Why exaggerating about the dangers of “Sweden’s immigration problem” is racist

You hear a lot from anti-immigration politicians like the Perussuomalaiset* and even the police about how we must contain “Sweden’s immigrant problem” from coming to Finland. If you analyze such a claim and weigh its truth you will rapidly arrive at the following conclusions: It is racist and untrue. 

It is racist because it paints migrants with a single brush. The claim suggests that migrants are the cause of crime, rape, no-go zone lawlessness,  abuse the system, and destroyed our near-perfect society. 

Dead wrong. For starters, Sweden was never a near-perfect society. That is a myth. 

A number of studies also confirm that migrants do not bring more crime. Here is an article on the myth of migrant crime in the United States. The link between immigration and crime only exists in the imagination of some people.

The Conversation writes about crime levels in Europe: “Similarly, a large-scale European study on the effects of immigration on crime concluded that while an increase in immigration generally does not affect crime levels, it does go hand-in-hand with increased public anxiety and anti-immigration stances.”

     The argument by some xenophobic politicians   that there is a link between immigration and crime is simply untrue and exaggerated.

Instead of fueling hatred and polarizing society between “us” and “them,” the fact that politicians and the media believe that there is a link between immigration and crime poses something more worrying about ourselves: racism, ethnonationalism, and denial with a capital “D.”

The fact that politicians and the media continue to support such untrue claims reveals as well their lack of leadership and deep-seated prejudices based on racism, which are alive and well and which have always existed in such countries. 

* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13 into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. Despite the name changes, we believe that it is the same party in different clothing. Both factions are hostile to cultural diversity. One is more open about it while the other is more diplomatic.

A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.