Ice: You know, if I didn't know there's complete racist idiots in that party, the Swedish Democrats sound pretty reasonable.
N: How can you say that!
Ice: Come on, listen to this: "We want an open Swedish identity where the opportunity to be a part of this country isn't dependent on how you look or where you come from. What matters is a person's values and actions. We are also always clear with that it's the politics and not the immigrants themselves that is responsible for the failures of integration."
N: You know what those people really think.
Ice: You don't even have any arguments to answer me with. And this: "Multi-culture is the ideology that a nation should be built upon widely separated values working side by side, which in practice leads to separation and segregation. We want to stand up for the Western ideas of democracy, equality, animal protection and children's rights."
N: Western ideas? In practice? Besides, how can they both be equal and not allow some people to keep their culture?
Ice: If you're like that, you might as well ask "why be equal and not allow the people who want to to have crocodiles in their basements", maybe it belongs to someone's religious faith to have crocodiles? Besides, I'm not saying the Swedish Democrats are good people, I'm saying they have a point.
N: A point that is WRONG. Imagine what would have happened to those people who had been turned away, if our politics were harsher.
Ice: Imagine what could have happened to the people who got in, if they were treated better and not just tossed across the border with the "Everyone should come" policy? One of those human rights groups had a commercial a while ago that went, "there's a difference between being alive and living".
N: That's ridiculous, they were probably referring to people imprisoned in inhumane environments or starving in a desert, not to people with houses and clothes and their families around them.
Ice: Anna, what do you think?
Anna: I leave this discussion to professionals in immigration and economics.
N: Of course, since you can't get anything out of it.
Ice: In the best of worlds, the Swedish Democrats would have made the other parties look over their immigration politics, but since we have a habit of yelling NAZI every time anyone breathes anything that could possibly be considered anywhere near negative about people not Swedish, there can't even be a serious discussion. How is that for discrimination, anyway. Equality should mean we're allowed to talk bad about everyone.
N: Hear that? You're an idol of equality to everyone, Anna.
4 comments:
I agree that SD sometimes have good points, but usually very bad solutions to the issues they're pointing out. And if they argue their point, which they usually don't, they use utterly simplified rhetorics that's easy to agree with, easy to get all emotional about but really hard to find much grounds for in reality. But that's just last time I looked.
http://theshadowolf.blogspot.com/2010/09/politik-och-sd.html
I know it's out of date and also admitt that it's just as simplified as I accuse SD of being, sry ;)
Talking about commercials; do you remember the one SD made about benefits? Where an elderly person with a rollator had to have a race for the money against a woman with a pram dressed in a long black burca or whatever it's called? That's exactly the kind of rhetorics SD are using: very clear and easy to agree with the wrongness about the situation- the problem is that the situation don't even exist in reality. The different benefits don't come from the same money (or at least, that's what the other politicans are saying) and yet SD would like to implye that those darn muslims are coming here stealing the money from our elders. Even if it were true it's not a very sofisticated politics, is it? Pitting two groups against each other? Easy rhetoric, yes, but hardly constructive. Though, as you say, the other parties should USE this instead of being childish and freeze them out. If they talked about it and that way pointed out the flaws in SD's rhetoric they wouldn't gain so much sympathy as they do by being martyrs.
But I agree that we have big problems about segregation and criminality and so on. It's just that I don't think one should blame a group but rather admitt that it's a structural problem in our society and change the structure. SD also say that, but at the same time usually come up with solutions that target the groups suffering the problems instead of the problems themselves.
Trying to be objective here but don't know if I pull it off ^^
I hate to nitpick, but shouldn't the translation be "Sweden Democrats" rather than "Swedish Democrats"?
Grammar nazi, away!
I get the feeling people think I agree with SD somehow, in which case I guess I gave N a too weak voice. My point was pretty much that I don't agree with either side, and that the pamphlet was very cleverly constructed which I appreciate and admire, whatever their intentions were. They do bring up problems that I'd like for the other parties to address seriously however. The way they are treated is not the way a democratic society should treat democratically chosen representatives, and it invites shadow games and pushes the line of the democratic process in a way that rather favor the more aggressive of them. As for whether it's Sweden Democrats or Swedish Democrats - I don't give a f, I don't think this would be mistaken for an official document. I translated the whole quotes so I'm pretty fucked right there anyway.
I understood your position, I believe, and I agree with it. They bring up situations that you would wish other, sensible, proper parties would spend more time on.
Related: I invite you to watch some randomly chosen debates between Jimmy Åkesson and virtually any other political figure. There are several on youtube, go check. Most of them refused to take the debate seriously, which just made Åkesson seem like a great debater and a very balanced and sensible individual. And then there was Gudrun Schyman, who made him look like a bumbling child. It was awesome.
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