Here comes a quite belated, but maybe more exhaustive, comparison on the two debates on what it should take to become a citizen that have been unfolding in the two countries that I am most heavily involved with - Sweden and Canada - during the past months. In Sweden, the debate centered on the proposal by the Minister of Integration, Nyamko Sabuni, to introduce citizenship classes for those who aspire to become citizens. This suggestion was later defeated by a vote on the Liberal Party convention, effectively stopping the Minister from implementing it. In Canada, the debate is a result of the new citizenship guide introduced by the Conservative government. There are interesting similarities between the two debates, but also some important differences that are noteworthy.
In Sweden, the idea of a citizenship course was first publicly discussed by the minister in an article in late March of this year. Here, Sabuni mentions that the course should both "inform about how the Swedish society works, what rights [a citizen] has, but also explain and inform about responsibilities" as well as include "a discussion about the value ground society is based on." Over time, it was the latter component that became the focus of the debate, addressed repeatedly in the media, mostly because critics wondered what "Swedish values" actually consist of. At these occaisions, the Minister tended to frame it in terms of respect of for democracy and democratic procedures. As many mentioned, this is a highly problematic approach.
On the one hand, there are native born Swedes who are engaged in extreme political movements that express disdain towards democracy, both on the Left and on the Right, but the idea that these movements or expressions of opinion would be outlawed in anyway seems quite foreign to the Swedish public discourse because of how freedom of speech is framed in this context. This makes it very questionable to argue that immigrants in some fashion should be limited in this regard, however problematic their potential involvement in anti-democratic movements might actually be. In that sense, there is a hint of the Islamophobic atmosphere to this discourse in the sense that immigrants are, once more, framed as a problem in some fashion, this time insofar as they might be seen as undermining democracy, which understates the extent to which immigrants, particularly refugees, are actually migrating to get away from dictatorships and highly conscious about the freedoms that are available in democracies. It could, of course, be argued the precise practicalities that are involved in the manifestations of a particular nation's democratic procedures are probably unknown to newcomers, but this is probably true for all new citizens at least to some extent, regardless of whether they come from dictatorships or democracies. For instance, I have no idea about what I should actually do when I enter a Canadian polling station the first time, even though I grew up in a democracy, since Swedish voting procecures are arguably different from the Westminster model.
But on a larger level, this debate has been remarkably similar to the ones taking place in Great Britain and other European nations. There, too, the debate seems to be centred on issues of common values and social cohesion tends to be framed in this way. But when it comes down to how such courses would manifest, the advocates tend to end up with general statements about the importance about democracy and human rights, referring sometimes to European human rights codes, and these are, of course, not anything that is particular to British values, as opposed to French or Swedish. In this sense, I'd argue that it probably was a good thing that the proposal was defeated - as it stood, it was simply to vague in terms of content to be productive in any significant way, and it might even have become counter-productive, as it risked becaming another symbol of how the immigrants somehow are "deficient" and in need of "adjustments" in some fashion to properly fit in. In that context, I'd have to argue the Swedish have been generally very passive with regards to suggestions for how discrimination and such obstacles to integration that could be seen as originating in Swedish mainstream society should be addressed.
What about the Canadian debate, then? Well, the new citizenship guide has been addressed both in the printed media and on TV during the Fall. The similarities with the Swedish discourse are best summerized by Jhappan, who strongly questions some of the formulations about "barbarian" cultural practices in the guide. It is an interesting argument about how "others" might become (possibly unintentionally) ostracized, or even demonized, in such texts, and taken in the context of rising Islamophobia, any author should rightly be cautioned in this respect.
But the differences are more interesting. More questions have been asked about the content with regards to Canadian history and civics. CBC, for instance, discussed if the demands on new citizens with regards to learning history and civics are excessive - could native born Canadians pass the test? This has been asked about the old test, too, by the way. While the question certainly is valid, I'm wondering if it possibly should be reframed in terms of making increased demands on history and civics as part of elementary education in Canadian schools. Indeed, Canadian citizenship guide seems to devote much more space to these subjects, and discussions about common values seem to comprise at most about a page or so (though I have yet to examine it in great detail, please correct me if I'm wrong). In this respect, I have to say that the Canadian way of discussing citizenship seems much more focused on those common points of reference that a newcomer might actually find useful for easier orientation in the new country (i.e. history, both in terms of politics but also scientific landmarks and even sports could be relevant in this regard, as well as civics), and rather less imposing in this regard than a course that would focus only on "democratic values" in the way that seems to have been predominantly proposed in the European debates.
The Canadian guide might still suffer from flaws in many regards, but it seems much less problematic than what has suggested in Sweden, at least as far as processes of otherization are concerned.
And I'll try to keep next post shorter, so thank you very much for bearing with me on this rather lengthy spiel...
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