Top Social Democrat: Anyone Can Be Swedish - But Not Sami

STOCKHOLM - You can hardly become Sami, Jewish or Tornedalian without the right ancestry. But when it comes to Swedes, a senior Social Democrat refuses to talk about ethnicity at all.

Mirja Räihä, the Social Democrats' spokesperson on minority issues, said so when Gustav Kasselstrand, leader of the Alternative for Sweden party, interviewed her in Helsinki about who actually counts as Swedish.

The exchange took place on 29 October during the Nordic Council's annual session in Helsinki. Kasselstrand later published the conversation on X and YouTube.

Räihä is a member of parliament for Stockholm, sits on the Committee on the Constitution and is part of Sweden's delegation to the Nordic Council.

Kasselstrand began by asking whether Sweden has a majority population. Räihä replied that of course it does - Swedes - but that Sweden also has a law protecting five national minorities, which she said have strong ties to their culture and ethnicity and have lived in the country for a very long time.

Asked whether ethnic Swedes are therefore the majority population, she would not use the term.

"The Social Democrats don't talk about Swedes in terms of ethnicity."

Instead, she said, the party talks about people who hold Swedish citizenship and live, work or study in the country. She used herself as an example: born and raised in Finland, she has lived and worked in Sweden for 50 years.

"I'm not an ethnic Swede, of course."

Closed to outsiders

Then Kasselstrand turned the question around. Could he, with no link to any of the groups, become part of the Jews, the Tornedalians or the Sami?

"Hardly, unless you have it in your background."

Räihä explained that people with Finnish ancestors going back to the Middle Ages, such as the Forest Finns of Värmland, have a connection to the Sweden Finnish minority. Asked whether the minorities are closed, she said yes - then you have to look at your background.

She added that she herself comes from Finnish Lapland and may well have Sami blood, but has never checked.

Citizenship has requirements

Kasselstrand also compared with Finland. Räihä said he could become a Finn by living and working there as a Finnish citizen - but that Finnish citizenship would not necessarily make him a Finland Swede.

When Kasselstrand suggested that in Sweden, becoming Swedish is supposedly open to everyone, Räihä objected that there are rules for who may become a citizen. You must have lived in the country a certain number of years, pay your bills and have no criminal record, so it is not open to all, she said.

Watch the conversation: