After a proposal of ‘forced integration’ was approved at the party congress in May, the Swedish Social Democrats are now outlining what their plan is, should they return to power after next year’s parliamentary elections.
The fact that native Swedes—as well as immigrants—tend to gravitate toward living in communities with people of similar background is a problem, according to the Social Democrats. To solve the problem, their proposal includes ending asylum seekers’ right to choose their own housing, banning the placement of newcomers in so-called vulnerable areas, and restricting moves there by threatening to cut social benefits.
In an interview with Svenska Dagbladet, Sara Kukka-Salam, a member of the party leadership, says native Swedes who want to live among other native Swedes are racist.
“We have a housing market where you can live wherever you want. But choosing not to live next to someone based on their last name is racism,” she said.
Kukka-Salam sees no problems with the mass immigration Sweden has experienced in the past decade and wants the country to continue welcoming immigrants. It’s not immigration that’s the problem, she said, but failed integration. And integration is everybody’s responsibility, she said:
“If one in five of your friends isn’t born abroad, I’d say you’re not contributing to an integrated Sweden. Everyone has a responsibility. If you want to see integration, you also have to be part of it.”
“The financial, ethnic, and linguistic segregation must be broken on a structural level which requires mixing of the population,” a document from the party congress states. To achieve this, the Social Democrats propose constructing new apartment buildings for subsidized housing among single-family homes, along with razing older apartment complexes that have become parallel immigrant societies.
The ideas have gained support from the new head of the Swedish Crime Prevention Council (BRÅ), Jonas Trolle, who was appointed by the sitting center-right government.
“I’m not opposed to mixing people in residential areas,” he told Dagens Nyheter. “I believe that subsidized housing in more affluent neighborhoods can, in the long run, reduce crime.”
Meanwhile, Social Democrat party chair Magdalena Andersson, when asked in a TV interview with Expressen if she would consider moving to an immigrant-rich neighborhood to “help integration,” responded, “I have no plans to move at all. … I mean, the whole question is pathetic—that’s not what this is about.”
