A plague on ALL your houses

The Swedish general election was held yesterday. The result is out now. And for the first time in history a far-right, racist party called Swedish Democrats entered into the parliament.

They have own 20 odd seats in the house of 349 seats; but that's enough to influence the formation of government as both the rulling Alliance (with 172 seats) and the opposition Red-Green coalition (with 157 seats) fall short of securing absolute majority.

The good thing is both Alliance and Red-Green prefer supporting each other than taking support from ultra racist Swedish Democrats. Even a minority government can be formed with issue based support from other parties (something which I suggested could have worked in Britain). This kind of minority government is not unprecedented in Sweden.

The Swedish Democrats will however will leave no leaf unturned in pursuing their way to the government. And with the very recent memory of fierce electoral battle between the two main coalitions and the prospect of getting into a-pain-in-the-neck of a situation of running a minority government, who knows what will happen eventually!

I can only hope (that's the disadvantage of being an Atheist, I can't pray, just hope....) that they do not succeed in their sinister attempt to hold government into ransom with their small but crucial number of 20 seats.

It seems only yesterday that I was considering myself lucky escaping a Tory Britain to come to Sweden, the epitome of civil liberties and race-gender equalities. So imagine my dismay, barely 4 months later, at the prospect of being governed by neo-Nazis. Talk about being thrown from frying pan to fire!

The puzzling thing is how did they manage to get so many votes! Their success was mainly in southern Sweden, in Skåne, Malmo, parts of Stockholm. And yet these are the places with educated, urban population. Xenophobia aparently run much lower among peasants and fishermen in the north than that among the savy corporate executives in the south.

I do not really understand how, of all places in Earth, Sweden can afford to be anti-immigration; this is a vast country with barely 9 million people, 1.5 million of which are immigrants. They just do not have enough people to run this country.

This sub-arctic place is not an obvious choice with immigrants either. Most of them come from war trodden places like Iraq or Afghanistan and they do not really have a choice. And a handful come attracted to this free and fair society which will be destroyed fast thanks to rise of parties like Swedish Democrats. The generous benefit system which the Swedes are so much proud of, will dwindle fast if the contribution from the immigrants stops. They can have this cold, dark place all to themselves then and can start re-sharpening their skills as Viking pirates for survival.

What upsets me most is that far right xenophobic parties are getting ground all over Europe; from Switzerland, Austria, France, Netherlands and Germany to now in Sweden. Recent economic downturn just added to the problem. "Those foreign immigrants have taken our jobs" is a very popular line with people suffering from deep economic recession.

Growing Islamic terrorism is another big contributing factor; somehow people feel being hostile towards Muslims and in general to all foreigners would help reducing Islamic fundamentalism. In reality though it is quite counter-productive; it allianates Muslims even further and to quote Mr. Obama, works as a "recruitment bonanza for Al-Queda".

I cannot think of any place in the earth now where intolerance, insensitivity and warmongering is not rising alarmingly. Where to take the refuge now? It is a plague on ALL your houses.