Prominent in this hyped propaganda are the Sweden Democrats<\/em>. A nationalist, social conservative, and populist political party finding its roots in neo-Nazism. In the 2010 elections, this party entered the Swedish parliament with 5.7 percent of the national votes and it now reigns the nation in coalition with other right-wing parties. According to the Statistical Central Bureau<\/em>, a state agency, was the Sweden Democrats<\/em> with 18 percent of current approval Sweden\u2019s second largest political party, after the Social Democrats<\/em>, with 34 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Sweden Democrat\u2019s<\/em> chief ideologist is a former high school teacher, Richard Jomshof, who together with three comrades by the turn of the last century managed to steer away Sweden Democrats<\/em> from the White Power Movement<\/em> and neo-Nazism, while maintaining the party\u2019s nationalist and anti-immigrant tenor. After the 2022 parliamentary elections the Sweden Democrats<\/em> became part of the Government. Jomshof left his post as party secretary and became chairman of the Parliamentary Justice Committee<\/em>, which prepares cases connected with the Swedish judicial system \u2013 courts, the prosecution service, the police and correctional services, as well as cases and laws related to the Criminal Code<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jomshof used his position to propagate for a tougher stance against criminals with a \u201cnon-Swedish background\u201d and to promote restrictions on immigration. One of Jomshof\u2019s goals has been to warn Swedes about the \u201cIslamization of our Homeland\u201d. After publishing anti-Islamic cartoons on X Jomshof was close to be removed from his position as chairman of the Justice Committee<\/em>. However, committee members sided with him while one of them characterized the accusations of \u201cdiscrediting an entire population group\u201d as nothing more than a common \u201cpolitical yap\u201d. Nevertheless, a year ago, Jomshof stepped down as chair of the Committee, in protest after the Government had banned certain semi-automatic weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After that Jomshof dedicated much of his time to write an \u201canalysis\u201d of Islam and recently published a book called Kafir<\/em>, an Arab word for \u201cinfidel\u201d, which has become a bestseller. Jomshof\u2019s political stance and career as an \u201cexpert\u201d on Islam is one example of the polarization that currently characterizes much of European politics \u2013 a tendency to turn any individual into a representative of an entire ethnic and\/or religious group and throw her\/him into one big pot where s\/he becomes part of a one single problem \u2013 immigration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jomshof is an extreme nationalist representing an anti-immigrant political party, but that does not mean that every supporter of Sweden Democrats<\/em> is a reformed Nazi and stout believer in Jomshof\u2019s generalisations, likewise not every Muslim is a supporter of the extremist Islam Jomshof depicts. It is dangerous to bundle together individuals and label them all as extremists. Recently a young man equipped with sword and helmet entered a Swedish school and killed one pupil while gravely wounding two, a third escaped with minor injuries. He had apparently been inspired by the Norwegian Behring Breivik, who in 2011 massacred 77 people as a gesture to \u201ccombat multiculturalism and Muslim immigration\u201d. In 2015, the Swede Anton Lundin-Pettersson murdered three persons for the same reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gaining political advantages through xenophobia is just one ingredient in a larger European political landscape. That a small, marginal political party with Neo-Nazi roots after less than fifteen years ended up in the Swedish government re-confirms a phenomenon present all over Europe. On 15 September, there are general elections in Sweden and next year in France, Spain, Greece, Poland and Italy. All these countries have powerful parties with a nationalistic\/xenophobic agenda. In France, the predecessor of National Rally<\/em> was in 1972 founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen and then included some former members of the Nazi Waffen-SS<\/em>. The Spanish Vox<\/em> was established in 2013, benefitting from donations by ultra-conservative lobbies, such as HazteO\u00edr<\/em> and CitizenGo<\/em>. The Greek Golden Dawn<\/em> was dissolved in 2020, after members of its top echelons had been convicted for serious crimes. In 2023, the Greek Supreme Court blocked its successor party, Hellenes<\/em>, from participating in the general elections, a ruling that still stands for the elections in 2027. However, a plethora of smaller parties have taken up its agenda. The Polish Law and Justice Party<\/em> is a conservative outbreak from the labor movement Solidarno\u015b\u0107<\/em>, with a huge following and an agenda based on political Catholicism, strong conservatism, anti-liberalism, nationalism, and Euroscepticism. Brothers of Italy<\/em> finds its roots in MSI, Movimento Sociale Italiano<\/em>, a fascist party founded after the death of Mussolini. Through the general elections in 2013, Brothers of Italy<\/em> gained nine seats in the Parliament, after obtaining two percent of the votes. According to the Italian polling and research firm Only Numbers<\/em>, Brothers of Italy<\/em> is currently Italy\u2019s largest party and after the 2022 elections its leader, Giorgia Meloni, is Prime Minister of Italy. How could those originally small parties, some with a quite sordid background, in such a short time become so powerful?<\/p>\n\n\n\n One reason might be that by exposing outrageous and extreme opinions, which a political establishment would be ashamed of uttering, fringe parties might obtain attention from a generally liberal press. While warning the general public about such \u201cfanatics\u201d, liberal media spread their ideas and create an increasing interest. In a well calculated moment before the Swedish elections, Richard Jomshof published his untrustworthy and generalizing book about Islam. Although it was issued by a small and rather unknown publisher it received extreme attention by Swedish media \u2013 TV, newspapers and the web \u2013 and thus became an immediate bestseller. As Oscar Wilde once stated: \u201cThe only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A similar phenomenon is currently under way in Italy. In 2023, the general Roberto Vannacci self-published a book on Amazon, Il mondo al contrario<\/em> , The Upside-Down World, sparking a furious backlash and drawing heavy criticism for its contents. The Italian Armed Forces<\/em> quickly distanced themselves from General Vannacci\u2019s ideas. The defence minister stated that he had \u201cdiscredited the Army, the Defence and the Constitution.\u201d Vannacci, grateful for all attention, continues to spread his homophobia and misogyny, attacking immigration policies and environmentalism, while defending Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine. He is now a welcome guest on TV, participates in debates with reputed politicians and academicians, while he recently has founded a political party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The recent landslide election victory of the AfD, Alternative for Germany<\/em>, in the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt has sent shock waves through liberal Europe. While being part of the larger Federal Republic of Germany<\/em>, Saxony-Anhalt hosts just three percent of the nation\u2019s entire population and has its second lowest GDP per capita. Nevertheless, the victory of its Saxony branch now fuels AfD\u2019s hope to take the reins of the entire German Republic. AfD\u2019s ultra-nationalistic agenda claims that Germany has had enough of guilt feelings about the repression and mass killings of the Nazi Regime. The past has to be reinterpreted and the party now asserts that Germany is in need of \u201cless Hitler and more Bismarck\u201d, i.e. the Chancellor who in the 19th century united Germany under the slogan \u201cBlood and Iron\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n AfD has accordingly re-introduced the concept of V\u00f6lkisch<\/em>, folksy, used by the Nazis to denote a battle against \u201cradicalism\u201d in the form of modern art and foreign influences, while fomenting pride in everything the Party deemed as \u201cGerman\u201d. However, the concept was older and originally developed in opposition to the socio-cultural changes of modernity. AfD\u2019s Saxony-Anhalt party programme intends to purge \u201dslander\u201d of Germany from school education. No funding will be granted to organisations maintaining sites of Nazi terror \u2013 AfD\u2019s leadership has condemned Berlin\u2019s Holocaust Monument<\/em> as a \u201cnational disgrace\u201d \u2013 and the the party has also demanded that the world-famous Bauhaus complex in Dessau ought to be closed. In the 1920s this learning centre was a highly influential focus of innovative approaches to art and architecture, until the Nazis closed it down in 1933. It did later re-emerge as a museum, research centre, and cultural landmark, being part of the UNESCO Heritage Sites. The Saxony-Anhalt branch of AfD is furthermore a representative of what has been called eastalgia<\/em>, i.e. nostalgia for the times when Saxony-Anhalt was part of the Communist, Soviet dominated East Germany. Consistent with this perception and displeasure with the central government\u2019s spending on Ukraine\u2019s defence, AfD is a stout supporter of Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before the 1990 reunification of West and East Germany, Saxony-Anhalt was an important centre for a polluting heavy industry. One of East Germany\u2019s most famous authors, Monika Maron, wrote a novel called Flugasche<\/em>, Flying Ashes, in which she described the bleak, contaminated land of Saxony. Since then, the German Federal Republic<\/em> has successfully cleaned up the traces of a ruthless industrialization and gradually transformed Saxony-Anhalt into an increasingly green state. However, this initiative came at the cost of the shutting down of several large industries, resulting in increased unemployment. Since 1990, Saxony-Anhalt has lost 750 000 inhabitants, mainly skilled young people, who have moved to the \u201cWest\u201d, a fourth of the state\u2019s population. Those left behind are an aging population and unskilled, unemployed young people, while the state has been partly repopulated by immigrants coming from foreign countries. They now constitute a tenth of the population. This has left a fertile ground for a populist party attracting disappointed old people and depressed youngsters, presented with the chimera of a happy pre-war Germany and\/or Communist East Germany, which in reality are now forgotten and probably never existed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A general sense of insecurity, reduced GDP and increasing unemployment harass several Europeans, not least young people. An embellished nostalgia for an actually forgotten past, assumed to have been annihilated by hordes of immigrants and corrupt liberals, has made Europeans affected by ultra-conservative parties, promulgating hazardous and divisive ideas. Representatives of murky ideologies are by media provided an attention they do not deserve. Excessive media interest, especially when marginal fanatics begin to spread their poisonous seed, might strengthen their outreach. Critical analysis, research and education are despised by dark forces who deliberately divulge their message through easy-to-understand, diluted and digestible propaganda and fake news. An ominous development that demands urgent action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n INPS Japan\/ IPS UN Bureau Report<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Jan Lundius STOCKHOLM, Sweden (IPS) – During summer months there is a certain news drought. Nevertheless, this year social media has been crowded with news from wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, while customary tales about grisly murders have not been neglected. In Sweden it is election year and summer reporting has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10497,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,13,19,16,93,32,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-europe","category-goal10","category-population-immigration","category-news","category-politics","category-regions","category-sdgs-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10493"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10502,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10493\/revisions\/10502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Europe\u2019s](\"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Europes-shifting-political-landscape-1024x683.jpg\")