Rekindling Sweden's Lost Empathy

A Call to Rediscover Empathy in Swedish Society

We were supposed to emerge from the holiday season in Sweden cheerful, rested, and ready for a happy new year. However, that hasn't happened. The past year was expected to conclude with feelings of love and unity, but this was not the case. Racism, anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia have reached new heights, and the right-wing Sweden Democrats continue to dominate the political discourse. Greta Thunberg faces attacks for her political activism, and the government has cut 10 billion crowns (approximately 1.09 billion dollars) from development aid. Shortly before the holidays, a bullet-riddled Quran was hung on the fence of the Great Mosque in Stockholm, and an Iranian family, consisting of nurses who have worked in Swedish hospitals for a decade, has been placed on the deportation list back to Tehran.

As we enter the new year, we face a choice influenced by a toxic political discourse about expelling criminals and those who do not