Is a Country Merely Empty Space? By Fjordman
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/fjordman/is-a-country-merely-empty-space/
Fredrik Reinfeldt was Prime Minister of Sweden from 2006 to 2014. His center-right coalition government suffered a defeat in the general elections of September 2014. Allegedly conservative Prime Minister Reinfeldt stated that the native Swedish culture was merely barbarism; everything good was imported from abroad. He said this in 2006 following a visit to the town of Södertälje, near Stockholm.
In September 2005 a police station in Södertälje was hit by shots from an automatic weapon, following a confrontation between aggressive immigrant youths and the local police. The trouble started after a Swedish girl was called a “whore” and reacted negatively to the epithet.
If a leading politician had said that African, Asian or Islamic culture was “merely barbarism,” there would have been a huge public outcry and calls for his immediate resignation due to “racism.” His career might have been over. Yet disrespecting and mocking the traditions of Europeans is apparently no problem.
Suburbs in Stockholm and other Swedish cities were rocked by major immigrant riots in the spring of 2013. There are fears that similar riots could return at any moment. The underlying problems have not gone away. Despite this, the ruling elites stubbornly reject any suggestion that mass immigration should be curtailed.
Eleven young men and boys were detained in December 2014 after rioting in a Stockholm suburb. The police were attacked with stones and Molotov cocktails, a park was vandalized and several cars were torched. The eleven are suspected of arson, vandalism, violent rioting and attempted severe assault. “They are still being questioned,” police spokeswoman Kia Samrell told news agency TT. Police spokeswoman Elisabeth Wernsten told Swedish Radio News: “A witness saw a large gathering of younger individuals who marched towards the center of Rågsved, where the school is. The witness suspected that the youths were going to smash the school up.” When the police gathered to confront them, they started throwing stones and firebombs. Another police spokeswoman, Eva Nilsson, said that the incident appears to have been premeditated. Police still had no explanation as to why they had been attacked. “This gang simply decided to get together to commit crime. There is no good reason for wanting to attack the police in this way. Nothing provoked the incident,” said Wernsten.
The Rågsved school is one of the poorest performing schools in the country. Just 29 percent of pupils received high enough grades to be admitted to senior high school.
In late 2014, former Prime Minister and outgoing Moderate Party leader Fredrik Reinfeldt once again ruled out any cooperation with the Sweden Democrats, who want to restrict mass immigration to Sweden. In a major interview with the left-wing daily Politiken in Denmark, Reinfeldt rejected the notion that Sweden offers a safe haven for more refugees than the country can cope with, saying that there is plenty of room in the Scandinavian and Nordic countries for more human beings fleeing oppression and war. “What does the word ‘enough’ mean? Sweden is full? The Nordic region is full? Are we too many people? We are 25 million people living in the Nordic region. I often fly over the Swedish countryside and I would advise others to do the same. There are endless fields and forests. There’s more space than you might imagine. Those who claim that the country is full, they should demonstrate where it is full.”
Søren Espersen from the Danish People’s Party (DF) warned that the very liberal Swedish immigration policies now constitute a threat to Denmark and other neighboring countries. The declaration by Sweden’s former Prime Minister Reinfeldt that “there is plenty of space for more refugees” in the Nordic countries was slammed by Danish leaders. “This is the first time I’ve heard that a country’s geographic size should determine how many people from distant lands can fit in. That’s a new one for me. But space is not the problem – the problem is that we have huge economic and cultural challenges,” Martin Geertsen, the integration spokesman for the opposition party Venstre, told Danish media. Mette Reissmann of the ruling Social Democrats also dismissed Reinfeldt’s criticism, adding that Denmark doesn’t share Sweden’s goal of being seen as a “humanitarian superpower.”
Sweden is larger than Germany, but has a much smaller population. Sweden’s total land area is about 450,000 square kilometers. Macau’s population density is currently 20,674 persons per square kilometers. If you populate Sweden with the same population density as Macau, you have room for 9.3 billion people. Theoretically, you could move the entire planet’s human population to Sweden. Yet there is even more open space in Antarctica.
Is a country simply empty space, waiting to be filled by shopping and human rights? Are all cultures equal? Can you replace Swedes with Somalis and expect to get the same result? That seems to be the view of transnational and globalist Western elites, although this view is rarely articulated as clearly as Mr. Reinfeldt does.
Much to the annoyance of Western ruling elites, many normal Europeans disagree. They see their countries as the homeland of a distinct nation. They do not believe that all cultures are equal and do not celebrate being gradually displaced in their homeland by foreign tribes. Is a nation merely an idea, or is it an organic unit of people with a shared history and heritage? That is the crucial question underlying the rising tensions over mass immigration throughout the Western world.
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