What Is A Terrorist Threat, And How Should One Respond To It?

The other day, following the recent horrid events in Paris, linked to several temporally closely aligned similar attacks by Daesh, e.g., in Lebanon and Iraq, apparent intelligence on several other planned attacks throughout Europe, and specifically that a possible Daesh operative had entered Sweden to organise a large.scale attack of some sort, my country raised its official terrorist threat level from 3 to 4 on a scale that ends at 5. One named suspect of preparation of terrorist crime has now been apprehended, but the police and security organs apparently continue to search for others, and the government has been clear that this single factor will not by itself motivate downgrading the threat level. At the same time, several voices criticise the development either for coming much too late (claiming, among other things, that the knowledge of the presence of Daesh sympathisers in the country should have been enough), or for being misdirected, as actual terror attacks in Sweden (save one) tend mostly to be domestic extreme right wing nationalist/racist (targetting refugees and street begging EU migrants, people of visibly Muslim or Roma identity or Middle East or African descent, their living quarters, and so on), or is exaggerated and bound to create more problems than what it prevents or fixes. It struck me that many of these reactions seem based on ignoring or fixing on only selected aspects of what is technically known as a risk analysis. For this is basically what the assessment of the level of terrorist threat by a state is about: assessing certain risks and cost of events classified as terrorist attacks, as well as various actions possibly to take in response to various such levels of risk, and to evaluate on that basis what to do.

A disclaimer before I start: the putative facts about the seriousness of typical types of terrorist attacks, and the likelihood of different types of such attacks, are, of course, open to revision in the face of facts – although, as will become clear, less obviously according to what standard of evidence. All of the aspects described are part of the discussion of the ethical basis of environmental and technological risk policy that I undertake in my book The Price of Precaution and the Ethics of Risk.

First, there is the two main dimensions of the concept of risk itself: the probability and harm dimensions. A risk is always the possible (and to some extent likely) occurrence of some type of variably harmful event. In risk analysis, the magnitude of a risk is determined by a combination of these two dimensions, so that a low probability may be balanced by a serious harm-level, and the other way around. Already this simple analytical unpacking points to a factor that may seem to be at work in the reaction to the raised Swedish terror threat level. Some people focus mainly on the likelihood dimension, and then would hesitate to criticise that new evidence and circumstances changes the assessment, or would rather have seen an earlier raised level in view of the actual wave terror attacks in the form of typical "lone wolf" deeds, and thus a concentration on extreme right wing violence rather than its Islamistic sibbling. Others focus instead on the harm dimension, and then lets the demonstrated vastness of the damage of attacks such as the one in Paris dictate the risk assessment, also when the evidence of likelihood is very weak. This may then motivate the position that, knowing that Daesh and similar groups do have had attacks such as the one  in Paris on its theoretical agenda for a long time (and carried out i the Iraq and Syrian theaters). With the notable exception of Anders Behring Breivik, although much more frequent and actually realised rather than merely theoretically imagined, the right-wing extremist deeds, while clearly terrorism in the sense of attempting to spread fear for political purposes through the use of violence against civilians, tend to be more restricted in its consequences than the large scale massacres that have now occurred and known to be on the Daesh agenda.

Second, there is the way in which different such combinations and magnitudes of risk are evaluated, or seen to support various courses of action. Here, a number of additional issues linked to the assessment of the risk magnitude is actualised, namely:

Third, how the constituents of the risk (its probability level and its harm level) are evaluated in terms of how much we should care about it. This gives another way in which we may get a similar output that was just described above, even if all agree of the risk magnitude. This since risks with the same magnitude may still be evaluated differently, e.g. due to being made up of very low probability, or very serious potential harm. here, one may also want to pay attention to the context, such as if one is making the assessment from the position of already being burdened by much risk of different kind. So if the potentially worst terror threat are the least likely, and the most likely ones the least serious (relatively speaking, of course), we may again get differences of opinion of a similar sort, but now more clearly based on differences of values rather than appraisal of fact.

Fourth, how the opportunity costs of different actions in response to a risk assessment are evaluated, that is, what is lost and risked by taking these various actions rather than other ones. Here we may spot a number of ways in which assessments may differ, although not basically disagreeing on the risk assessment (such disagreements may, of course, also be added to other disagreements). For instance, several argued against extensive action in face of the wave of apparently extreme right wing nationalist attacks against Swedish actual or in preparation asylum shelters that it would not be worth the costs it would mean to have effective guarding of each one of them. At the same time, there has been no or very little hesitance to mobilise extensive police and security forces to guard potential targets and just demonstrate the presence of the state organs to effect public calm in the wake of the new threat level. But there has been some criticism, for instance, from one of the country's most prominent terrorist experts, Magnus Norell, who claimed that even if there is a raised threat, the actions in response to it and the very act of public threat level raising itself mostly creates unnecessary worry and fear, that is the very effect aimed for by terrorists. One may also wonder how effective the guarding by police of places like train stations and main squares of large cities are, provided that combatants such as those responsible for the Beirut and Paris attacks are set on targeting them. In both cases, this would also mean that these resources are, in fact, wasted. In that light, posting armed guards outside every asylum shelter to guard against a wholly different kind of terrorists targeting these may suddenly seem as a more effective and less costly measure. This aspect, of course, has many more sides, but this only goes to show how the evaluation of options in response to a described threat, and the opportunity costs attached to them may be used to inject the issue with limitless complexity.

Fifth, there is the issue of the evaluation of evidence, underlying the probability estimates at work in all of the considerations pointed to above Here, we may see a number of differences on what type of evidence is to be given the most credence: Actual similar past events is one model, following the "frequentist" ideal in decision theory. That would, in the present case, probably speak in favour of a much higher probability for more extreme nationalist right wing terrorism against refugees, migrants and their quarters in Sweden, as this is what wa have mostly had in the past (especially the very close past). Another model is to instead trust qualified estimates, by appointed experts, who may then, if they so prefer, let other reasons than frequentist ones affect the probability estimate. For instance, even if there has been no, or relatively very few, attacks of the type known to be on the Al-Qaeda and Daesh agendas, the fact there are such attacks on this agenda combined with the presence of people who sympathise with these movements in the country, and maybe witness statements that some such person in the country has been mentioned to plan or want to plan such an attack, may be used as evidence. Some of that evidence may be broken down into an indirect frequentist argument, as it points to factors believed to have been active in relevantly similar past events elsewhere. But a substantial portion would also seem to be about subscribing to certain qualitative and evaluative assessments, such as choosing to trust certain bearers for information as credible, viewing certain events as relevantly similar in spite of notable dissimilarities, and so on. The point is that the more of this latter sort of probability grounding is used, the more room to assess as probable also events of which there have been no very similar precedent.

Sixth, there is the issue of the how much evidence (given some standard of its quality of the sort just described) should be required for a credible estimate, and for taking action. This factor is basically about how long we should wait and amass evidence to have a more well-founded risk assessment, in view of the potential costs of being to late to act effectively against the threat (if there is any). Also this aspect seems to be at work in the Swedish debate, as those who complain about the threat level not having been raised and associated action taken earlier seem to be prone to care less about the evidence of the threat, and rather have action on looser grounds to be "better safe than sorry", but the of course also downgrade or ignore the opportunity costs of this. Those who require more evidence will, on the other hand, want to wait longer even in the face of potential dangers such as the present ones, and some of these might be content with the balance made by Swedish authorities, while others would find the actions premature and would prefer more evidence to assess the raised level and the linked actions justified.

The idea that, inside this vastly variable complex of factors and possible positions on how to do a risk analysis and act on its results there exists one, simple and self-evident alternative is, of course, utterly ridiculous.

***

Not In My Name!

This is inspired by my colleague in mathematics, over at the Chalmers Institute of Technology, Olle Häggström (forthcoming with this book about existential risks, soon to be out on Oxford University Press), who writeson his blog:

The flyer depicted below, containing slander against and blatant lies about the country of Sweden, is currently being distributed at a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos and at many other places on the borders of the European Union. Representatives of the extreme and anti-immigrant right-wing Sweden Democrats party confirm that their party is behind the campaign.

Notice, among the signatories, "The People of Sweden". That is forgery. The people of Sweden includes myself. I have (along with the vast majority of my compatriots) not been consulted about the letter, neither in person, nor via legitimate proxy. I do not stand by its disgraceful content.

The Sweden Democrats party has its roots in Nazism and the white supremacy movement. Since 2010 it is represented in the Swedish Parliament (and is currently holding 49 of the 349 seats).

Adding for myself: a self-professed "nationalist" and essentielly populist party, currently representing slightly more than 12% of the voters, slanders its country and claims to represent the entire "people of Sweden". Together with the blatant lies, this says all about the arrogance, hypocracy and view of democracy to be expected of these people, should they ever gain actual political power. To this may be added, their recent slippery passive support of a wave of arsonist attacks against premises for asylum seekers, following fiery rhetoric about using "all means available" to fight the current wave of refugees arriving in Sweden and supporting the online posting of maps showing the locations of asylum seeker lodgings, albeit these have been classified by the national Migration Agency due to the wave of terrorist attacks. These people are clearly desperate and on the defensive, as it is the only one with no solutions whatsoever for handling the current political crisis in Europe regarding refugees (besides the totally unrealistic and economically catastrophic idea of shutting off the country from the surrounding world and weed out those residents who are not "Swedish" enough). This I could see for myself when its leader was pressed about the untrue statements (regarding "coming bans" on niquab etc.) on national TV yesterday, and behaved quite deranged; repeating as a robot that this is what his party wishes to see happen and therefore it will happen. Apparently he is unable to distinguish between his own political wishes and actual reality, which is another reminder about the nature of these kinds of political parties. I suppose that this is also what makes him think that he represents the Swedish people, albeit his 12% in the parliament has gained him no influence, since the other parties, of course, sees though the thin laquer of apparent democratic alegiance and spot the fascism and racism underneath. Again, this is a reminder what kind of leaders we would gain should these people ever gain any political influence: arrogant liers, unable to distinguish between reality and dream, with a political program that would sink the country into an economic slump and their only remedy to shrink and shut it off further.

 Not in my name!

PS. Should you so wish, I made my own analys of the new racist/nationalist ideology currently held out by several parties like this around Europe a few years back: here, here and here.

Next Step in Hungary's March Back to Dark and Brown Political Legacy: Official Historical Revisionism to Hide Pro-nazi Past

This was brought to my attention by my friend and colleague at the University of Gothenburg, distinguished political science professor, Bo Rothstein. As some of you may know, after a brief time of emerging out of its Soviet satelite past and joining the EU as a liberal democracy, Hungary has for some time been moving in an increasingly extreme rightwing, nationalist, anti-liberal and anti-democratic direction. Led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban of the Fidesz party, increasing assaults have been made on basic democratic principles – to the extent that the EU has been reprimanding some of the plans harshly, short of threatening of expelling the country from the union altogether. Earlier this year, Orban declared that he viewed China, Russia and Turkey as rolemodels to follow, and that he wants to abandon liberal democracy in favor of an “illiberal state”. This follows a process starting in 2002, of cooperating with openly nazi racist organisations and semi-militias over several years to deliberately dismantle and undermine Hungarian democratic institutions and freedom of opinion and speech, as well as weakening basic principles of ascertaining rule of law and legal security. Some further reports are here, here, here, here, here.

Therefore, it should perhaps come as no surprise that this march towards the darker regions of modern central European history is now being complemented by a historical revisionist agenda, aiming to hide Hungary's dirty past in this area. Bo's open letter (published as a Swedish debate article here) to the Swedish Hungarian ambassador describes it as it is – an image of the monument is seen above (view a larger version by clicking the image):

The lie that Bo here uncovers should come as no surprise, as one of the few things that have potential of tripping the populist far-right nationalist politics pursued by Fidesz is its obvious links to the nazi-past of Hungary. Hence, that past needs to be erased, and into the Hungarian collective mind should be installed a lilly-white version of the innocent maiden, where the blood stained hands of mindless butcher, selling out its country for a slice of the cake of the promised 1000-ear Reich, belongs. That's Victor Orban and Fidesz for you in so many words.

An Extremely Loudmouthed Very Minor Minority: Anonymous Racist Net-haters Exposed in Sweden

The last week or so, the big news in my country has been the reporting in daily tabloid Expressen of the result of the independent Research Group's unmasking of the most active and organized online "net-haters" on various racist or semi-racist or "nationalist" internet fora – a phenomenon I discussed from a moral psychological point of view in a former post. The messages of the haters convey a rich collection of completely unrestrained, inconsiderate or even mildly civil language, open blatant racism, many statements about the need for using fire arms as a reaction to current Swedish immigration policy. And, of course, countless attacks of a similar sort on people who openly question their views  or those of our own little new-racist party, the Sweden Democrats (for my take on the European new-racist political movement se the series of posts linked to here), inciting to violence and, in the case of a 16-year old girl who dared express opposition, organized rape. All under the prescious protection of a perceived online anonymity.

English coverage of this news is here and here. The Swedish reports of Expressen are here, here and here (with many further links to comments, particular analyses, debate and so on) and further comments can be found here, here and here, just to mention an extreme few of a lot of domestic news reporting. The analyses from the Research Group itself can be accessed via their webpage "Avkodat", i.e. Decoded. The unmasking itself was apparently done without any sort of illegal hacking, it is reported. Rather, the Research Group used modern, smart approaches to effectively assemble and analyze publicly available information, albeit apparently some of this information was public due to a security flaw of the Disqus online community service. I'm unsure, however, of how significant that particular aspect was in facilitating the unmasking.

The exposure of the identity of the net-haters first demonstrated a number of elected or otherwise public representatives of the Sweden Democrats, most of which immediately resigned or were forced out in accordance with the zero tolerance for racism policy that was proclaimed by the party's central leadership some years back and has resulted in the resignation or disappearance from public view of a great many people at all levels of the party. Further analysis has revealed that these and a rather small number of other people have been extremely active in various online debate fora in a way that can only be described as a consciously coordinated campaign, going on since many years, to the effect of creating the false impression of a change of public attitudes to immigration, etc. and to consistently and repeatedly terrorize and scare people who hold other views to keep them from voicing them publicly. Thus creating the false impression of the new-racist agenda as being in fashion, more widely accepted, and so on. In effect, the alleged "silent majority" that these sort of people love to hold themselves out as speaking for has turned out to be a cowardly and not even minimally civil or morally decent extremely small minority of loudmouthed extremists, lacking any sort of support among ordinary people and when exposed conveying loving character traits such as blaming their own children to have hijacked their computers. This, to me, is the most important result of the unmasking done by the Research Group and Expressen – this whole sense of a "nationalist", "racist" ideological wind having gotten hold of large portions of the population does not hold up to scrutiny. It's a marketing lie created by a very, very minor group of very unusual and extreme people under cover of supposed anonymity, but as all trolls exposed to the sun, when brought up in the daylight from their murky, foul dwellings, they burst just as well as that empty balloon of the image of public opinion they have been trying to create.

Now, Expressen choose to expose not only people holding public or political office, but also some of the other most active of the haters without any such formal ties to any party or organization. This created a small burst of criticism on press-ethical grounds. It's one thing, the argument went (expressed for instance by Ulf Bjereld, a professor of political science at my university) to expose public figures in this way, that's like catching officials taking bribes, or criticising political representatives for furthering a double agenda. But to expose "ordinary persons" who are not formally representing a political party or holding a public office is more problematic. The editor in chief of Expressen, Thomas Mattsson, has replied in a way making it obvious that he is aware of the press-ethical problem as such, but has made another judgement than Bjereld.

In this debate, in spite of being generally rather critical of what I see as an often much too eager willingness of the press to identify individuals, I side with Mattsson. Bjereld's argument rests solely on the assumption that being a public figure has to be defined in rigid, formalistic terms such as being an elected politician. I rather hold that the relevant questions are, first, if the person is a public figure and, second, to what extent the dissemination of the information is in the public interest. These two criteria together, due to the circumstances described earlier mean: (a) that the most active of the net-haters have, by their own conscious actions and fully aware of acting in the public domain, made themselves into public figures (these are not your average Joe shooting of an ill-considered comment in a forum or discussion thread now and then), (b) the result of the totality of their coordinated (I'm not saying planned, I don't assume a conspiracy here) actions are of the utmost importance from a public perspective by creating widespread false impressions influencing democratic and public discourse. Observe, also, that Expressen's exposure in no way curtails these people's freedom of speech or opinion or expression or somehow punishes or condemns them or in any other way undermines what may be seen as democratically important values. It simply reports about an issue of large national and principal democratic importance, in which said people have by their own free actions chosen to implicate themselves. Now, what this means is, of course, that I also agree with Bjereld that there is a limit to what level of identification of those active under anonymity in these fora would be press-ethically justified. But just as in the case of other publication decisions, the determination of that boundary is not done by assuming an arbitrarily chosen rigid formalist criterion of the sort suggested by Bjereld.

The New European Political Racism, Pt. 1: How Nationism Whitewashes Racism

In Europe during the last decade or so, new (or, in some cases, semi-new) political parties have been not only popping up, but actually having some success among voters with a racist or semi-racist message. To the already established Front Nationale of France and the Fremskrittsparti of Norway, we now have, among others, the Danish Danskt Folkeparti, the Italian Lega Nord, the Dutch PVV, the Austrian FPÖ, and earlier this fall, my own country joined the ranks when the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna, in Swedish) won themselves 20 seats in national parliament (securing  between 5 and 6% of the votes in the general election). This development has come as something of a shock to many people, it seems, but – apparently – also to established political parties. The latter have been quite at a loss when it comes to handling the rhetoric of this new movement – which is designed to deflect associations with national socialism or the ethnic cleansing ideologies of the 90's Balkans and thereby avoid accusations of obvious racism of the sort repugnant to almost all Europeans. In some cases, most notably Denmark, parties labeling themselves liberal have become so confused by this trick that, apparently, they have concluded that this new wave is not about racism, but actually an acceptable form of liberalism where responsibility rather than freedom is emphasised (it has helped, perhaps, that this conceptual move have been fitting for other political purposes, such as down-scaling the public sector). Personally, I have been quite stunned by this inability of political leaders – "why don't they simply say what should be obvious to any politically trained eye, and quickly dismantle this new attempt of the far-right to gain foothold so that all voters can see it?", I have been asking myself.

Because they have not been saying it (and, I'll come to what "it" is). What they have done is either of three things: (a) pretending that the new racism doesn't exist (not seldom medicalising the phenomenon using terms such as "xenophobia"), (b) trying to snatch enough of the ideological/political ideas of the new racism, so that voters will be satisfied without voting for the new party, or (c) formulating arguments or rhetorical figures where an implicit premise is that the new party has to be fundamentally wrong or flawed – thus preaching only to the already converted. Of these tactics, two have failed, and one has actually functioned as an ideological arrowhead, helping tremendously to establish the ideological basic premises of the new racism as acceptable ones in public debate. This last one is, of course, (b). In Sweden, the pioneers of employing (b) have been the traditionally social-liberal Folkpartiet; clearly inspired by the success of Danskt Folkeparti, suggestions have repeatedly been made over the years (most notably in connection to upcoming parliamentary elections) about the launching of a test required for immigrants in order for them to be awarded Swedish citizenship. More lately, this party and the Christian Democrats have complemented the basic notion of conditionalised citizenship with the idea of at best awarding immigrants a revocable citizenship (e.g., should they commit serious crime). And during the last campaign-stretch of our most recent election, the conservative/right-wing liberal party Moderaterna choose to go public with similar ideas about citizenship for immigrants in tandem with increased opportunities for expelling foreign criminals from the country. The Christian Democrats produced the topping of this splendid cake of political opportunism when its leader, Göran Hägglund published an article declaring that, in fact, the Swedish population can be divided into two groups: "the people of reality" (yes, I am not joking, that's what he said) and the other (I guess, less real) ones – namely intellectuals and academics questioning the premises of the above described suggestions. The final package has then been made to fit into the present Government's (a – nowadays minority – coalition of the above mentioned parties plus Centerpartiet, led by Moderaterna) ideological basis that stresses the responsibility of citizens as a supplement or condition for liberty and security. Now, as evidenced by Moderaterna's clever little move of actually not suggesting that the citizenship of immigrants should be revocable in case of serious crime, "only" that citizenship should be revocable if attained deceitfully and that opportunities for expelling serious criminals from the country should be expanded, the application of strategy (b) has been gradually modified. Similarly, Folkpartiet has gradually changed the original idea of a test required for immigrants to get citizenship into the idea of an obligatory course on the Swedish language, public life, political system, etcetera. – quite close to the what the citizenship test implemented in Denmark since a few years is about, just without the test.

So, what did this do to the Sweden Democrats (our new racists), then? Well, as a matter of fact, the process described above – especially the early dashes at the citizenship test idea of Folkpartiet – made it quite easy for the Sweden Democrats to find and establish their own position. Although, there are some nuances, this position is the same as the one occupied by several of the other European new racist parties mentioned above. Moreover, thanks to the application of strategies (a)-(c) by the established parties, the Sweden Democrats could quite easily seize the most potent of rhetorical tools available to a small, new party: the repeated claim of addressing issues of importance to "ordinary people" that are ignored by other parties. The critical word here is "issues", because what is really meant, of course, is that the other parties are not supporting their policy suggestions. However, since some of these suggestions had actually already been put forward by some of the other parties (strategy (b)), or since the other parties either ignored (strategy (a)) or dismissed in an off hand way (strategy (c)) whatever the Sweden Democrats were saying – the latter were left quite free to make this proven pitch, sometimes added to by the observation that the other parties (through strategy (b)) actually agreed with the basics of what they were suggesting re. immigration, they just pretended to disagree due to childish or tactical reasons. As far as I have been able to understand, this pattern is basically the same as earlier developments in several other European countries – albeit, of course, there are various sorts of national variations in detail. However, this pattern alone does not explain the success of the new European political racism – in particular, it does not explain how established parties can get away with strategy (b), or why they seem to be unable to get a hold on the ideological core of the new racism and simply demolish it, intellectually as well as politically. The rest of this blog is about what this core is, what makes it work politically and, in effect, how to disarm it.

In my view, this is a matter of far more than theoretical importance. One consequence of the above-mentioned inabilities of established political parties and movements has been the occurrence of rather desperate and ill-considered actions of anti-racist groups, such as stopping or trying to stop regular meetings in the course of general election campaigns – not seldom combined or followed by predictable riot-like violence that, equally predictable, has been blown up i media reporting. While the feelings of frustration underlying such events may be understandable, the events themselves have had the actual effect of further strengthening the foothold of the new racism in the Swedish public political landscape. The new racists have been helped to hold out themselves as a voice of reason and civility that is impeded by a senseless minority mob from exercising their constitutional rights to free speech and democratic political action. Again, they have been able to do so thanks to the rather cleverly designed ideological core of the new racism, where all traditional militant insignia and openly racist pejoratives have been carefully weeded out. So, let's return to the nature of this core.

Being a racist in the original sense – advocating different standards of treatment for people belonging to different biological races – is a politically dead concept since the end of the second world war. It became ultimately, irrevocably dead only the other year, when biological scientists declared that the impotency of the human race-taxonomy even as an evolutionary biological explanatory variable had been conclusively proven - biologically speaking, there simply are no human races. However, not even the Nazis where racists in this pure sense – the Nuremberg laws' criteria and even more the practices in Nazi Germany of applying these laws for distinguishing jews from non-jews contained a rather chaotic multitude of socio-cultural signifiers, as did various other taxonomies applied during the heydays of race biology in the first few decades of the 20th century. Possibly, the only pure biological racists in real policy making were the engineers and decision makers during the times of US slavery and the European colonisation of Africa. Rather, the classic real racism is one where one or more socio-cultural signifier (language, customs, worldview, mores...) in combination with physical characteristics, are claimed to be intimately connected to features that provide reason for applying less favorable standards of treatment of people falling into the delimited category than to other people. The first step away from this classic racism of real modern politics is to drop the part about physical characteristics (skin colour, eye or facial shape, height...). The result is the idea that people defined by certain socio-cultural signifiers are therefore possessors of features providing reasons for less favorable treatment, no matter their physical appearance. This has been a much repeated phenomenon over a period of several decades, with the signifier of "muslim" being the latest and possibly most successful.

However, at the same time, this sort of ethno-racism is a very vulnerable position, since it needs to assume the mentioned link between the socio-cultural signifier and the features that are supposed to give reason for less favorable treatment. A nice illustration of this is provided by a smaller part of the debate precluding the Swedish parliamentary election recently: The Sweden Democrats went for the classic link between immigration and crime in order to support their various ideas of impeding extra-european immigration and repatriating the ones already here, based on statistics showing that  immigrants are overrepresented as criminal offenders. However, it was immediately pointed out that, first, the immigrant population that this statistics is based on is made up by predominantly Scandinavian and European people (actually, according to statistics - alas only available in Swedish, but with easy to understand graphs - from the Swedish Migration Board, most immigrants are Swedes!), second, that the immigrant factor is a much more weak predictor of crime than, e.g., a number of socio-economic variables and third, that the part of Swedish crime that the overrepresentation of immigrants stands for is such a tiny portion of the total amount of crime that it could hardly provide much of a reason for less favorable treatment – especially not considering all the negative side-effects that such policies bring. This last argument is, of course, strengthened by the other two.

This is merely one of numerous examples of how the factual and moral foundation of ethno-racist claims has been undermined over and over, not least regarding wild generalisations with regard to muslims or people from alleged "muslim countries" (people that many times are no more muslim than most Swedes, Finns or Danes are christian). But, as a matter of fact, this has not weakened the hold of the new racism to any greater extent. Here is the reason why: The ethno-part is actually not a part of the ideological core of the new racism, it is a shallow cosmetic employed for purely rhetorical purposes. When its weak points are exposed, the new racists merely abandons it without being moved in their basic convictions. So, what are these basic convictions? To get to those, it is instructive to study more closely the way in which the ethno-racist rhetoric is constructed and then transfer this study to actual policy suggestions being made by parties of the new racism. For, as with all politics, it is there – not in the surface of phrases in speeches or slogans – that ideology is to be found.

The attempt by the new racists to use an association with criminality or, for that matter, with religion or particular ways of dressing as an argument is merely a way of trying to convince people that there is a profound difference between "real" Swedes (or Finns, or Brits, or Germans, or Danes, or...) and foreign people. That this, and nothing else, is the heart of the matter for the new racists came out clearer than ever in a TV advertisement by the Sweden Democrats, showing an ever so sweet and very lonesome Swedish old lady being literary overrun by a horde of women dressed in a burqa when trying to pick up her pension – the film making clear that, instead, this money would be spent on immigration. Everybody knows, of course, that the state budget does not determine the size of pensions, the growth of the national economy does. It is also well known that immigration, in fact, is actually one of the more important factors for securing future pensions, since it promotes economic growth. However, let's leave this aside for the moment, for what I want to point to is this: Even if it were true that there is a relation of competition between money for pensions and money for immigration in the state budget, the latter is neither the only nor (by far) the largest expense. However, it is the only expense that is exclusively spent on foreign people. This is why this particular item is picked out in the film: it holds out nationality or national background as the decisive factor for how we are to treat people. The burqas are just for show (albeit rhetorically important), obviously, they are there just to emphasise the felt difference between real Swedes and those from other countries. The message being that the Swedish state should treat people from other countries less favorable than Swedes. I'll get back to that shortly.

First, though, let's have a look at the actual policy suggestions of the Sweden Democrats. Hardly surprising, to the extent that they can be understood or have any originality or significance to speak of, they are about immigration policy. Now, when reading the programme (which, needless to say, is available only in Swedish), one finds that most of the suggestions are actually already a reality (e.g. regarding refugee policy, obligatory visa for people from countries who are terrorist hotspots or sources of organised illegal immigration). Besides the general tone, the talk about "mass-immigration" (a rhetorical misnomer, since, during the last few years, immigration didn't even count for 1% of the total population increase and, since the Sweden Democrats really mean only immigration from outside of Scandinavia - this is clarified in the programme, but since the same principles explaining this applies to EU, I guess immigrants from there are not "real" immigrants either (?) - at least half of this immigration needs to be ignored), unsubstantiated slander of refugees as not being "real" refugees and loose talk about "assimilation" being the main goal of integration policy, the only proposal that stands the test of an initial test-bite is the one about citizenship. The suggestion on this front is a sort of toughed up version of the above-mentioned suggestions from Folkpartiet a few years back: 1. all residence permits are to be temporary (1 year at a time) and revocable also in case of minor criminality, 2. a trial period of ten years where a "blameless character" needs to be demonstrated (exactly how is unclear, but I suppose criminality of any sort is out of the question) is necessary before citizenship is a possibility, 3. a special test (Swedish language, history and societal life) needs to be passed in order for citizenship to be awarded, 4. awarding of citizenship is connected to the signing of a contract where the new citizen swears allegiance "to Sweden" and promises to respect Swedish law, 5. If it is found out that citizenship has been awarded to a person "on false grounds" (whatever that may mean) or - perhaps more significant - after a period of staying in the country on the basis of a residence permit obtained on false grounds (false identities and bribing of immigration officers are given as examples), can have their citizenship revoked and be expelled from the country. There are also a few other suggestions, such as a ban on double citizenship for Swedish citizens, a repatriation programme where the party is apparently prepared to spend a sizable portion of the state budget (ergo, immigration policy can very well be allowed to cost a lot of tax money!) to have immigrants move away from Sweden and drastically weakened legal security for asylum seekers or people who are found in the country lacking a required visa or residence permit, but the above ideas are enough for me to make my point. The point is this: for the Sweden Democrats, there is a tremendous difference between people with a Swedish national background (i.e. people born by Swedish citizens) and other people. The Swedish state is not only permitted but required to apply drastically different standards of treatment with regard to these two groups.

Now, to be fair, there is a lot of talk in the programme about Sweden as a cultural entity, and that the main idea is that citizenship is to be tied to nationality and that Swedish nationality is about being a part of a Swedish "identity". Some of that turns out to be trivialities that are already applied (e.g. that immigrants need to abide by Swedish law), but what about the rest, e.g. loose talk about restricting culturally distant immigration, etcetera? Well, actually, it is obvious that this is just a collection of hot air, very much a part of the shallow rhetoric mentioned earlier. For, assuming the Sweden Democrat policy to have been implemented, if I am born by Swedish citizens nothing compels me to assimilate to an alleged Swedish identity or culture. For sure, we have obligatory school for all children and securing a job will be hard if I don't get (good) grades, but as born by a Swedish citizen I can pass through this system without learning the language or assimilating in any other way without any effect on my citizenship (although I will have to endure other consequences). What is more, I am automatically awarded said citizenship at birth, no questions asked (ever!) about my cultural identity, allegiance declarations, possible past or future criminality or somesuch. And so on. In conclusion: what matters is if you are born by a Swedish citizen or not, nothing else.

This core, then is not about race or ethnicity. Neither is it about patriotism (the my country right or wrong-idea) or nationalism (the idea that citizens of a country have obligations or virtues of love and/or fidelity for/to their country). In lack of a better word, I will call this idea Nationism. This is, roughly, the idea that a state is permitted (or even required) to apply significantly less strict/demanding standards of treatment to people born by citizens of this state, than people who are not. Clarifying further what nationism means will also show what has made the move to this ideological position into the success story of the new racism.

Every country applies less strict/demanding standards of treatment to people born by citizens of this state or, sometimes, also to people who are or have been born within the national territory (or can demonstrate a lineage back to such people), and sometimes to a mix of these – let us call this the Immediate Citizenship Condition (ICC). Minimally, the system applied by countries involves that people not meeting the ICC has to perform according to some pre-set standard (call it the acquired citizenship condition: ACC) in order to be awarded citizenship of this country. This is a pragmatic necessity for any single country in a world organised according to the system of a multitude of nation states. Should a single country award citizenship to a person just by virtue of him being present in the country and wanting citizenship (or simply just that he wants citizenship), many functions supposed to be handled by a country would be severely jeopardized due to the fact that other countries do not reciprocate this courtesy (were they to reciprocate, we would effectively have a world with only one nation state). However, in order for a country to use the division between awarding citizenship by ICC and ACC to dodge this threat, it needs only make the demands made on people by ACC significant enough to make the influx of new citizens manageable. Since, as mentioned, most countries have a significant interest of acquiring new citizens through immigration, there are further reasons in terms of the national interest not to make the demands of the ACC stricter than necessary. The idea of nationism, however, is that it is of some value in itself to make it harder for other people than those meeting the ICC to attain citizenship. Facing this explanation, the question may be asked if the new racists really are nationists – is their idea not simply based on the presumption that it is very demanding to have a country function well and that, therefore, ACC needs to be very strict? Well, as we have seen, this does in fact not seem to be the case, in spite of some rhetoric suggesting such a line of thought. If it were the case that a country needs to be very careful about the characteristics of those who are awarded citizenship for the country to function well, using ICC for awarding citizenship would be sheer recklessness (and the new racists do not want to touch that, quite the opposite). This since that practice makes no demands whatsoever on people who meet the ICC with regard to their personal characteristics for them to attain the status as citizens. So, the new racists are nationists - that is indeed their ideological core.

However, the difference between the nationist position and the purely pragmatically motivated system of awarding citizenship by applying both ICC and ACC is not very obvious to most people. If we don't think carefully about it, most of us would, I suggest, have the feeling that nationism is already an established doctrine – that our countries (and all its political parties) do in fact already accept the idea that it is of value in itself to make a difference between people who meet ICC and those who do not when awarding citizenship. This is understandable, since we are so used to a system making such a difference, and most of us have never had any reason for pondering why such a system is applied – it's just there. This lack of clarity as to the fundamental ideological difference between having such a system for purely pragmatic reasons and having it for nationist reasons can and has indeed been exploited politically by the new racism. For what happens when we do not see the difference clearly is that we are unable to wield the simple and devastating counter-argument to the new racist suggestions that, obviously, the fact whether a person meets ICC or not is not a valid reason as such for less favorable treatment. In particular, established political parties can't say that, since that would imply that they propose that any rules for awarding citizenship that make a difference between people meeting ICC and those that do not are unjustified. And, needless to say, that is not their position and, I take it, not the position taken by most voters. Thus, the fact that the water demarcating the notion of having a system making such a difference for pragmatic reasons and the nationist position has been muddled is of tremendous importance for explaining from the point of view of ideology the recent success of the new European political racism. By exploiting this seemingly grey area, they have been able to whitewash an idea that, when seen clearly, is obviously as implausible as more traditional forms of racism.

Now, nationism is such an obviously implausible idea – as implausible as the idea that your physical or cultural characteristics can by themselves motivate that other people are allowed to treat you less good than others. Morally, nationism is clearly on the same team as the more traditional forms of racism. For this reason, quite a few of the people who have been voting for the new racists in recent elections do probably actually not endorse nationism. One may hope, therefore, that the role of nationism is spotted more clearly and widely (one purpose of this blog post is, of course, to make a contribution to such a development). What is then left for the new racists is to take half a step back to the ethno-racist ideas, but this time without any connection to nationism. What this implies will be the subject of part 2 of this series.