OSLO – Public revulsion at the massacre in Norway committed in the name of combating “Islamisation” may not be enough to check the rise of anti-immigration parties across the Nordic region.
Anders Behring Breivik is a former member of Norway’s Progress Party, which campaigns for curbs on immigration. While the party may suffer at September 12th local elections, any wider political fallout is unlikely, said Anders Todal Jenssen, a politics professor in Trondheim.
“My guess is that this is something so unthinkable for most people in the Nordic countries that, even though it happened in a neighbouring country, they can’t imagine it happening in their own,” Mr Jenssen said.
The rise of globalisation and open borders has seen a surge in support for nationalistic movements across the Nordic region, as uncertainty and fear of the unknown grip sections of society in some of the richest countries in Europe. Parties that press for restrictions on immigration or over Islam’s supposed influence have won seats in parliament in Denmark, Norway, Finland and, since September, Sweden.
Parties such as the Sweden Democrats, which want to reduce immigration by as much as 90 per cent, will need to hammer home the message that Breivik’s actions are abhorrent to avoid any voter backlash, said Ulf Bjereld, a professor of political science at Gothenburg University.
Elements of the population have witnessed “a mobilisation against Islam and what people perceive as a multicultural society in the Scandinavian countries, and of course a certain type of lunatic is being inspired by these types of ideas,” said MR Bjereld. Yet “if the party leadership clearly distances itself from what’s happened, it’s very possible that it won’t have any consequences at all” on voter support. Breivik’s references to the Sweden Democrats should not be “confused with sympathetic views for us as a party”, Jimmie Aakesson, the party leader, said. “The mass murderer clearly describes his contempt for all democrats, including critics of immigration and Islam.”
Soeren Espersen, foreign affairs spokesman for the Danish People’s Party, Denmark’s third-largest party, said Breivik, the Red Army Brigade, al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Taliban were all “evil forces that, with the help of terror and violent means, want to kill democracy”.
Sweden, Denmark and Finland all rank in the top 10 richest countries per capita in the EU as measured by purchasing power. Yet across the region, “people are uncertain, insecure”, said Pasi Saukkonen, a political scientist at the University of Helsinki. “Society has changed too fast” for many people. “These parties portray established politicians as corrupt and dishonest and their own policies as offering a real, simple alternative.” – (Bloomberg)