Soft-Headed Swedes

Sweden’s transformation into a multi-racial society has meant that some very alien cultural practices have arrived. One is female genital mutilation, common mainly in East Africa, but also found in some parts of the Middle East.

In Somalia, almost all women undergo it. In Europe it was, of course, non-existent before whites decided that Somalis and anyone else can be absorbed into Western societies.

In Sweden it is not only illegal to do it, it is illegal for immigrants to take their daughters back home and to have it done there. There are tens of thousands of Somalis and other East Africans in Sweden now, many of whom are unlikely to have stopped doing something that is nearly universal in their countries of origin. However, there have been very few convictions because most Somali women don’t want to press charges against their own families, particularly given the strong Somali clan mentality.

In practice, therefore, the laws against female genital mutilation have been virtually meaningless, and Liberal Party member of parliament, Nyamko Sabuni, an immigrant from Congo-Kinshasa, has a solution. On July 17th, she published an article in Sweden’s biggest newspaper, Expressen, proposing that the government forcibly inspect the genitals of all junior high school girls. Her proposal was not warmly received. A week later, another prominent Third-World Liberal Party member, Chilean immigrant Mauricio Rojas, pointed out in the same newspaper that since genital mutilation is found only among Somalis and a few other immigrant groups, only those girls should have their genitals inspected. It made no sense, he wrote, forcibly to inspect ethnic Swedish girls and members of groups that have never mutilated genitals.

Of course, when it comes to race, common sense is considered offensive. Mr. Rojas was condemned much more passionately then Mrs. Sabuni. Leftists and fellow Liberals blasted him for being “racist” and for forgetting the key principle of equal treatment.

The insanity of “equal treatment” in this case is obvious. Everyone knows female genital mutilation is strictly limited to a few immigrant groups and that examining everyone for it would be unconscionable government intrusion.

And yet, while the Expressen’s editors, for example, don’t really favor that, they seem to think it would somehow be better than limiting the search to the groups where everyone knows it exists.

This is not the first time Mauricio Rojas has gotten in trouble for saying something obvious. Since he was named spokesman on integration for the Liberal Party, he has pushed for a much tougher attitude on immigrant crime and welfare use. He says immigrants will be better received if they obey the law and get off the dole. (This is not a pro-white stance; he wants more immigrants.)

Most immigrants and liberals dislike this kind of reasoning, and think Mr. Rojas is a sellout.

Because of this latest controversy, Mr. Rojas was not named Minister of Integration in the newly elected centre-right government, though before the debate on genital inspection, he was the natural choice. Who got the job? Mrs. Sabuni. Her proposal isn’t likely to go anywhere, but at least it was not the kind of thought crime Mr. Rojas committed when he suggested looking for female genital mutilation only among people who practice it.