support of the social democratic government, they are
the most Right-wing of all the parties in the parliament when
it comes to economic issues but they are Left-wing nowadays. So
that's a realignment of what it means to be Left and Right. So
yeah, to answer a short question with a long, long, long answer,
yes, this will be a Right-wing government, and it will be a
paradigm shift in Sweden, I would say. The party that you just
mentioned that the Sweden Democrats is the controversial
one. This is why people like the New York Times and many other
sort of mainstream publications are very anxious about this
situation, because they think fascism has returned to Europe.
We hear about the Giorgia Meloni government in Italy, kind of in
concert with this new Right-wing Swedish government. And there
are a lot of people who are very uneasy about it. Tell us about
the Swedish Democrats, in particular. I mean, do you
support them? For example? I don't support any political
party. I don't think you should. I'm very Swedish. I know that
here in Britain, newspapers support different parties but I
don't support the parties. But yes, I'm for a change of
government. So the Swedish Democrats, who
are they? Where they come from? Rather like with the Giorgia
Meloni party, there is this idea that they're descended from
fascists, even though they may not be now. What's the truth? Do
you think? So I think that comparison is
interesting and fruitful because the Sweden Democrats, they were
formed in the late 80s. They recently published their own
white book made by a scientist and he concludes that about a
third of the forming members of Sweden Democrats had roots in
Far Right organisations, Neo Nazi organisation. So they were
most definitely on the fringe and extreme. What they say
themselves, as a defence, is that those members after a few
years were gone. And they've moved and tried to become more
mainstream, acceptable. Yes, and that the current leadership has
been there since the 90s and they've been the primary force
behind the change. What have they changed to try
and get that more acceptable appearance? Have they actually
changed their policy? Because they used to be in favour of
repatriation of immigrants. Are they still in favour of that? Yes. And I would say that
repatriation is something that more parties now are talking
about in Sweden. To the Sweden Democrats, and to the Swedish
people, that's the most important issue together with
crime. We had soaring crime all over Sweden, and we've had a
complete change in Sweden when it comes to our our
demographics. So we now have more and more heterogeneous
population than the United States had when they had the
record high levels of migration during the early 1900s. We have
more foreign born people as part of the population than they ever
did. And now Swedish population is, when it comes to diversity,
you can only compare it to Britain, Holland, and France.
But there's a difference. The influx from the Commonwealth in
Britain, and from the colonies in France and Netherlands, was
over a much larger period of time. In Sweden, it's 20 years.
So the last 10 years and 20 years have completely changed
how Sweden looks and the challenges we face. So what are the numbers on that? 25% of the population in Sweden
are foreign born. Is that a controversial number?
Would every newspaper agree with that? Yeah, the number is from the
Statistical Central Bureau. So that's public statistics. So, of
course, the political implications, that's where they
are controversial. So that means that of the
roughly 10 million, or maybe it's now 11 million population,
two or 3 million are... Two million are foreign born.
And if you look at the younger population, it's people who are
foreign born or have parents who are foreign born, it's almost 40
or 45% of the population in the ages, zero to 44. And if you
look in the big cities, it's a majority of the young population
that are either foreign born themselves or have migration
ancestry. So, just if you go back 20 years, the cities look
different. And we had challenges with integration but not on a
scale like this. So we're in a slightly strange
or paradoxical situation that the Sweden Democrats are
excluded from the government. They are there in a kind of
confidence and supply arrangement with the minority
Right-wing coalition. They're not allowed into the government
but actually they've influenced all the other major parties in
recent years. Is that a fair summary? I think it's a fair summary. But
if you summarise it like that you give them too much credit,
because they are not geniuses. In Sweden, if you compared to
Poland, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, where migration is an
issue, it's more of an abstract issue. In Sweden, you cannot go
outside the door without or be at your workplace without being
confronted by the issue because it was such a large influx of
people in 2015, for example, and after that, as well. So, there
is no place in Sweden where you can go and you don't see
migration, there are no small cities in Sweden, where there's
not a, like 10, 20 or 30% of the population is either foreign
born or have roots there. So the issue became that the reality
was so pervasive that all parties had to deal with it. So
Sweden Democrats, the reason people vote for them is that
they view Sweden Democrats as the best answer to this problem.
And everybody started talking about it, because the whole
population is talking about it. We were talking about nothing
else, because we see it every day. So I guess you are coming at
this from a certain angle? No I'm objective. I'm neutral
and impartial. Your website is called Rak
höger, which means straight Right? Yes. So you can deduce from that what
your angle is going to be. I guess the people who disagree
with you would say, first of all, what's wrong with that? You
know, you talk as if 'we can't find this town without
immigrants'. Well, why would you need a town without immigrants?
Why are you looking for one? I think people will feel
uncomfortable with that kind of talk. Here in London, we've been
used to a multicultural kind of society for decades and decades.
And it appears to continue functioning reasonably well. Why
is it a bad thing that there's been this big influx of
migrants? That's a great question. And I'm
glad you asked. Because I think sometimes it's, you can be
confusing, because you talk always talk about that as if
it's a problem. And of course, if you look at a lot of Sweden,
we have amazing success stories as well. We have, I think 50% of
the doctors since we ignore either foreign born or or
educated in another country. And other professions as well are,
to a large degree, people from other countries coming in
becoming Swedish; the kids are going to switch schools, and
it's just success stories. And ironically, if you look at this
debate, now, it's two white males discussing this. But if
you look in Sweden, in these issues, it's often been that
it's like an Iranian born and other like an Arab Swede, and
they are debating from different different angles, about how hard
integration is. And while you're seeing it, they're seeing it in
perfect Swedish, they've gone to Swedish school, and they have a
Swedish education. And they're fully integrated. And one of
them is saying the integration is not working properly. And the
other one is saying it's, we should do this instead. So you
have the success stories all the time in Sweden- Which you acknowledge? Yeah, of course, and also when
you say diversity is a strength, I would agree, up to a point.
That is still true, that still rings true. What we've had is a
very large volume of migrants in a very short period of time. And
also, we have had a very hard time to give them accommodation.
And they have had a hard time finding jobs. So it used to be
that, because we had a much smaller influx of immigrants,
they came to certain areas, then they got a job and moved away.
So many of the first waves of migrants, they are they're
basically living in Swedish areas now. So they are fully
integrated, like the Greeks, the Turks, the Yugoslavs who came
earlier and had a much easier time of it. What is happening
now is that people are getting stuck in these areas, and there
are no ethnic Swedes there. So there are no Swedish, no native
Swedish speakers in the schools. There is no contact with a wider
society from these areas. And in these areas, criminal gangs have
taken control over large parts of society and people are
captives in those parts. So some people would say that
this is exaggerated. I mean, it's become the sort of
Right-wing meme that gets talked about that there are no-go
areas, explosions, hand grenades, gang warfare is just a
daily reality. The police have totally vacated these parts. Is
that really true? Do you walk through some of these areas,
outside Stockholm, outside Malmö, and what is the
day-to-day, real life experience there? Is it as terrifying as
all that? Or might they seem like normal functioning areas if
you went through them? I think if you compared to the
United States... I mean, it's much more dangerous in other
parts of the world than in Sweden, of course, and it's not
Brasil. It's not, you go to a favela, or you go to Baltimore,
it's not the same. But the grenade violence and the bombs
are on the same level as Mexico. And that's just facts. People
are bombing in the central Uppsala, and you're bombing and
you're shooting into regular apartments in affluent areas. That's mainly intra-gang? Is it
in between different gangs, different parts of the same
immigrant community? And also against police bosses,
police officers. So, police officers are threatened. Just
the other day, they shot into the house of a police constable,
like a higher up officer in the hierarchy. His house was shot
up, and he lives in affluent area in Gothenburg, the second
largest city in Sweden. And if you go to the more crime ridden
areas, daily life continues. It's the same in war zones.
Children are playing; people are going outside, mostly. Even in
Ukraine, children are playing. It's not the same as in Ukraine.
But I mean, we have kids who are being killed at the playground,
because the criminals in Sweden are so reckless in their
violence and they have automatic rifles. And that's new. That is
new. At the same time, you say it's a Right-wing meme, so to
speak. There are different trajectories here, because the
schools, for example, in some of these areas have actually gotten
better. So, not all trends are worse, but it's still a huge
challenge when the crime is so prevalent, and it's everywhere,
and it's in schools. People are afraid, even the police officer
can be afraid to work in these areas. Of course, they go into
these areas, it's not a no-go zone for the police. But if you
don't have an errand, as most Swedes don't, you don't go to
these areas. And so that also increases the distance between
the wider society and these enclaves. So, I guess there probably would
be a good degree of agreement that the waves of immigration in
recent years have been mismanaged, at least. Is that
fair? I mean, across the mainstream political parties as
well, there's a sense that integration hasn't been managed
as effectively as it should be that there's a real crime
problem. I mean, that's not controversial. Is that right? I think everyone is in agreement
there. So at that point, it's a
question of degree. And I want to move to this question of what
we do about it, because we talked about repatriation, which
is a genuine policy of the Swedish Democrats. If you
mentioned that in the UK context, or in many other
countries, it would be jaw wide open, that is a completely kind
of impossible zone to go into. There's a deep sense that once
you've welcomed someone into your country, you at that point,
have responsibility to make it work. And maybe you made a
mistake previously, but at that point, they are a citizen, and
you have bond with them. Is that not the same in Sweden? What
does repatriation actually mean in practice? I think the British, it's always
hard to review another country's policies, but I do think that
the way Brexit was handled, and the way the Tories interpreted
their increasing levels of support in the so-called, Red
Wall, and what people expected from Brexit, they were totally
stuck in a liberal conservative mindset on what they were going
to deliver. And I think one of the things that they didn't
deliver on was less migration to Britain. And that is one of the
issues I think there's a space now for Nigel Farage again or
somebody like him to come in and make a run for it in those
issues and see if those votes are really going to Labour or if
they are going someplace else. Even Nigel Farage was not
talking about repatriation, as far as I recall. But what I say is that if you're
an immigrant, and not all immigrants are refugees, you
have to say, and if you come to another country; you behave
badly; you don't do your part of it, then I don't think it's too
much to ask that, then, 'Okay, you go back'. And I don't think,
if it was a mistake to take them in, I don't think it's a
something that you should never be able to correct. So for
example, right now, the agreement that's on the table in
the new government, between the Sweden Democrats, the Moderate
Party, Liberals and Christian Democrats, we will have the
strictest migration policies in all of Europe. And the reason we
will have that is because we were too welcoming. And now
we're having seen too many bad consequences of that. What are the measures? Just
share with audience. What are the details of that? No, I don't have it in front of
me and I just read it one time. The headlines? The headlines, yeah. I don't
have any in front of me but one of the one of the things is that
if you're commiting crimes in Sweden, and you are foreign born
and you don't have a citizenship, the rule should be
that you will be dispelled from the country. And it's not been
like that. Also sometimes the way the rules are formulated is
that if you have formed a bond with a country, even though
you've raped or killed or done something horrible, that bond is
still so strong according to the law that you are not supposed to
be put out of the country. And that will also change. And
repatriation, I just have to say that it's been part of the
policy for all governments in Sweden. So we've had
repatriation policies in place forever. So you can get money- That's just for criminals? No. So, if you want to return to
your country of origin, you can apply to get a grant and you
will be helped by Swedish agencies and that's in place
forever. So this is not new. But the level of that grant, the sum
and the level of support and how much of an incentive you will
have to go back to your country of origin, that will increase
now with this agreement that's on the table. So just to be clear, then. So
repatriation, because when people hear that, they will
think, 'Are they rounding up immigrant communities and
putting them on planes and sending them home?' What you're
saying is, if they're convicted of a crime, which I'm guessing
is a very, very small minority of you're talking about 2
million plus foreign born Swedes, I mean, that's not even
going to make a dent in that number. In terms of people who
are convicted of a crime, obviously, it's a tiny minority.
And then it's people who are voluntarily asking for access to
a scheme that gives them money if they want to return to their
country of origin. So is there any kind of world in which this
makes a impactful difference to the immigration situation? Or is
it actually just an atmospheric change? Where it's sort of
making Sweden seem less welcoming in some way? What's
the truth of that? No, I do think that the people
who have come are probably going to stay. And that's just the way
it is. That's the way it is all the time. So, there's a new government in
place. Due to all of these factors, we've now got
essentially a not anti-immigration but very close
to anti-immigration, Swedish government. I mean, as you say,
it's some of the strictest rules in Europe, having been one of
the most welcoming to immigrants. In a sense, it's
joining Denmark and other countries that have had a turn
in that direction in recent years. Do you think that fixes
it as an issue? Do you think voters will now be satisfied
that action has been taken? Or do you think it will carry on? No, it will carry on. These
things are not to be fixed. These are problems that we will
live with for generations. I mean, if we live together and we
don't meet each other; we have different identities; we speak
different languages; we have different cultures, different
religions. This is something not something solved in four years.
This is not something solved in 10, 20, 30 years. This is
something you live with for 100 years. So this is just a start
of something. So do you not have hope? I think
Germany is a good example here. After the big 'Wir schaffen
das', 'we can handle it', wave of immigration in 2015, there
was, again, the same kind of stories. They were worried about
rapes or criminal gangs in Germany, and there were
incidents in Cologne and elsewhere. Then fast forward a
few years and actually they have handled it. Those incidences are
less common than they used to be. And there is a sense
overall, in which the worst fears of the populist Right in
Germany didn't play out. And they did accommodate that
community. Why can't the same happened in Sweden? Well, I'm not so sure that your
description of German is correct, first and foremost. And
I don't think Britain, France are success stories either. You
have huge conflicts between people and groups.You saw gangs
of Hindu nationalists and Pakistanis fight in the streets
of- I can't remember which which city it was- but those kinds of
things are a part of Britain now. And it will be a part of
France, and it will be part of Sweden. So these are not things
that one government can wish away with a few policies. It's
just the start of something, and it will be long in the making.
You cannot correct mistakes that were made over the course of 40
years in just a few years. So this will be this is a question
of destiny, so to speak, like what kind of country will Sweden
be in two decades, three decades? It's a question of
survival. It's a question of Swedish identity. And it's also
a question of will we be a country where we share
institutions with each other, or will we have separate
institutions, and we try to manage the level of conflict
like in Lebanon or Brazil. In Lebanon, it's, of course based
along sectarian lines in Brazil, it's class; the rich and the
poor live separate lives. And in Sweden right now, we are
becoming more like Lebanon and Brazil in certain aspects. And
I, there's a sadness, a profound sadness in the whole Swedish
society. People are very pessimistic. If you go back 15
years, 20 years, 30 years, Swedes were always optimistic,
like, oh, my children will have it better than I did. And now, a
majority says the other way. And that's new. I mean that's not just Sweden.
You find that in countries across the West, I would say
now. There's similar effect. But you're sounding pretty
pessimistic, Ivar. I've got to say, it's bleak the vision
you're presenting. This is a only a country that gets more
divided. You end up in some kind of Lebanon-style situation.
Where's the hope that we can actually reach across these
barriers? I mean, I guess your critics might say, instead of
investing energy in highlighting the divisions and the need to
have stronger repatriation policies or whatever, what about
going to these areas and seeing what needs to be done to bring
those people in to society and to try to rediscover a single
common vision? Is it just naive? Is that what you think? Yes, it's a naive vision that
contact breeds closeness. Sometimes you meet people and
you think the more you meet them, the less you like them. Is that how you feel? No, I'm just saying that certain
groups, let's take Hindu nationalists and Pakistanis, I
don't think it's a good idea if they live together, for example.
If they have such opposing views and they brought that conflict
to Britain, then perhaps it's better if they don't live as
close to each other because they have such opposing views on so
many issues. Closeness will not breed closeness of heart there.
It will breed conflict. And sometimes that is just the way
it is. People are very different. I don't think you
should be naive and think that people should just mix and that
will be the cure for it. I don't think social engineering, we've
tried that for a long time in Sweden, and it didn't work out
that well all the time. The thing is that if you talk about
what you're afraid of, then it highlights what you feel are the
challenges. So Lebanon, the challenge there is how can
people live together in a common areas, even though they have
different religions and different ethnicities? So then
you don't become Lebanon. So, of course, it's not an utopia
you're talking about but you talk about something you want to
avoid. And the same with Brazil, do you want to have a country
where the cleavages between classes, and between the rich
and poor are so deep that they're basically talking about
two different countries? And that's the challenge now for
Sweden, how can we keep the common areas, the commonalities? You seem to be saying we can't?
I mean, I've got to ask, what's the Ivar Arpi prescription here?
If we put you in charge of the Swedish government, you accept
that the people who have arrived are basically there to stay give
or take a few 1000, what's the good plan here? Yes, some of the good plans are,
I would say, what they've managed now in government. We
will see how it plays out. I don't think problems are solved
in a four year period, mostly. But our own Rust Belt, so to
speak, mirrors the one here in Britain, and also in United
States. How you can help them and how you can bring in more
jobs for working class and you can have a better situation for
them and there you can see that Sweden Democrats have more of a
Left-wing policy. So I would say that you need some Left-wing
policies. They are actually good when it comes to economics. We
need more more state interventionism, and then we've
had. And so, basically, I think you have to be patient with some
of these things. The only way, historically, that you make
people the same is by a lot of violence. And that's the only
way it's ever been done. Like if you look at China; the way
people became Han Chinese. Why everybody is saying that they're
Han Chinese is not because they are Han Chinese, it's because
they've been extremely oppressed over the course of 1000s of
years. And it's the same, if you look here in Britain, the only
reason you get rid of the troublesome Scottish Highlands,
it was you went up into the Highlands and removed them and
put them in the Lowlands so you could control them. So almost
everything you can do to make people the same that's been done
historically, is beyond the pale of the way we're conducting
ourselves a civilised nation now. You can only do it by
trying to convince people that they should join. But I think there's an argument
to be had about more optimism. So why are you optimistic? Well, I'm not saying I'm
optimistic. But I feel like there's almost a requirement to
be more optimistic than that, because otherwise, it's just
pure fatalism. And then you get into kind of number counting and
general drift towards a more divided society and the fears of
white people becoming minorities. You get into a very
divisive world there. Whilst I do think London, for example, is
a success story, broadly speaking. Yeah, there are
examples, like the one you've mentioned, in places in the
North of England and there are parts of East London like that,
where communities are very sort of homogenous. But broadly
speaking, I think the UK is a success story of how you can
have quite high levels of immigration and not have
violence. And you know, there'll be parts of America, no doubt,
that would be similar. Normally, it's the more affluent parts. So
London is a rich part of the country, overall. It makes it a
hell of a lot easier for everybody to get along and for
there to be a shared sense of purpose when the economy is
doing well and where people are affording to make their lives
better. I think it gets much harder when things are going
badly and people turn against each other. So, maybe that's
some cause for optimism? If the Swedish economy does well, and
there are jobs and there's money to go around and programmes to
bring in people from different cultures, maybe this bleak,
divided future doesn't need to happen? Yeah, let's hope so. I just
think that not to be impolite but I think that's a privileged
view of it. And I share the privilege. Sometimes, you talk
about the division between 'anywheres' and 'somewheres',
and I think both you and me are part of the 'anywhere'. I'm half Swedish, half English. Yes and I'm here in London
talking to you. So I just flew here and then I'm flying back.
But I think that division, it's not true, because many of the
so-called 'somewheres' are 'anywheres' in that they'd like
to travel but they also like to have a sense of place and
continuity. And if you're if you're a part of the rich world,
where the people you're meeting from different kinds of
cultures, they are also very similar to you in your in the
outlook on life, and levels of education. Then you're not
seeing the problematic parts of diversity. So I would say that
London is a great example of- most of London is- of how it can
work and many parts of Stockholm as well. But the troublesome
parts of migration is seen in other parts of the country in
Sweden. And it's the same in many European countries, where
if you look at the people have come to Sweden, if you compare
it to other European countries, we have the least educated
people with the highest rates of analphabetism of all immigrant
populations in all of Europe, while the ethnic Swedes are one
of the most highly educated and most literate population. So the
divide between majority Swedes and migrant populations is huge.
And that's something that makes for another experience of
migration. For example, a country like Britain, where many
of the migrants coming here have a higher degree of education,
even when they come. So, not all migration is the same. And not
all experiences and challenges facing you are the same, when it
comes to migration. Clearly, that is a failure of
the Swedish policy. I think most people would agree with that if
these gaps in education attainment are so wide and the
failure to integrate, failure to give proper employment
opportunities to people after you've welcomed them in. What do
you think it says, If anything about the Swedish character? I
don't know if it's possible to even generalise as broadly as
that, but the country is thought of as being optimistic, Left,
liberal kind of paradise often and that they got it all sorted.
But there's something in this inviting so many people in and
then failing to be actually truly welcoming. That is a
little bit anxious-making about what the Swedish character
really is. Do you think we can make any statements like that? I think you have to bring in the
character of the migrants. And what kind of people and how they
are because it's sort of a chauvinistic way to think that
your character is the one deciding things when it's a
meeting of two, a meeting of peoples. So it's not just a
question of how the Swedes are, it's a question of how the
people coming into the country are and what they want, and what
they their views, dreams and hopes are. And many people
coming to Sweden, they don't come to Sweden to become
Swedish. They come to Sweden because maybe they couldn't be
Kurdish in their country of origin or they couldn't be Shia
Muslim because they lived in a Sunni dominated country, or they
come because they were oppressed, like the Hazaras of
Iran. Their country of origin is Afghanistan, but most of them
lived in Iran and they were oppressed there. So you have to
take that into consideration as well and what they have with
them and how far they are in their values, views and dreams
from the people in the country that are coming to. So, it's the
meeting that's interesting. And of course, it's a failure. But I
would say that it's not the failure of any policy in Sweden.
This is not the failure of integration policy, or schools
or job policy. Nothing like that. It was too many who came
too fast. No country, I would challenge any country- it's
never been done before that level that we had- to be able
to integrate them into into a whole. So it will always be a
failure, some mistakes were made, you could have done
something better but if you're doing it on that level, you will
always fail. And it's not a question of Swedish culture,
Swedish character. You could have the best, best culture and
character in the whole wide world, you would still fail. Let me ask you to broaden out
finally, here. You've painted, this quite bleak picture of
Sweden's future, put it in context for us, in the wider
European or even Western moment, because we've talked about
Giorgia Meloni, in Italy. Clearly Eastern European
countries, one by one, have become much more nationalistic,
much more Right-wing, quote-un-quote. And there are
substantial minorities in other Western countries like France,
who still vote for the so called far Right parties. It does feel
like there is a turn against that kind of cosmopolitan,
global world dream and future that we were brought up
believing was a near certainty. That, so called, 'end of
History' moment most definitely feels over. Where do these
trends lead us do you think? Is it to have ever smaller nation
states that are ever more uniform and trying to kind of
reduce mixing? What does the future look like? So I would say that we're still
stuck in the 'End of History', because what Fukuyama tells us
and it's, I think, not appreciated enough is that there
is no other game in town that inspires people. So, it used to
be that there was an alternative view in the Socialist
International. There was a challenge to the capitalism of
the West. And the challenge to all the Right-wing and Left-wing
populists, all over Europe, is; 'what is your alternative view
of the future?' And they've been lacking in answering that. But I
would say there are there are signs that these parties are
inspiring each other more, having deeper connections to
each other, learning from each other, and also cooperating on
an EU level. So they switched from being anti EU, to becoming
pro EU but they want to turn the EU into something else. One of
the top brass of the EU has said that we should strive to make
European countries less homogenous so that we take away
the populist fire. So, you have that movement as well. And do you see a showdown
between the populist forces and the technocrat authoritarian
forces? Yeah and that's basically also a
tension within liberal democracy: which part of it do
you put the emphasis on, so the liberal part or the democracy
part? The populace, of course, they put the emphasis on
democracy. People should have a vote on everything. People
should have an influence over the countries; we should take
power back to the people, back to the nation states. If people
don't want migrants, then they should be able to vote on it.
And then you have the liberal part of it, which is minority
protection, human rights. We've signed these conventions. These
are the rules based order and for the economy to function
well, we need a certain set of rules. And so there this tension
there and I would say that in the future, that tension, I only
see increasing. And it becomes a kind of elite
versus less elite clash, then doesn't it? Because clearly the
liberal part is more emphasised by people who are kind of at the
higher ends of the establishment or income scale. And the
populist part is emphasised by people who aren't so you're
almost in a kind of internal tensions, possible Civil War
kind of zone if these trends just carry on exaggerating? Yeah. And civil war, I would say
it's a much higher risk in countries like the United
States. At least in many of the populist parties, if you talk
about Meloni, for example, the fascist, the boogeyman, this in
her case, there's very clear-cut evidence that it was the old
fascist party translated and then became the Brothers. So the
question is, is it still a fascist party or she more of a
populist Right, socially conservative party? I would
argue that that's more important now. It can still be dangerous
if you view her policies as dangerous but the the
characteristics of the fascists, the communists and the Nazis in
the early 20th century was that they had paramilitary
organisations that were physical threats to people. And we're not
seeing that in Europe. In the United States, you have militias
and stuff like that. I'm not an expert in how many crimes they
are committing but I mean, people are very armed there. And
that's not the same. It's not happening with the Sweden
Democrats. Meloni, the Brothers of Italy, they are not marching
the streets. So the threats are elsewhere, I would say. Street
violence is not the thing, people should be afraid of it.
There are other, more scary things that will happen, I
think. I'm going to take that as a
moment of almost optimism. The fact that we're not having
impending civil war and impending street violence, I'm
taking as Ivar's moment of sunshine on this. It's you. I can be optimistic. I
feel like I've been pegged by you, because every question you
start with 'that's very pessimistic', but then you ask a
question that I have to answer in a pessimistic way. It's your
fault. Okay. Well, I'll give you the
floor. Now. Give us what is the optimistic scenario we should
take away with us? If there is one? I would say that in Sweden right
now we have a lot of things going well. The country is great
in a lot of ways. And still is. It's just that the challenges
are huge. But I mean, integration is working as well.
So many of the things I'm saying, they're still real but I
think we have we have a strong economy, compared to Italy, for
example. We have a lot of things going for us and integration is
working. It's just the Rorschach test of the Sweden Democrats.
Are we right now in 1933 in Germany, or are we in 2022,
Sweden? If you ask the Left-wing, it's 1933, in
Germany, and if you ask the Right-wing we are in 2022,
finally starting to rise to the challenge. So I'm optimistic for
this government to do something. Ivar Arpi, thank you very much. Thank you. That was Ivar Arpi, a Swedish
journalist, formerly of Svenska Dagbladet, which is the big
broadsheet over in Sweden and now editor of his own website
called Straight Right. So no ambiguity about what his
political angle is on this although I did try to push back
a little bit and explore some of his ideas. Clearly what's going
on in Sweden is interesting. It's significant. It's
concerning. And it probably represents similar kinds of
situations happening in other countries around Europe that is
going to continue playing out. We would like to investigate it
more. There is a plan afoot to actually go to Sweden in
December and find out for ourselves but until then, thank
you for tuning in. This was UnHerd.
