Hey Swedes, how much truth to this?

[Zoid]

I blame the system. The Swedish Integration Board writes in the statistics report for 2004 that foreign born are those that take the hit when there´s a recession. There was a decrease in comparative unemployment rates between immigrants and swedes during the ´90s. Then the recession hit in the early years of the new millennium and the gap was once again increasing, and it still is.

There´s a significant element of institutionalized racism going on in Sweden that seriously ****s up every form of integration.

The report from The Swedish Integration Board (in Swedish) http://www.integrationsverket.se/tem...l____6763.aspx

[Carolus Rex]

Originally posted by Last Conformist

When will people realize that temperatures above 25 centigrade are not desirable?

Ah! The standard swedish defense of our summers! But I totally agree!

Carolus

[Carolus Rex]

Originally posted by Winston

Carolus,

I'd just like to point out that when I thought of this thread and bumped it, I had the Weekly Standard article A Swedish Dilemma in mind as being possibly of interest to you, not the blogger's ramblings linked in Stefu's OP.

Ok, I'll check it out.

Carolus

[Ted Striker]

ZOMG the BROWN MAN is invading Sweden now!!!!!!!!!1111

WHY DIDN'T SWEDEN ELECT Gehörge Bushme to protect us AS HE PROTECTS FREEDOM AND LIBERTY FROM THOSE WHO HATE MERICA/SWEDEN/WHITE PEOPLE AGAINST THE EVIL MUSLIM HORDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!





That article sounded something like you would read on a US-based white supremicist site, with all its predictions of catastrophe.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
If you believe what he says it sounds like Sweden has a near non-existant police force. Where are they when people are throwing rocks at buses and attacking fire fighters? That doesn't make sense that these crimes would just go on unpunished. There should be a serious effort to fight the gangs. Lots of places have gangs, it isn't the end of the world. Unless you just roll over and let them take over. Doesn't matter if they are Muslim or athiest or what. They are criminals, so deal with them as criminals.

I've never lived in Malmö, but judging from what the media report, he's exaggerating alot.

[Datajack Franit]

French cities on the Cote d'Azur are in the same conditions so I can believe it

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Winston
Carolus,

I'd just like to point out that when I thought of this thread and bumped it, I had the Weekly Standard article A Swedish Dilemma in mind as being possibly of interest to you, not the blogger's ramblings linked in Stefu's OP. Which I only glanced at myself.

That's indeed an interesting piece.

I'm, incidentally, surprised to learn that Metro is Swedish. Let's kick them out.

Also, I believe we established that Sweden at this time has about 2 million foreign born and descendants, not 1 million. Out of a total pop. of 9 million, this is what makes you "special", and this whole topic worthy of discussion. Well, that and the fact that your decision makers seem very determined to be fast asleep in the face of the problems emerging from this rampant immigration.

Having different ideas from you on how something is to be solved does not constitute a determination to be fast asleep.

[Last Conformist]

An excerpt from Winston's article:

An entire revisionist history of the past hundred years of Swedish economics and politics is beginning to emerge from the work of Norberg and others. Sweden misjudged its strengths. Chief among these was that, for most of the last century, Sweden was the least protectionist country in the world. Private companies had to fend for themselves, without subsidies or tariffs. The result was an entrepreneurial energy unequalled anywhere. Saab cars ran, and Electrolux vacuum cleaners whined, on all continents. This extraordinary business acumen persists today in Ikea, Absolut vodka, H&M retailers, and the Metro newspapers that are the most widely circulated in the world.

I'm not sufficiently into economical history really evaluate this "revisionist history", but one of their examples is weird - Saab's always been firmly in bed with the gov't - and one should be a priori suspicious when a right-wing think-tank presents a historical narrative so eminently useful for right-wingers.

"Many of us," says Masoud Kamali, an Iranian-born professor of ethnic studies at the University of Uppsala, "saw Sweden as the homeland of tolerance, solidarity, and democracy, based on the image of Sweden abroad."

That's the problem with propaganda - people might believe you.

Sweden has actually implemented two large pieces of George W. Bush's agenda, at which Americans have thus far balked: (partially) privatized social security and (thoroughly) voucherized schools. Persson has continued these programs.

Given what's been happening in Swedish schools during the last couple decades, I can only conclude I've misunderstood what school vouchers are. Someone enlighten me?

[OzzyKP]

Instead of the government funding schools directly, they give a voucher (coupon type thing) to parents/students, and whatever school they go to will get that money. So if more students chose to go to school A that school gets more money than less popular school B.

An attempt to inject market-based economics into schooling.

[Zoid]

Originally posted by Last Conformist

Given what's been happening in Swedish schools during the last couple decades, I can only conclude I've misunderstood what school vouchers are. Someone enlighten me?

School vouchers are "a bag of money" so to speak that is given to the school that you are accepted into. Thus you need not go to the school in you immediate vicinity. This effectively creates a system of A-schools with A-students, and B-schools with B, C and D-students who either failed to get into the good schools or don´t really give a **** about anything. Do I have to say wich schools have the highest rate of immigrants?

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
Instead of the government funding schools directly, they give a voucher (coupon type thing) to parents/students, and whatever school they go to will get that money. So if more students chose to go to school A that school gets more money than less popular school B.

That's still the state funding schools directly, only the amount of money being based on the number of students rather than whatever it was based on before.

An attempt to inject market-based economics into schooling.

If they really wanted to do that, they'd lower taxes and let schools charge whatever they wanted for admission. This is just another forms of state control that's pretty much necessary if you want to let kids chose what school they attend to.

I'm not really convinced it does much for segregation, BTW. IMHO, immigrants, especially girls, are often more motivated for studies than natives. The higher I've got in the educational system, the more of my peers have been immigrants.

[Zoid]

For some reason I completely missed Ozzys post when I wrote mine...

[BlackCat]

Hadn't forgot you, and no, I haven't been inside a bottle since last - my goddaughter became 11 and my sister would have killed me if I had stayed away

Originally posted by Carolus Rex
Well... What to say, what to say?

First, I haven't (yet) read all the nonsense that blogger is writing...

I just find this fear of Islam and "Islamisation" truly ridiculous... Citing what fundamentalists and zealots crave in response to someone "backtalking" their prophet and religion as a general tendency about how muslims think or behave...

The guy should read Islam A Short History by Karen Armstrong or a couple of Bernard Lewis' (former Princeton professor IIRC) books on the subject... The former is an informative description of its history; Lewis' (more recent) books deal with current affairs and problematise more...

Quite right - not many danes give a sh!t for what Glistup has said - Unless I'm wrong he's one more time in jail for saying stupid things . About those books, don't expect such persons to read something that will prove them false.

Fundamentalist groups in power (ab)using religious sources to justify and implement their political/religious agenda i) is nothing new ii) is not unique for islam and iii) does not necessarily represent the will of most people in that country in general...

That is right, but as history also has proven, such people doesn't need the support of a majority of the population to try to implement their ideas. I find it pretty stupid to ignore such things - especially it it's done in the holy name of multiculturalism.

I've met 3 muslims that I've got to know pretty well. The first was in the PhD program; he was (is) a kurd that escaped from Iran... Yes, I had problems with quite a lot of his views (womens' role, homosexuality, and even masturbation, which was a sin to him... )...

To me he was disturbingly conservative and unforgiving (he once told me he would denounce his own children if they turned out to be homosexual )... We still got along, often discussed our differences, and shot a lot of pool together...

Value-wise we didn't have much in common and he wasn't a close friend, but we can still live together in the same country... Only a hundred years ago those same values permeated Sweden, and I'm pretty sure there were not many muslims here then... People and societies evolve, and they will continue to do so given the chance... If it's not the current generation, it'll be the next and so on...

The two other muslims I know are guys I met in Geneva. We lived in the same dorm... One is from Marocco and also has some (to me) dubious views on womens' sexuality... Also, he doesn't drink alcohol (which to a nordic person is quite suspect... ). He is a really funny guy, though, with a lot of humour and charm... The ladies really liked him!

The other is from Turkey and is one of the nicest persons I've ever met... To my surprise (and against my prejudices), he's completely "european"... Ok, he didn't eat during the day when it was Ramadam, but that was only to keep our north-african friend company during the night... Plus, he drank alcohol... BTW, the three of us also shot some pool together... Seriously, those guys were (are) fun company!

On the other hand, at the same dorm there was this swiss guy... Almost as conservative as my Iranian friend in the PhD program (he's from one of the most conservative cantons in Switzerland...)... He'd been in Sweden and studied a year, spoke swedish impressively well...

We had almost nothing in common and even less to say to each other... IMO he was a self-righteous and introvert person with no curiousity whatsoever about new phenomena in society... All he wanted was "things" to go back like they "used to be"... We never shot pool together...

Bottom-line: religion or race is not an issue as long as you can shoot a lot of pool together!

Short story - if you can play pool, you can talk reasonable with even the weirdest persons. Whatch out - I play a mean skomar .

It is true that swedish integration policy has failed to some extent... I think the obvious symptom is the disproportional high unemployment rates among immigrants (and the ghetto-like areas we see in, for example, Malmö)... I think there are many reasons for this:

i) the language

Swedish isn't a global language (duh!) and admittedly difficult to learn. Without it, it's difficult to enter the (qualified) labour market

Neither is danish, but I guess that a scandinav settling in pakistan or turkey would have simliar problems. Though, I don't buy this generalization - The guy that solves my PC problems fits the descritpion well - dark skinned, brown eye, has the name Imad and don't speak fluid danish - gives some funny situations where we have to talk in "circles" to clarify problem and solution.

ii) the different economic conditions today

The time from the end of World War II until the late 1960s/early 1970's is known as the Golden Age. The economy was up, unemployment was low and there was excess demand for labour, satisfied by a "labour force immigrant wave" (mainly Yugoslavians and Finns).

Heck, you just presented yourself at the factory gates (or office doors) asking for a job and you were in! Today, the situation is quite different. Even for native Swedes with academic degrees, the labour market is a harsh mistress... Unemployment is (IIRC) about 8 percent (or around there somewhere), a record high for a country used to 2-3 percent...

iii) racism

Investigating journalists have applied for jobs using their real (foreign) names in one application for a job and using (made up) typical swedish names in another (for the same job; also when applying for different jobs). Yes, you guessed it: it was far more likely that they got contacted when they claimed to be a Svensson rather than an Al-Jahab...

Hasn't that always been the case ? The "misfits" have always suffered when economics is low. Speaking the wrong dialect of the common language would be enough. The difference is that you now can place labels such as foreign origin, another religion etc and suddently it is called persecution of people.

Devising and implementing "good" policies to help people adapt to a new society with a completely different set of values is tricky business... So far, Sweden hasn't risen to the challenge... Narrow-mindedness will not make it any easier...

Carolus

Well, for me, it seems that the real narrowmindedness that are expressed currently in Sweden is that if you dare to say that there are a problem, then you automaticaly is labelled as a racist. Unless you get rid of this PC, you never get closer to solutions (no, there is not one solution that solves all).

The danish debate can sometimes be rather harsh, people even be drawn into court and sometimes sentenced, but the difference is that there is a debate, an the best part of it is that the immigrants are participating - and seriously thet are just as divided as native danes - their views goes from "it's societys fault" to Glistrup is right (yeah, even immigrants can be stupid ).

[Winston]

*Bump* for Comrade Ingrid.

Post # 26 is the crucial one.

[Combat Ingrid]

Thanks, Winston. It's good to know I can rely on you to teach me about my country. As I only live here, it's impossible for me to make as accurate estimates as you do, who live in a different country. Obviously, you know this stuff much better than I do