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But this really doesnt hold up. As the Swedish author Johan Norberg argued, Trumpites attacks on Sweden are for the most part fake news. Even despite the increase in gang turf wars, which are partly down to the arrival of migrants who do not find gainful employment, the homicide rate is almost exactly what it was a decade ago, says Norberg. The number of Swedes suffering physical assault fell by 0.7 per cent over the past decade. And general offences against the person are at approximately the same level as they were in 2005 almost a decade before the surge of refugees, as Norberg points out. And there arent more rapes in Sweden than in any other European nation: its just that Sweden does more to encourage women to report all sexual assaults.

So Sweden isnt hell. Rather, the alt-right-promoted image of Sweden as the oh-so-European country brought low by a mass influx of Muslims, the fairest, happiest Western nation now made horrible by Islam, speaks to their wrongheaded obsession with the foreign origins of the Wests moral and cultural malaise. From Trump to Le Pen and some others who pose as guardians of Western people and ideals, the idea seems to be that the modern rot in the West, the difficulties and self-doubt the West now faces, came from without. The threat to our republics and our political gains of sexual equality and cultural pluralism is an external one, apparently. Its the crimes and barbarism of Them that dilute and which might even destroy our enlightened values.

This is mental and moral displacement, a cowardly projection of the Wests own disarray on to outsiders. In truth it is thanks to the cult of relativism and the surge in identity politics and the political and intellectual elites turning their backs on the fundamental founding values of the modern West liberty, democracy and tolerance that our societies have become confused and tetchy and even conflictual.

Even to the extent that the arrival of migrants raises issues today as it undoubtedly does that is also in large part a result of this process, of the Wests long drawn-out loss of principle and even of the moral plot. It is the Wests refusal, or inability, to say what it is for today, to elevate its own values over anybody elses, that gives a green light to some migrant communities to indulge backward, reactionary thinking; to cling to values and attitudes that dont work over here, and which in fact crash up against the Western way of life. Western societies that are incapable of defining or defending their core values, and which then invite over millions of people from societies that have divergent values, are certainly asking for trouble, and unwittingly storing up tension.

But if fear is the driver of too many on the right, the supposedly leftish, liberal side in the Culture War is propelled by something worse: ignorance; a self-imposed, borderline Orwellian ignorance of reality and of the difficulties Western society now faces.

Their response to the #SwedenIncident controversy was in effect to say, Sweden is fine. In response to the rights narrow and ill-backed-up focus on crime, they could whip out official crime stats and say: Actually, it isnt a rape capital, or a murder capital, so stop lying. Lets all go on holiday to Malmo, commentators chirped. That their ridicule and snark was interrupted by a migrant riot in Stockholm, on Monday, was darkly ironic, and very telling about the chattering classs unwillingness to address cultural tensions.

There are problems in Sweden. Some very serious problems. Unemployment among Swedes is four per cent, but among migrants in Sweden it is 22 per cent no developed country has a higher differential, as Fraser Nelson points out. This creates tension, and crime, and even riots, as we saw this week.

And the problems arent only economic; theyre cultural, too. Take Malmo, defended to the hilt by commentators this week. I love Malmo, said New Statesman columnist Laurie Penny. She might, but many Jews do not. Anti-Semitic incidents have trebled in Malmo in recent years. A chapel that serves Jews has been repeatedly desecrated. A local rabbi says he is regularly spat on and abused. The Jewish community centre was bombed. A few years ago, the Telegraph reported that more than 30 Jewish families had left the city; more have fled since then. Some of this is down to far-right elements, but much of it is a result of the intolerance towards Jews of the vast numbers of new Muslim migrants in Malmo. Should we not talk about this? Perhaps it is Islamophobic to talk about anti-Semitism? When Western observers and politicians say everything in Sweden is cool, do they know what this sounds like to Jews in Malmo or working-class Stockholmers who see riots outside their windows?

This Orwellian memory-holing of facts, this airbrushing of inconvenient reality, is possibly the most dangerous trend in the Culture Wars today. It reveals the extent to which Europes welcoming of millions of Middle Eastern migrants, done above the heads of the demos, was largely an act of elite virtue-signalling; an ill-considered, little-discussed initiative designed more to boost the moral standing of Angela Merkel and other EU and Western European leaders than to alleviate the suffering of Syrians and Afghanis or to address economic and political needs in Western nations themselves. So Sweden, with its thousands and thousands of unemployed Muslim arrivals, has in essence become a refugee camp, a holding place for people from faraway warzones. Is this wise? Should it have been more thoroughly and democratically discussed first? Can we discuss it now? Not if you dont want to be called racist, it seems.

The most important thing for the Western political and media class is the rush of virtue that saving Syrians and others provides them with, and reality cannot be allowed to dilute that rush. Their virtue trumps truth; their moral and emotional needs take precedence over rational discussion of the social and cultural issues raised by such an unprecedented influx of migrants. They end up in the perversely Big Brother situation of saying Everything is okay even as cars are being burnt outside and Jews lock their doors against abuse. And they wonder why some people are drawn to the likes of Trump and Le Pen. The more the so-called progressive side in the Culture War evades reality, hides in the memory hole, and substitutes mawkish displays of virtue for serious debate about the state of Western society and its values, the more people will turn to brash politicians who claim to speak the truth on such issues.

Brendan ONeill is editor of spiked.

For permission to republish spiked articles, please contact Viv Regan.

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The Culture War over Sweden - Spiked