スウェーデンとデンマーク － 相違点
面白い記事である。スウェーデンとデンマークの微妙な歴史的関係、そして相手をどう
思っているのかが、簡潔に書かれていて大変参考になる。
前の方は飛ばすことにして、５０年代、６０年代は高い福祉国家を享受していた。
が、８０年代後半頃、両国とも経済的に行き詰った(スウェーデンの危機対策は有名で
ある）。このころ、旧ユーゴの混乱の中、多くの難民を受け入れたが、経済的苦境も
あり、スウェーデンでも相当の社会問題が発生していた。受け入れた難民は、ある都市
近郊に収容されたが、政府もそれほど面倒をみたわけではなさそうである（人種からみの
犯罪がいろいろ起きている）。
スウェーデンのなかにスウェーデン・デモクラットいうネオ・ナチの政党が誕生しているが、
これがいまでは、世論調査で２０％を獲得している。そしていま、スウェーデンは
かなり不安の渦巻く社会状況になっている。
デンマークは、反移民感情は以前からかなり高く、そのため、政党のいかんを
問わず、そうした感情は共有している。そのことの表れが難民から金品を取り上げて、
それをコストとして用いるという法案が議会を通過した点に現れている。デンマークは
スウェーデンが拒絶した難民の捨て場になるようなことは絶対にしないと決意している
などなど。
＊＊＊
Sweden and Denmark are not all warm welcomes and cuddly politics
Andrew Brown
We in Britain have big misconceptions about our Nordic neighbours. The two are very different – and much less relaxed about immigration than we thought
Migrant children sleep outside the Swedish migration board in Marsta. Photograph: Jessica Gow/AP
Thursday 28 January 2016 17.30 GMTLast modified on Thursday 28 January 201621.27 GMT
•
We seem to be in the middle of a huge re-evaluation of the image of Sweden and Denmark. Instead of being warm, cuddly countries that are progressive and welcoming, immigrants are running wild. And in response to this, policies are being managed by neo-Nazis. On the one hand there are stories of Denmark seizing asylum seekers’ cash and valuables. On the other, the Swedes, are apparently preparing mass deportations.
The relationship between Sweden and Denmark is a complex one, involving some carefully nurtured differences. For much of their history Sweden was poorer, more militaristic, and less close to the civilisation of Germany and France. But in the 20th century this reversed: Denmark was invaded and occupied in the second world war, while Sweden prospered from its neutrality and allowed German troops to transit to fight in Norway and Finland.
The fertile farmland of Denmark turned out to be worth much less than the timber and ore of the immense Swedish back country, which provided the raw materials for engineering firms that grew into powerful multinationals.
The Swedes came to look down on their neighbours, just as they looked down on the rest of the world generally; the Danes thought of the Swedes as pious, tight and smug. Within Sweden itself, the southern province of Skåne, which faces Denmark across the Sound, had an identity (and an accent) entirely distinct from Stockholm.
When Sweden shut its doors it killed the dream of European sanctuary
Andrew Brown
Read more
All through the 50s and 60s, Sweden took in large numbers of Finnish immigrants looking for industrial work. In the 70s, it began to take in political refugees, at first Kurds and Latin Americans.
This never caught on in Denmark, but a generosity to refugees became part of Swedish self-image. It was never a wholly accurate part: when I moved there, in the mid-70s, I remember my then sister-in-law saying quite unselfconsciously that she could never imagine marrying a foreigner. I don’t think it occurred to her that I had done that myself when I married her sister.
In those days, in any case, it seemed that Sweden and Denmark were blessed with wealth that would always provide for everyone. Both countries practised an authoritarian and egalitarian form of social democracy. Both were serious about the equality of women: one of the few parts of the British image of the two countries that is entirely accurate is the excellence of the childcare arrangements and the genuine widespread agreement that being a parent is one of the most important things anyone can do.
The strains first started towards the end of the 80s, when the money ran out for both economies. The ruling Social Democrats practised quite rigorous austerities – in many ways the Swedish Social Democrats are far to the right of the British Tories, just as Swedish Conservatives can seem far to the left of much of the Labour party in their concern for social cohesion.
The economic crunch overlapped with a great rush of refugees from the Balkan war and the two together led to considerable tensions: there were riots in some provincial towns, and a deranged sniper (who had himself been mocked as a foreigner at school because his mother was German and his hair was dark) started shooting dark-skinned people at random in Stockholm.
That crisis passed, but the tensions only went under the surface. Refugee immigration continued, increasingly from the Middle East and Somalia. The new immigrants concentrated in satellite towns built around the big cities in the 60s. They did worse at school and in the labour market. Official Sweden largely ignored the problem.
At Lund University, later that decade, four young men from the backwoods of Skåne formed a plan to take over the Sweden Democrats, a moribund group with strong neo-Nazi sympathies, and turn it into a political party. All of the official parties shunned them. Meanwhile, in Denmark, anti-immigrant feeling had moved into mainstream politics and been embraced by the right and accepted as legitimate by the left. But the conservative party in Sweden was entirely neo-liberal and Stockholm based. It believed Swedish business needed immigrants, and despised the Sweden Democrats as fascist yokels as – actually, almost everyone in Stockholm did.
It became a matter of national pride among Swedes that they were not racist and had no problem with refugees, unlike the Danes. When this illusion burst last year, with the increasing popularity of the Sweden Democrats (now nudging 20% in the opinion polls) and the collapse of the overloaded system for processing refugees, the country entered its present period of anxiety and confusion. I think it’s certain that the mood will get much uglier, and find this prospect horribly distressing.
The Danes, meanwhile, have long enjoyed predicting a horrible doom for Sweden. They are absolutely determined not to become a dumping ground for refugees that Sweden rejects. Hence the theatrical, deliberate nastiness of their policies towards asylum seekers today.
However, before British readers get too smug, it is worth remembering that even the Danish government has a policy that is no stricter than our own. History will remember that both Danes and Swedes really did sincerely try to relieve the suffering of less fortunate countries.
