At some point in the late 2000s, the term “multiculturalism” started being used in new ways in Sweden. Whereas this concept had previously been deployed as a positively charged buzzword in the context of migration and integration policy, it was now being called into question by writers, intellectuals, politicians, and in the more unrestrained exchange of views that prevailed on social media. During the 2010s, this word ended up taking center stage in a contentious debate about Swedish asylum and immigration policy. Gradually, “multiculturalism” became almost an ironic term of derision, at least among the most sarcastic and brash segment of the digital public sphere.

Admittedly, the Swedish debate on “multiculturalism” during that period was not entirely devoid of objective discussion and good faith arguments. Notwithstanding the fact that public discourse was constantly subjected to trolling and bombarded with both hate speech and scare tactics from both the right and the left, the debate eventually laid the groundwork for a somewhat more nuanced understanding of the vast array of issues related to migration, integration, assimilation, and the relationship between Swedish majority culture and minority groups. Meanwhile, however, the term “multiculturalism” underwent a clear shift towards being used pejoratively as an invective. Today, aside from those who use the term in a derogatory manner or as insults, there are probably few who use it without reservations.

This poses an obstacle for anyone who wishes to discuss a phenomenon that, to some extent, can be described as a reaction to “multiculturalism”—namely, the monoculturalism of our time. Irrespective of social problems that in Sweden and in other places can be linked to “multiculturalism” it is nonetheless clear that that the world today is significantly different from what it was twenty years ago, and that what urgently demands our attention is no longer just the challenges of multiculturalism, but also the global trends toward centralization and homogenization in cultural life and language policy.

These monocultural tendencies manifest themselves in various ways and should not necessarily be understood as an expression of a single ideological or political tendency. At the least, a broad distinction ought to be drawn between on the one hand all form of cultural conformity that is politically enforced, and on the other hand, the homogenization that occurs spontaneously as a result of: globalization, the cultural impact of market forces, and the internationalization of the spheres of culture, media and academic research. There is, after all, a crucial difference between for example the Chinese governments violent policies of forced assimilation of Uigurs and the homogenizing effects that Chinas growing economic and cultural influence brings with it elsewhere. Under Trump, the United States is undergoing a process of cultural centralization aimed at undermining the rights of minorities, which is something entirely different from the globally homogenizing effects of American popular culture and American dominance in Big Tech.

Then there are some instances in which both forms of monocultural homogenization reinforce each other. In Belarus, where state power has been actively pursuing a policy of russification which has severely affected the Belarusian-speaking population of the country, the political effort to achieve cultural unity have been bolstered by the fact that market forces have promoted Russian-language culture to the detriment of Belarusian-language culture. Russian publishers, film producers, musicians and other cultural practitioners have for decades had an enormous market advantage over Belarusian cultural actors, whose access to resources has been limited considerably. In other words, the dictatorship and market forces have both been driving society toward the same monocultural outcome, and in this respect, the state and the market have had shared interests.

It is also worth noting that the active proponents of monoculturalism do not need to be consistent in their efforts. The so-called philosopher Alexander Dugin – one of the most well-known defenders of Putinism - gladly portrays himself as a champion of the diversity of national cultures in the face of the homogenizing effects of globalization and the liberal market economy, while at the same time defending Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, the goal of which is clearly to force its neighbor to ethnically “conform” to the interests of Russian imperialism.

In Sweden the current rightwing governments efforts to achieve cultural centralization are in no way comparable, neither in scope nor in intensity. However, while not attempting to draw any other comparisons, it is probably worth noting that there are some similar tendencies. The current Swedish government, to a much greater extent than its predecessors, has emphasized the importance of shared national community as a binding social glue in society. This could in itself be a natural, legitimate or at least predictable reaction for a country, which in a relatively short period of time has granted entry to an exceptionally large number of immigrants relative to the size of its domestic population. Some of the government’s efforts to centralize culture have also been of a rather innocuous variety, such as the hotly debated “Swedish Canon”—a list identifying cultural phenomena that are deemed historically significant in the development of Sweden and that is intended to be used in the development of new curricula and in the education of new arrivals, with the aim of strengthening the country’s sense of national community. Some of the participants in these debates have regarded this eclectic list as further confirmation of the government’s “authoritarian tendencies,” which is perhaps a slight exaggeration.

What is more concerning is how the government’s policy of cultural centralization is so one-sidedly directed at minority groups, while majority culture is left to fend for itself. If Swedish cultural identity was truly a source of concern, wouldn't it then have been necessary to do more to cope with the profound anglicization of Swedish cultural life? Academic research in Sweden has increasingly abandoned Swedish as the main language of academic writing. Concurrently there has been a steep decline in the readership of Swedish-language books for many years, while English-language publishers are on the verge of crowding out large segments of the body of translated literature published in Swedish, as readers are instead switching to consuming literature in English. The government has wanted to restrict access to mother-tongue language instruction in the case of non-European languages but has no objections to the fact that English speaking schools are allowed to replace Swedish speaking schools within the national educational system. The pattern is clear: minorities are expected to undergo cultural assimilation, while the majority is permitted to distance itself from Swedish identity according to individual preference. This leads one to suspect that there are more dubious driving forces behind the government’s policies, ones which are not limited to the pursuit of a positive “sense of community” as is currently being used as justification for the trends toward cultural centralization.

Within the scope of its theme “Language and Translation,” PEN/Opp seeks to explore these aforementioned tensions between the pursuit of national unity, global trends toward homogenization, and their respective reactionary responses. This theme will feature texts which highlight the problems that have been identified by PEN International's Committee on Translation and Linguistic Rights, which works to defend linguistic diversity against the forces of homogenization that marginalize smaller languages.

This committee has also highlighted translation as an important cultural act of solidarity. Perhaps translators have an especially critical role in an era marked by both globalization and cultural centralization? This is particularly true for translators working between two languages with smaller numbers of speakers, who in their work establish an independent channel of communication between two cultures that would otherwise have had to take a detour through a larger linguistic culture in order to be connected. Translation can be an act of national and linguistic independence, while at the same time it always introduces something new and foreign into the domestic culture. Its significance is evident, for example, in the developments in Ukraine following the Russian invasion in 2014. Prior to that, the Ukrainian-language translation market had struggled to compete with Russian-language publishers, whose access to resources was far greater. But following 2014, the publication of translations into Ukrainian has expanded significantly as part of the broader struggle for national self-determination. In this context, translating simultaneously means opening one’s country to the world and gaining greater independence within it.

It is our hope that the theme of “Language and Translation” will inspire new writing that can eludicate these issues, that are particularly pressing insofar as experience suggests a structural affinity between projects of cultural homogenization and authoritarian forms of political organization. It is a fact that monocultural tendencies can spill over into intransigence and violence, which frequently occurs across the world. And monocultural policies do not need to reach extreme forms in order to obstruct freedom of expression and the free development of the individual.