Sweden, don’t follow the Danish example

When the Swedish media report on the the riots that have rocked the Sockholm suburb of Husby, they avoid mentioning the fact that 80 per cent of Husby’s resident’s are from foreign backgrounds, notes Politiken. For the centre-left Danish daily, this amounts to a shortsighted policy which fails to take into account the important fact that entire towns are living a “parallel culture far removed from the Swedish elite.” Adding that there are “worrying” similarities between the Swedish debate on the situation in poor neighbourhoods and the one that took place in Denmark in the late 1990s, the newspaper continues —

For way too long the [Danish] centre-left allowed the most extreme voices in the Danish People’s Party a monopoly on the criticism of a failed integration policy. Instead of confronting them, it sought to ignore what it perceived to be indecent problems that were grist to the mill of the People’s Party.

Today, argues Politiken, the Swedish centre left should realise that coping with “’immigration is a challenge for the welfare state, and one that should be openly discussed.”