This was a very informative article, but I have to admit I don’t agree with it’s framing of the problem.
No doubt, migration has enforced ethnocentric tendencies, and this is reflected in elections. Migration is a problem created by capitalism in a two ways.
- People are fleeing their countries because of war, environmental catastrophies or to find a better job and life, among other reasons. Problems that have been created by capitalism.
- The most popular receiving countries in europe are former colonialist powers, so good-old racism comes back to the picture since it was not really addressed in the first place. Also in these countries neoliberalism has hijacked governments through legal lobbying, so relevant policies are being implemented that favor of the rich, definitely not the people, even less immigrants.
Briefly I could say, capitalism has destroyed democracy, or at least any reminiscence of democracy that representative democracy had, so the road has been cleared for quite some time now, for neo-fascist tendencies to be represented in local and EU parliaments.
I think talking about migration without mentioning capitalism or neoliberalism, gives a distorted picture of what’s been happening in Europe, during the last decades.
There is also a large analysis around migration that plays various roles in this. Like they mention that services are unmaintainable with no immigration to those areas. But also, who is emmigrating to cities? People seeking higher education, often from more well off families, predominatly women. This leaves a lot of working class men, who is often the main target of the far right. In Sweden, about 25% of men vote for the far right. This is just one example, I imagine there can be a lot of related reasons to this emmigration observation.
The most popular receiving countries in europe are former colonialist powers
Germany and Sweden received one of the highest refugee per Capita, were not part of the colonist movement. The Ottomans were colonizing the entirety of the current problematic areas where refugees are coming from (Syria, Libya, North Africa etc …) yet, you’re blaming the West?
Germany and Sweden … were not part of the colonist movement
Was this a joke?
It’s definitely accurate to say that they had very little colonial involvement compared to the big powers.
It’s definitely accurate to say that they had very little colonial involvement compared to the big powers.
I wonder how you could back this claim. Any link in mind?
Please take a look at the following articles and maps:
Map: European colonialism conquered every country in the world but these five
Analysis of Western European colonialism and colonization - wiki
Completely forgotten that you wanted to talk about Sweden and Germany in particular, did you?
As to size comparisons, you could, for example, dunno, look at maps. Hint: Sweden’s only notable colony has been Finland. Germany was a bigger player but came very late to the game.
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