| Summary: | The rise of the Swedish Democrats, as a political party in Sweden, has been surroundedby controversy both within and outside of the media. As such a polarizingtopic, the party has been the focus of negative and positive attention. On onehand it has been considered a racist and xenophobic party due to its policies onimmigrants. On the other, it has also been seen as a solution to what has been consideredby some to be a constant problem in Sweden, for those same policies.These policies are motivated by what the party perceives as a threat to Swedishsociety. That is to say, immigrants are a threat to Sweden because of thechanges they impose on the Swedish identity. This work aims to answer the keyquestions, how do the Swedish Democrats use religion to create a Swedish identity,and to what extent can the use and construction of this identity be understoodas cultural racism?Within this work, I study the Party’s principle program and analyze the useof religion in creating a Swedish identity. Additionally I analyze the use of thatidentity to create an “us” versus “them” mentality. Further, I intend to show howthis identity is used to practice cultural racism.For this work I have used the theory of post colonialism and Karen Wren’stheory of cultural racism. I have used the methods of a qualitative textual analysisin the form of a discourse analysis and an analysis of meaningful content. Thesemethods and theories have been used to study the principle program of the Swedishdemocrats and two debate articles.The conclusion of this study shows that the Sweden Democrats make use ofreligion to create a Swedish identity, and that this identity is used to exclude peoplewith an immigrant background from the Swedish community.There are also certain elements that suggest that the party uses that identity to exerta form of cultural racism, due to the party's strong ties to traditional Christianityand the Swedish history, they aim to preserve.
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