Denna rapport undersöker hur idén om svenskfientlighet har växt fram och utvecklats och vad den både syftar på och syf tar till för den svenska extremhögern med tonvikt på SD och tiden efter att partiet kom in i riksdagen 2010. Hur har idén om svenskfientlighet uppstått och uttryckts? Vad innebär idén om svenskfientlighet och vad har den för syfte? Hur mobiliseras idén om svenskfientlighet och vart är den på väg inför framtiden? Rapporten, som är den hittills mest omfattande undersökningen av idén om svenskfientlighet, skriver in sig i den svenska och internationella forskningen om rasism och antirasism och har en kritisk diskursanalytisk ansats vad gäller synen på det undersökta materialet. Materialet utgörs av riksdagstexter bestående av främst debattinlägg, motioner och interpellationer samt av olika medietexter.

Författarna vill med rapporten varna för att idén om svenskfientlighet utgör en strategisk underminering av den svenska antirasismen och bär på potentialen att ogiltigförklara, förskjuta och i värsta fall till och med ersätta den senare. För närvarande håller nämligen begreppet på att få sitt slutgiltiga genombrott på regeringsnivå. SD:s idé om svenskfientlighet kan snart komma att tas med in i den nationella handlingsplanen mot rasism, som i skrivande stund håller på att uppdateras, och därmed inte bara ytterligare normaliseras utan även institutionaliseras. Detta innebär att den hittills rådande synen på rasism som något som primärt drabbar invandrar och minoritetsgrupperna håller på att utmanas på allvar av idén om svenskfientlighet, vilket SD också har kämpat för att åstadkomma under åtminstone tre årtionden. Antirasistiska och progressiva krafter och röster behöver därför bli medvetna om denna utmaning och sätta in moteld innan SD:s idé om svenskfientlighet slår igenom med full kraft.

This presentation consists of a text based study of Asians in Sweden and Swedish anti-Asian racism.The purpose is to account for and examine the incipient emergence of a new Swedish racial minorityin the form of Swedish Asians within the context of how Asians in Sweden are experiencing andresponding to anti-Asian racism as well as how Swedish society at large acknowledges the presence ofAsians in Sweden and the existence of anti-Asian racism within the country and how other minoritiesview and treat Asians.Theoretically, the study conceptualizes the on-going development of the emergence of a Swedish Asianminority as a racial formation and the examined text material is based on published original Swedishlanguage texts in the form of autobiographical books and media articles which Asians in Swedenthemselves have written or which are about the group in the form of for example interviews andreportages. The study argues that it was during the pandemic years of 2020-2021 that the Asians inSweden emerged for the first time as a Swedish racial minority and that this emergence must beunderstood as a result of previous Swedish Asian experiences of and responses to Swedish anti-Asianracism and Asians’ historical and contemporary relations to other minorities. 

In these concluding remarks, we reflect upon and envision the possible future of the notion of race in Sweden. We foresee a continued emergence of the new multiracial and super-diverse Sweden. Following this, the maintenance and defence of the colourblind hegemony of contemporary public life in Sweden must inevitably become more and more challenging as inequalities continue to grow and segregation structured by race eventually becomes impossible to ignore. Thus, while the colourblind fantasy of post-1968 Sweden lives on, and provides cover for the emergence of an increasingly emboldened far right, we suggest that things must change. We, therefore, express our hope that coming generations of Swedes will break with the current white melancholy period. Instead, we hope that tomorrow’s Swedish antiracists, white and non-white alike, will be both more willing and more capable to engage with the concept of race, the language of race and the lived reality of race in a more substantial and critical way.

Sweden has a paradoxical history when it comes to race, as a term, as a concept and as a lived reality. In this introduction, we provide a short background on the life of the concept of race in Swedish culture and language within the last century. In addition, we introduce some key concepts and outline the aim and central arguments of the book. From its role as a pioneering nation in race science in the earlier parts of the 20th century, Sweden was equally as pioneering in the latter parts in deracialising public life and discourse, embracing a hegemonic, normative colourblindness. In today’s Sweden, neither conservatives nor progressives, and neither xenophobes nor antiracists can talk about race and hope to be taken seriously. However, things may be in the process of changing, in a situation of escalating tensions between an increasingly superdiversified Swedish population and the emergence of a revitalised far right. In the introduction, we outline six empirically focused chapters which constitute analyses and case studies of both historical and contemporary materials aiming to shed light on some of the most important and pernicious articulations of Swedish colourblindness in a time when this doctrine is becoming increasingly untenable.