Frida Johansson Metso writes in DN 2024-09-13 about how refugee policy in Sweden has changed drastically since 1948, when the UN introduced human rights. She focuses on the incident at Alsike monastery in 1993, where the police brutally picked up refugees who had sought protection, although some were later granted asylum. Today, many refugees fleeing war are treated as "alternatively in need of protection", which means shorter residence permits and more difficult family reunification. Johansson Metso criticizes how the political language confuses the debate by making a sharp distinction between "real refugees" and other people in need of protection.
What she describes is a worrying development where the right to asylum is increasingly eroded and where those fleeing war receive worse protection than before. Although many of us remember events like the Alsike monastery raid, there is a new generation that does not have these memories and thus has a harder time understanding how radical today's refugee policy has become. She describes how Sweden was previously known for offering protection to the most vulnerable, but that it is now more common to deny refugee status even to those fleeing war and violence.
Johansson Metso concludes by reflecting that today's politics are a violation of the values that Sweden previously held dear, and that more people must be reminded of what happens when the rule of law no longer functions as it should. People with real protection needs are hit hard, and the state's responsibility to protect these individuals has diminished.
Here you can read about it being a misconception that we wouldn't afford immigrants.
The greatest crime against humanity is and remains the ban on industrial development. People are fleeing poverty, or the violence that results when factions fight over dwindling resources.
When the current i-countries developed, they used a lot of methods that are today prohibited under WTO rules. They are called "trade barriers" and "distortion of the market". But no country has been able to develop an industry without first protecting it before it becomes strong enough to withstand global competition. And no country has been able to develop an industry without the state helping (e.g. Ericsson's and Televerket's joint expansion of the Swedish telecommunications network at the beginning of the 1900th century).
China still does that today. But that's only because they're so big that you can't get to them! And it's going well…
You can read more about that in Ha-Joon Chang: Kicking away the ladder, pdf version at https://sahoo.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ha-joon-chang-kicking-away-the-ladder.pdf. There is also a book where he develops the whole thing, e.g. on https://anthempress.com/kicking-away-the-ladder-pb.
Just. And now we are even banning ourselves from industrial development so that we too can remain as unindustrialized as the Congo just so that the richest can get richer.
You may be right.
However, there are more and more voices claiming that the neoliberal order is coming to an end, e.g. Branko Milanovic: https://branko2f7.substack.com/p/the-end-of-the-great-order-under and https://branko2f7.substack.com/p/the-third-framing:
"The point is that in practice the neoliberal international regime that debuted in the 1980s is dead. The major countries that defined its rules have ceased to abide by them. We are thus facing a strange situation where the main architects and the founders of the neoliberal international order no longer believe in it and do not apply it, but somehow the system should be still apparently adhered to by the rest of the world. This is an untenable situation.”
Those who unreservedly stand for it took quite a beating in both France and Germany this year, both from the right and the left. But there are many indications that Sweden will be the last man standing on the neoliberal stronghold, after all, there is no one who seriously challenges it here. We have neither a Wagenknecht nor a Le Pen.
Yes, it's terrible! I no longer recognize myself in Sweden. In the Sweden where I grew up and lived my life, solidarity with the weaker in Sweden and other countries was a matter of course, but today many people seem to think it is more important to protect themselves and theirs. When you see how many new kitchens and cars we can afford in Sweden, we should be able to take in people fleeing violence, war, poverty and hunger. And be able to invest in welfare in Sweden.
Just. What is the value of being rich, if one's heart is petrified?
A big change has taken place in Sweden
after VK ll there was a high degree of cohesion between the middle class and the lowest paid. When the geowar began and after 911 large refugee flows and
far-right politics is emerging
Yes. stands for this. https://www.redjustice.net/sverigedemokraterna-ar-inte-socialdemokrater/
PS, It seems such an unlikely candidate that the UK is steering away from neoliberal market worship, at least both Stiglitz and Mazzucato seem to think so. See https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/19/labour-is-offering-a-credible-plan-to-address-britains-economic-problems