One perverse result of Sweden’s refusal to engage these problems, Mr. Ranstorp and others say, is to have ceded the immigration debate to a far-right party whose leader has likened Islam to “the worst threat facing Sweden since World War II.”
“Sweden is very puzzling,” said Grete Brochmann, a leading Norwegian immigration scholar. The Swedes, she said, “are extremely liberal toward immigration, but they have a very authoritarian attitude toward debate about it. In Norway the idea is, open discussion is basically good. If there’s hostility, better to get it out.”
Hugh Eakin, “Scandinavians Split Over Syrian Influx”, The New York Times (21 September 2014), SR 4.