Den liberale britiske ukeavisa The Economist har ikke brukt å slå alarm om innvandringen til Europa. Tvert om har den en pragmatisk og optimistisk linje, og lite sympati for kulturkonservative perspektiver. Men man trenger ikke være kulturkonservativ for å være bekymret for masseinnvandringen. En kan like gjerne være liberal, men som liberal trenger man bare litt lenger tid på å bestemme seg, ser det ut til.

Det er derfor interessant å lese avisens beskrivelse av innvandringsproblemene i Norden. Om Economist ofte er irriterende fremskrittsoptimistisk, kan de også heldigvis være kjølige realister og prinsipielle liberalister.

Bare det å få presentert i klare ordelag de økonomiske konsekvenser av innvandringen har vært vanskelig nok. Å få de servert uten at de er pakket inn i politisk idealisme og besvergelser er enda sjeldnere. Her er utdrag fra Economists spesialnummer om tilstanden i de nordiske land. Et eget stykke er om masseinnvandring:

[…] Mass immigration is posing serious problems for the region. For the Nordic countries to be able to afford their welfare states they need to have 80% of their adults in the workforce, but labour-force participation among non-European immigrants is much lower than that. In Sweden only 51% of non-Europeans have a job, compared with over 84% of native Swedes. The Nordic countries need to persuade their citizens that they are getting a good return on their taxes, but mass immigration is creating a class of people who are permanently dependent on the state.

Torben Tranaes, of Denmark’s Rockwool Foundation Research Unit, calculates that in the mid-1990s immigrants in their 40s—the age group that generally contributes most to the public budget—paid only marginally more in taxes than they received in benefits. In Sweden 26% of all prisoners, and 50% of prisoners serving more than five years, are foreigners. Some 46% of the jobless are non-Europeans, and 40% of non-Europeans are classified as poor, compared with only 10% of native Swedes. Immigrants are so closely associated with the Million Programme, and hence with public housing, that the Gringo, a Stockholm newspaper for immigrants, calls them Miljonsvenskar, or “Million Swedes”.

High immigration is threatening the principle of redistribution that is at the heart of the welfare state. Income inequalities in the Nordic countries are generally lower than elsewhere (see chart), but Matz Dahlberg, of Uppsala University, reckons that immigration is making people less willing to support redistribution. The decline is particularly marked among high-income earners.

Avisa omtaler også karikaturstriden. Også denne er nøktern og greit fortalt uten fargelegging i noen retning. Saken taler for seg.

Immigration is also causing culture clashes. Nordics fervently believe in liberal values, especially sexual equality and freedom of speech, but many of the immigrants come from countries where men and women are segregated and criticising the prophet Muhammad is a serious offence. Peaceful Denmark found itself on the front-line of the culture wars when Jyllands-Posten, a newspaper, published cartoons making fun of Muhammad.

Avisa mener de har funnet de ømme punktene i debattene om innvandring: grensene for vår godhet og toleranse:

… The biggest battle is within the Nordic mind. Is it more progressive to open the door to refugees and risk overextending the welfare state, or to close the door and leave them to languish in danger zones? Is it more enlightened to impose secular values on devout Muslims or to dilute liberal values in the name of multiculturalism? Trying to reconcile these contradictions can lead to strange results. Alarmed by reports of female genital mutilation, Nyamko Sabuni, a Swedish cabinet minister, suggested compulsory gynaecological examinations for all young girls in Sweden.

Liberals are increasingly on the defensive. The number of immigration-related attacks is rising. In 2010 Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly blew himself up in the middle of a crowd of Christmas shoppers in central Stockholm; remarkably, he managed to injure only a couple of people. In Sweden median household incomes of non-European immigrants are now 36% lower than for native-born Swedes, whereas in 1991 they were only 21% lower. But Denmark’s much-vilified immigration reforms may be paying off: the employment gap between native Danes and non-Western immigrants has declined to 24 percentage points, compared with 42 in the mid-1990s.

Reportasjen er lang og god. Den gir blant annet et godt bilde av transformasjonen av Malmö:

Today over 80% of its population of 24,000 are immigrants. The local shops have names such as Babylon and Lebanon. Women in hijabs and headscarves cart their shopping through the freezing rain. Men sit in cafés drinking strong coffee and keeping dry. A truck sells falafel sandwiches….

Det er over 90 kommentarer til artikkelen på nett. En av de skarpeste som tar Economist på kornet, er kvinnen som lurer på hvordan de i det hele kan stille spørsmålet: «Is it more enlightened to impose secular values on devout Muslims or to dilute liberal values in the name of multiculturalism?»

Hun påpeker det som er åpenbart en logisk feilslutning dersom «enlightened» skal beholde sitt meningsinnhold:

Why is this a question at all? How would it be enlightened to give up progressive, rational, evidence-based values in the name of backwards thinking? Liberalism means not discriminating people because of who they are, not allowing people to discriminate against others because of their own beliefs! Tolerance of intolerance is cowardice!

Economist klarte dermed selv å framstille kjernen i det liberale dilemma, toleransens grenser for det liberale mennesket – uten at de kanskje var klar over det selv.

The Economist 2. februar 2013: The ins and the outs – Artikkelen er fri.