The Social Democrats have updated the party’s social analyses. It is a strongly self-critical party that holds a press conference on Monday.
– On the topic of self-criticism, my working group and I can state that our party has had an overconfidence in what general systems can do for specific crime problems and thus we have devoted too little time to developing a more accurate policy to counter gang crime in particular, says Teresa Cavalho (S), and continues:
– Which is likely an important explanation for why we have lagged behind in targeted crime prevention efforts against risk groups and families, with increased police efforts and tougher penalties.
The integration
In the report “The emergence of parallel societies” one is critical of S’s approach to integration in recent decades. Now they want to draw attention to the importance of having the Swedish language as a common pillar.
– The social community is formed by people sharing a common language, cultural and historical frames of reference and basic social conventions, says Lawen Redar (S).
This does not mean that you have to share ethnicity, traditions or religion, says Redar, but she stresses that you must have a common language. The demographics have changed from being a very homogeneous country to becoming a heterogeneous country.
– We believe that there has been a lack of analysis of the distributional political consequences of immigration. An already existing segregation has accelerated, says Redar.
Analysis of what hindered integration
The Social Democrats’ analysis is that segregation has been driven by a segregated school and privatisations. For adults, Swedish for Immigrants (SFI) has had low requirements, which has meant that many do not gain sufficient language skills after the education.
In addition, the design of the housing market has meant that people who immigrated to Sweden ended up in areas where the Swedish language has a weak position, which hinders the opportunities to learn the language, says Redar.
– We will have to make political efforts that society has not seen so far, she says, without going into more detail about what efforts she is aiming for.
“Girl’s School”
The Social Democrats also make the analysis that in the feminist endeavor they have missed the boys. They call the school’s adaptation to girls the “girls’ school”.
– In a school that has become more adapted to girls used to studying, the boys fall behind already at the first call, says Amalia Rud Pedersen (S).
– The market school, together with the segregation, has created a kind of flume school.
S wants to break the pattern by “reducing the gaps, pushing back pessimism, insecurity and the privatizing solutions, and instead increasing trust in the common solutions”, says Rud Pedersen.
Mana about marking against SD
S also says that they lost themselves for fear of being associated with SD.
– We were so keen to mark opposition to SD’s abominable view of humanity that we lost our own analysis. But it must also be remembered that this happened at the same time as we had a market-liberal zeitgeist. We were pressured from the bourgeois side who wanted a more generous immigration policy. This happened at the same time, she says and continues:
– Today we are very clear that we want a strict immigration policy, says Cavalho (S), who points out that the difference between S and SD is that SD’s policy is to “split”, while S’s policy is to have everyone must become part of society.