S-politician to homeowners who do not want forced mixing: 'Move'

In a heated debate in the Stockholm regional council, Social Democrat Emilia Wikström Melin defended her party’s criticized integration-focused housing policy – and faced sharp criticism when she urged homeowners who dislike the plans for migrant housing in their villa areas to simply move.

During the recent debate in the Stockholm regional council, Social Democrat Emilia Wikström Melin spoke out to defend her party’s policy of building more rental apartments for migrants in affluent villa areas – part of the Social Democrats’ national strategy to counteract ethnic and socioeconomic segregation.

According to the party, it is about creating ‘encounters between people with different backgrounds’ and ultimately breaking down the socio-economic and cultural barriers that are believed to keep people apart. Critics, however, argue that the project in practice entails a form of forced mixing, where established homeowners have their residential areas changed without the opportunity to influence.

Harboring concerns

There are concerns that the encounters with the incoming clientele will not be as mutually enriching as the Social Democrats portray them. Instead, it is believed that the problems of antisocial behavior, crime, and incompatible values from the migrants’ home countries that have created problems in ‘exclusion areas’ will follow when these people move in.

WATCH VIDEO: S forcibly relocates Swedish students for integration – don’t miss Samnytt’s report

When the Sweden Democrats’ Andreas Birgersson responded, he described the initiative as precisely a coercion: If you build rental apartments in the middle of the villa area, it is a coercion for those who already live there. They do not have the choice to not have these rental apartments right on their doorstep, he explained.

‘Absolutely no coercion’

However, Wikström Melin completely dismissed the claim of coercion, referring to the fact that no one is forced to stay if they dislike the change.

– No one will be forced to live there. If you want to move away because you get a new neighbor, you are welcome to do so. There is absolutely no coercion.

When Birgersson pointed out in a second response that the fact that areas are changing without the consent of the residents through political decisions far above their heads is de facto a matter of coercion. But Wikström Melin stood by her answer.

– If they do not want to live there, they are welcome to move. There is no coercion to move, but they can do so of their own free will. No problem.

After her final contribution, Wikström Melin quickly left the speaker’s podium. Watch the debate here:

Deeper conflict about justice and responsibility

Behind the exchange of words lies a larger ideological conflict about what justice means in a multicultural society.

Critics like the debater Rebecca Weidmo Uvell argue that the Social Democrats’ integration policy is based on a mistaken idea that all inequality is injustice – and that differences between groups must always be leveled out with political means.

She describes segregation as largely natural and argues that it rather reflects differences in life situations, resources, and effort than discrimination.

When you immigrate to any country, regardless of the reason, you start from scratch. With everything. With the language, contacts, culture, and resources. Especially if you come as poor. Many of the immigrants we have today have never been this rich, it’s something we don’t talk about.

Rebecca Weidmo Uvell

She points out that the majority of migrants in Sweden are infinitely better off economically here, even as recipients of benefits, than they were in their home countries they left.

Of course, you end up at the back of the line for many things, like queues for housing. […] Those of us who live in good areas have worked hard to get here. The state has not handed out the apartments to us. We have in various ways fought our way to them, either bought or through contacts over half a lifetime managed to get a rental apartment in an attractive area.

Rebecca Weidmo Uvell

She argues that the Social Democrats’ policy risks undermining the important connection between individual effort and reward that makes meritocratic societies stable and functional and is perceived by most as the most just.

Ebba Busch: ‘Using the middle class as an integration tool’

Even Christian Democrats party leader Ebba Busch expresses strong criticism of the Social Democrats’ new aggressive integration-driven housing policy. In a post on social media, she criticizes, among other things, how the Social Democrats now want to make the Swedish middle class in functioning villa areas a ‘tool to compensate for a failed integration policy.’

Recurring theme in integration policy

The issue of forced mixing in housing is not new. Similar ideas about ‘breaking segregation’ by moving or distributing people across different areas have been discussed for decades, but rarely implemented in practice. The Social Democrats’ line in Stockholm now seems to be to go further than before – and the response in the regional council has taken on symbolic significance. Urging people to ‘move’ if they do not want to participate in a state integration project shows, according to critics, a new view of the state’s role in citizens’ lives.

Whether the integration-driven housing policy plans will become a reality remains to be seen. The Social Democrats have an election to win first and then a far-reaching municipal self-government to consider. It is clear, however, that there are differing opinions on what is definitionally voluntary, fair, and coercive.