What happened
Sweden Democrats party leader Jimmie Åkesson demands in an opinion piece in Expressen that the party's internal conflict over Swedishness must end. The background is an open debate between Mattias Karlsson, who defends the party's line of open Swedishness based on loyalty and culture, and Richard Jomshof, who has claimed that biology and ethnicity play a role in who is Swedish. The discussion started after deputy party leader Henrik Vinge spoke on a podcast about conversations with Swedish-Somali citizens in Rinkeby. Several members of the party board have reacted against Jomshof's statements on social media. Åkesson now affirms that individuals who do not accept that one can become Swedish without being born in the country risk being expelled from the party.
Our analysis
The conflict within the anti-immigration right-wing party is not about theoretical philosophy. It is about leading politicians in Sweden's second largest party sitting and discussing citizens as if it were a matter of pedigrees. For new Swedes who go to work every day in healthcare, schools, or industry, the message is clear: your security and belonging are a matter of negotiation.
That Jimmie Åkesson is now putting his foot down is primarily about power and government capability. The party leadership knows that open biological racial thinking frightens centre-right cooperation partners and threatens the party's influence. At the same time, no one places the same demands on old Swedes. They never have to prove their loyalty, their language, or their culture to be left in peace.
In the book Sveriges avrasifiering, it is described how the party as early as in its 2011 principle program wrote: "As a native Swede we count someone who is born or at an early age adopted into Sweden by Swedish-speaking parents with a Swedish or Nordic identity". The current feud shows that ideas about heritage and blood never left the movement. Regardless of how much the party leadership tries to polish the surface, new Swedes are reduced to a perpetually conditional B-team.
Explained
Open Swedishness is the Sweden Democrats' concept for the view that a person who assimilates and demonstrates full loyalty to Swedish culture can be included in the national community.