The politics in Sweden is pretty out of whack and has been for a long time, with acceleration the past decade plus. A descent into relativism and narcissism and cynicism (the last one not for the plebs but for the pundits).
I’ve thought of writing about this, but usually did not have energy, and also most sources would be Swedish. And I get angry. Also, I stopped writing in Swedish on this blog. Maybe because my verbal diarrhea can find an expression on FB? Not that I post much. However, I have mentioned Sweden’s recent election, Sweden as laboratory, and a documentary and a satirical movie. The last one was made by Jens Ganman, who wrote a rather angry and polemical but relevant and factual post about the cuckoo state of politics and public (approved) discourse. So I refer to that post a good summary.
I recently finished a much calmer but very poignant book about the Swedish multiculturalist (which in practice is relativistic, nihilistic and narcissistic) experiment with a calmer tone: Nima Gholam Ali Pour’s Allah bestämmer inte i Sverige (Allah does not decide in Sweden). I do not think any of his books are translated to English, but he does write in English on Gatestone Institute. I have not read those, but his book reminded me, as it described similar things, a bit about Kenan Malik’s From Fatwa to Jihad (2009). It’s been quite a few years since I read the latter, and thought of re-reading it, but the pile of not-yet-read books screams for attention. Anyhow, when I read Malik’s book it struck me how the domestic politics of promoting and creating s-c “community leaders” was very similar to the old colonial principle indirect rule. Blairite politics was just a modern version of it.
Just a comment on the Wikipedia page about indirect rule: It was very typical of British colonies, less so of the French system. As French ideology is more universalist (everyone really wants to be as us, under a centralized secular government), and the British one was more classic imperial particular (utilize and preserve local cultures and fiefdoms as long as it could be ordered into the grand hierarchy). This is a general difference, they do not exclude racism and exploitation, but they may take different expressions.
P.S: Recently I, and many with me I presume, learnt about the principle negative (indirect) parliamentarism. A government is formed as long as a majority of the chamber does not vote against it. Some countries do not allow minority governments, but that is not so in Sweden. Most governments in peace time has been minority. E.g. the government 2014-2018 was a very minority government, thanks to most of the opposition who just did not want to govern, even if they wanted their salaries. After election September 2018 it was voted down. After four months of silly theater we got a new one. The votes? In a chamber of 349 (huge for such a small country), 115 voted for, 153 voted against, and the rest abstained. What a shit show.