How Sweden's Multicultural Dream Went Fatally Wrong - Video

Sweden is no longer compared with it's Nordic neighbors, but with countries in the developing world. 

At 15:37

...violence is not only the fault of those who commit it; it's also the fault of those who allowed it to grow. Because crime didn't appear overnight, it was the logical result of decades of exclusion and failed policies, and above all, silence. In a modern democracy, problems aren't solved by ignoring them. But that's exactly what Sweden did for more than a decade.

From the mid-2000s, to the late 2010's, the Swedish state stopped publishing data on the link between crime and ethnic background. For 15 years, the size of the problem was hidden by political choice. The official argument was that publishing this data could fuel stigma, increase xenophobia, and give ammunition to the far right, but in practice, what it did was block any honest diagnosis of what was happening.

Researchers couldn't access the data, journalists avoided the topic, and traditional political parties preferred to look the other way. And any citizen who tried to talk about it was quickly discredited. Talking about crime and immigration, even with data, without prejudice, and with good intentions, became a total taboo...

Ordinary people, especially those living in affected neighborhoods, knew what was happening, but they didn't feel allowed to say it. The fear wasn't of violence, it was of being labeled a racist. Meanwhile, the political, media, and academic elites lived in safe, well-funded, and culturally homogenous neighborhoods, from where they dictated the country's moral standards.

The result was a deep fracture in public debate. Sweden became divided between those who lived the problem and couldn't speak about it, and those who talked a lot but didn't live it. That prolonged silence, combined with the feeling that the elites weren't listening, didn't understand, or were simply denying reality, couldn't last forever.

At 19:50

A society isn't held together by only laws and subsidies, but by something much more fragile: a sense of belonging. And when that invisible bond breaks, it doesn't matter how rich a country is, how efficient it's institutions are, or how generous its intentions may be...