However, I find it quite telling that his post was largely overlooked for some reason.
No, because it's a weighty post that requires thought & time to ensure a proper reply - neither of which I had much of yesterday by the time he approached the issue.
It should tell you something that even otherwise progressive people are concerned about it. The opinion of actual racists aren't worthy of taking into account in a logical conversation, but the opinions of moderate people are. Their concerns are legitimate. Honestly, I find it surprising that not only do you find such a mild remark like "they don't necessarily understand us" racist, but you find it frighteningly racist. That's quite a level headed response to a disatrous situation.
I find remarks like "they don't understand us" to be frighteningly racist because the people uttering them are unaware of the level of racism that's involved with it, rather than assuming that person is a secret cross-burning member of the Ku Klux Klan. If we've learned anything over the past 10 years of Western politics, it's that overt racism is fairly easy to confront. It's the subconscious biases that are damning and very difficult to be concerned with. As for the comparison between "actual" racists (by which I presume you mean overt and open racists) and moderates, I agree that the opinion of overt racists are not worth taking. The difficulty becomes when they hitch their wagon to concerns of people without overt racist biases and use that to drive their own goals.
There's a difference between the immigrant situation in Canada and the one in Sweden. Muslims only make up about 3% of Canada's population, while it makes up about 10% of Sweden's population. That's a sizable gap. Behaviours of Muslim minorities have a more profound influence on Swedes' views of immigrants.
First of all, your numbers are incorrect. Canada has 3.2% Islam; according to
Pew Research, Sweden has 8.1%. The official Swedish census puts a much lower percentage on the amount of people who practice Islam, to be fair, and I do wonder if the real number isn't somewhere in the middle (or if it isn't conflating people who have immigrated from Muslim-majority nations/people who are descended from those who immigrated from Muslim-majority nations with those who are open worshippers of Islam). So not quite 10%, potentially lower than 10%.
The biggest difference we have between nations is Canada's superior ability to control who arrives on our shores. By and large the situation you describe here:
My proposal is strict immigration numbers, extensive vetting process, emphasis on educated people and skilled workers and short criminal leash on immigrants in terms of deportation.
already exists in Canada. The vast majority of immigrants are educated people, with multiple degrees, and we have less refugees. We also keep far better track of them where Sweden doesn't - see
this article for more on Sweden's inability to track crimes by country of origin. That means that it's not actual data that's causing the attitudes Swedes are proclaiming - specifically the stated positions of the SD that immigrants bring a much greater percentage of crime - but an assumption based on anecdote, the same sort of spurious argument being used by Mr. Trump in the States.
The data to prove the veracity of this does not exist. The SD relies on a report from 2005 that is highly suspect when making these claims - a form of manipulation. The Moderates in Sweden want the data - sure - but the SD assumes what the data will say, and they are trying to use fear to draw people towards their conclusion.
In Canada, we track this data, so I can tell you that certain immigrant groups (IE Somali immigrants) have a higher level of violent crime than others, but in general, immigrants here are
far less likely to commit crimes. The situation is different, I will grant, but with data you can make actual arguments. The SD is not truly interested in making those arguments, and the ones they have done are made of bad faith with a conclusion pre-supposed.
Non-integration is a massive problem when immigration happens in heaps. Not to mention the fact that birth rates in emigrating countries are much higher than the ones in the countries they migrate to, which results in higher population growth among minorities in developed countries. This is true both for Sweden and Canada. If mass immigration, high birth rates and non-integration tendencies cross paths, you'll definitely see massive change to the national identity, whatever you take that to mean. This depends on who it is that's doing the migrating.
Non-integration is only a problem when the people who move to the country do so in bad faith, but I also don't believe that non-integration is a long term issue. I think integration issues are generally solved via generational shifts. That's certainly been the historic trend in high-immigration nations such as Canada, the UK, and the USA. There's areas where that hasn't been true - France's Algerian population comes to mind - but social research indicates that is due to the rejection of the immigrants by the migrating population, creating non-integrating cabals. Here, many migrants send their children to the same schools, to the same parks, and to the same social programs and their children end up being significantly more integrated than the parents ever could be. I would suggest that a strong positive attitude towards acceptance helps groups to integrate long term.
And this is where I went, and I apologize in advance for taking a rather smug attitude, "Oh you have no idea". Muslims don't simply "worship a mildly different god". Above everything else, devoutness among Muslims is significantly, and I mean by a cliff, higher than it is among Canadians or Swedes. Canada and Sweden are two of the least religious countries on the planet. There are cultural Muslims the same way there are cultural Christians yes, but the percentages are vastly different. The number of Islamic fundamentalists isn't negligible like the number of Christian fundamentalists are, and this is, again, especially true for countries like Canada and Sweden.
I live in a country with a 90% Muslim population. I've seen as many moderate Muslims as I have devout Muslims so I'm not oblivious to their existence. But the number of fundamentalists is also significantly high. And this is one of the most secular Muslim countries we're talking about, probably the most secular one that's not located in Southeast Asia. And the compatibility of fundamental, even devout Muslims is always going to be problematic for developed Western nations. They're never going to respect LGBT rights. They're never going to respect women's rights. They're never going to respect your pubs and they sure as hell won't be for the legalization of marijuana. They won't stop thinking your lack of sexual repression (or modesty, as they call it) is immoral. They won't stop uttering words of repent to themselves when they see a girl in shorts on the street, you just won't hear them. They're never going to stop thinking you're immoral. Their motive for being there is opportunity, and only that. There's a reason Turks in Germany, who have been there for decades, vote SDP in Germany and then do victory marches on the streets when Erdoğan wins in Turkey.
Cultural Muslims, moderate Muslims, non-religious people from Muslim countries are not a problem and never will be a problem. But the core of the issue will never be understood until progressives in the West draw a distinction between people in Muslim countries and address the issues without sugarcoating them. It's not racist to be concerned about your safety, and to be concerned about the social progress you have made being disrespected by people who come to your country because you've provided them an opportunity.
The difficulty, for me, is not that Western persons cannot draw the line between fundamentalist Muslims who emigrate in bad faith and those who emigrate with good faith and an intent to make their target destination their new home. The difficulty for me is that many Western persons are choosing to lump all Muslim migrants in the same fundamentalist bag, and as a result, marginalize the community to a much greater (and far more dangerous) extent than necessary. There should be attempts to keep dangerous people out of Western nations, but there should be a strong cultural understanding that many of the people moving are willing to integrate properly. And honestly, I don't particularly care if there's a core of migrants who think a lot of what is done in our society is sinful. We need to look at this over a long period of time and force those people - and specifically, those people's children and grandchildren - to question their restrictive values. This is an argument that Western nations have consistently won over time, and one I firmly believe they will continue to win without resorting to the types of measures espoused upon by the SD and similar groups.
