Billedet er taget på Christiansborg den 2 november 2014. (klik f. helskærm) Daniel Pipes analyserer Sverigedemokraternes succes i Washington Times.

Unrestrained immigration has triggered an instinct for self-preservation

This heritage has also inspired an intolerance of dissent, however; “Be quiet, follow the consensus, let the bureaucrats carry it out.” The country has become so notorious for its stifling faux-unanimity that I actually heard a Dane recently ask at a public forum, “Why has Sweden turned into the North Korea of Scandinavia?” [..]

Also, Sweden’s history creates a no-crisis mentality that militates against the hard-headed, flexible responses needed to cope with current problems the country now faces, especially those connected to waves of mainly Muslim immigrants. As one interlocutor put it to me in Stockholm earlier this month, “Past success has led to current failure.” For example, security in Sweden is well below what might find in a country like Bolivia, with few inclinations to make improvements, rendering Islamist violence all but inevitable.

With good reason, the establishment hates and fears the SD, pedantically finding any possible fault with the party, starting with its neo-fascist past (though fascist connections are not unique to SD) and going on to the tiniest foibles of its leadership.

Supporting SD remains taboo. A law enforcement officer recounted to me how his police commissioner tweeted about “vomiting” on learning of SD’s 2014 electoral success; so, while none of his colleagues acknowledge supporting the party, he estimates that 50 percent of them vote for it.

No less important, I learned in Stockholm, the intellectual and political climate has shifted. Journalists, policy specialists and politicians all noted that ideas outside the mainstream just a year ago now receive a hearing. For example, four major newspapers have questioned the consensus in favor of high immigration. Beside the surging SD vote, this shift results from several other factors: the shocking rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which has altered the debate; continued upset at the December compact that excluded the SD from having its due parliamentary influence; and the receding memory of Anders Behring Breivik’s 2011 murderous rampage in Norway.

In all, it appears that denial and censorship can only continue for so long before the instinct of self-preservation kicks in. The Western country most prone to national suicide is possibly waking up from its stupor. If this change can take place in Sweden, the “North Korea of Scandinavia,” it can, and likely will, occur anywhere in Europe.