The Swedish election of 2010 happened yesterday. It's not totally over though, as X enlightened told me; the absentee ballots remain and won't be counted for a few days.

X's also summed up a few thoughts on the subject quite nicely here with the results summed up most brilliantly: :(

Because I'm not as well-spoken, I will now rant: I'm not more upset because "my block" lost, but rather the fact that Sweden now has a xenophobic party in parliament. I don't care that they're relatively small (despite tens of thousands having voted for them) so that means they won't make much of a political difference yet, but the fact that these people actually have the right to meddle in actual people's lives is stupefying; these philistines actually think there's something inherently evil in non-European cultures. One of their top politicians has even said that some immigrants are marred by an "aggressive gene" and didn't get kicked out of the party. Not surprisingly. These people avoid (intellectual) theories that don't support them, and twist others to match their world.

That people give way to these just saddens me. I'd love to say that I'm not a part of their world, but I now am.

I'll see the forthcoming years as a battle to keep one's mind sharp, to parry the rhetoric of maniacs. And try to remember, history may support us.