The Welfare Apparatus and the Small World

Most of what is written on migration issues is based on general studies, as if the host country’s culture does not matter.

We Swedes distinguish ourselves from most others in the way that we relate to the world; perhaps it is good to understand that when we discuss immigration issues. On a trip to India with 40 American architects, which was conducted at the American tempo, Sweden came up as a topic during one of the few moments of calm. I remember that I had just got blessed by a Hindu temple elephant and was therefore possibly feeling extra insightful since I, for once, had a comeback when Todd asked me:

– Peter, isn’t Sweden a great nation?

– No Todd, that’s not correct. Sweden is not a nation at all. But, it’s a great organisation.

I do not think that Todd was much the wiser after this. How do you explain to an American what Sweden is? On the surface, we are obviously extremely Americanised, but we differ fundamentally from that great country to the west. The concepts of ‘the nation’ and ‘the neighbourhood’, which are fundamental to the American culture, have no deep meaning for a Swede.

How many here at home care about ‘the nation’, seriously?

As regards ‘the neighbourhood’, for most Swedes it has no meaning. The Swedish language translates the concept either to area or vicinity, but it refers only to the place, not to the social significance.

Neighbourhood, in an American context, refers to a place where there is a social interaction between residents, whose purpose is to realise their common values, foster youth and exercise effective social control.

It does not really work like this at home.

We left our villages behind when we shifted from the farmland during the 1800s, so we have not developed some village community outlook of the continental type. We have not even spawned an urban culture. When the rural population began to seek out cities on a larger scale during the 1900s, it ended up in the suburbs, where the structure does not directly encourage human encounters. We do not live in villas, so we avoid our neighbours.

If the USA is ”the nation and the neighbourhood” and nothing in between, so Sweden is ”the welfare apparatus” and ”the small world”.

The social institutions in Sweden are, by international comparison, comprehensive, well organised and uncorrupted. We complain about them sometimes, just as we sometimes fight with loved ones, but we love them deeply and sincerely because they give us an individual freedom that is altogether unprecedented.

That Sweden is such an immigrant-friendly country is linked to this. There is currently no strong national feeling, cultural community or identity to defend.

But try to dismantle our welfare apparatus, and you’ll have chaos on your hands.

Perhaps we should try to understand the growing debate on immigration in this light? The system has started to squeak under the strain. Healthcare does not deliver the same service as before, schooling has got worse, there is a shortage of housing, and the pension capital seems alarmingly low. Does immigration cost too much? Are our systems threatened? If people generally start to make this connection, the Sweden Democrats can expect increasing support.

The lack of integration is recognised as a major problem, but the question is whether Swedes and immigrants are that interested in integration. Maybe it’s the absence of that which, in addition to the weak sense of national feeling, is the key to the positive view of immigration we still have.

In Sweden, we hang out in ‘the little world’. It consists mainly of family, relatives, friends, colleagues and business contacts, and this is a truly undemanding community that cannot be compared to that found in kinship-based cultures. We hang out with people we like because we, thanks to the Swedish welfare state, can manage by ourselves.

It’s not easy to get into this little world, and it is on the whole quite narrow-minded. The leftist, liberal middle class of Södermalm does not invite the market-liberal middle class from Östermalm to dinner. For first-generation immigrants, it is almost impossible to break into such a social system.

A political vision of integration – in addition to the idea that everyone should be able to speak Swedish – might be perceived as a threat not only by immigrants who want to preserve their own culture, but also by Swedes themselves. Sweden will never be a ‘melting pot’ in the American style, but maybe we can become something else exciting, if we start our analysis with how Sweden is, and not how it should be.