Right-Wing Leader Says Sweden Will Cease to Be ‘Blond, Blue-Eyed’, Sparks Debate
SputnikNews.com
31.05.2018
Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Åkesson has triggered strong reactions by distancing himself from a biological view of the Swedish people. According to Åkesson, one’s background and appearance is only secondary to one’s ability to adapt and work out a common national identity.
In an interview with Swedish Radio, Jimmie Åkesson, the leader of the right-wing Sweden Democrats, has resolutely dissociated himself from strictly biological characteristics defining the Swedish nation. According to Åkesson, Sweden won’t return to being a country of the “blonde and blue-eyed” within the foreseeable future, and doesn’t even consider it desirable.
Instead, he argued, adapting oneself to the Swedish way of life is enough to belong to the Swedish nation. One’s background or birthplace doesn’t really matter, he claimed.
“We are in favor of an open Swedish identity, in which one can actually become Swedish. I’ve never regarded a people as purely biological, it’s more about a group of people with a common identity,” Åkesson explained.
According to Åkesson, Sweden will never return to the state of Bullerbyn, a fictional village from the children’s writer Astrid Lindgren, whose depiction has indirectly coined the term “Bullerby Syndrome” denoting an idealization of Sweden as a rural place with positive associations, wooden houses and blond people.
“We will not come back to a situation where all Swedes are blond and blue-eyed. And nor is that desirable, it’s unimportant,” Åkesson explained.
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